How to Host a Sculk Horde Survival Server (Forge 1.20.1 Setup Guide)

Start with 6 GB of RAM, not less. That's Sculk Horde Survival's own recommended floor on Forge 1.20.1 — the periodic sculk-infected waves spawn a burst of hostile mobs on top of whatever defenses and farms you've already built, and a 4 GB server will choke right when a wave hits.

Import the actual Sculk Horde Survival modpack file instead of rebuilding the mod list by hand from a client export. The wave scheduler depends on the Sculk Horde mod and its support mods being present and matched to the exact version the pack ships — one missing dependency and waves either never trigger or crash the server mid-spawn.

Watch the server log through a full boot to the "Done" line before you consider it live. Confirm the Sculk Horde mod initializes without errors — this pack's wave timer is driven by scheduled events inside that mod, so a silent failure here means your base just never gets attacked, which breaks the entire tower-defense-style loop the pack is built around.

Only invite players once you've confirmed a clean first boot and at least one successful wave cycle. Letting people in before the horde scheduler has proven itself means your group could spend hours building defenses against a threat that was never actually going to arrive.

Back up before importing an existing world, updating Forge or the Sculk Horde mod, or changing wave-difficulty configs. Losing a world here doesn't just cost blocks — it costs every defense structure and gear upgrade your group earned surviving previous waves.