Windrose Mods: How to Install Them on a Dedicated Server

Windrose has no official mod support and no Steam Workshop, but you can still mod it: community mods are .pak files, and you install them on a dedicated server by dropping them into R5/Content/Paks/~mods and restarting. Most of the trouble comes from three things: putting the file in the wrong one of several similar-looking folders, not knowing whether players need the mod too, and the next game patch quietly breaking everything.

None of that's hard once you know it. It's just not written down anywhere obvious, because Kraken Express hasn't said anything about modding in its Steam announcements, so this is the version I'd want if I were setting up a modded crew server today.

How to install mods on a Windrose server

Do the PC-side work first so the server's only down for a minute.

1. Back up the world. Mods can damage a save, and some can't be removed cleanly once a world has used them.
2. Download the mod from Nexus Mods or CurseForge. If the page offers several variants (2x, 5x, 10x and so on), pick one.
3. Extract the archive on your PC. You want the raw .pak, plus any .ucas and .utoc files with the same name, which belong beside it.
4. Read the mod page for where it needs to go: server only, client only, or both. This decides step 8.
5. Stop the server.
6. Put the files in R5/Content/Paks/~mods in the server's game folder. If ~mods doesn't exist, create it, tilde and all.
7. Start the server and check it reaches the point where players can join.
8. Give players the same files for their own ~mods folder if the mod needs a client copy, same version, same variant.

Tip: On LOW.MS, take a backup first from the Backups tab with Create backup. Then open the Files tab in the control panel and go into game/R5/Content/Paks. If there's no ~mods folder, make one with New folder, open it, and Upload your extracted files into it before you start the server again. ~mods is kept when you press Update in the Game updates card on the Overview tab, so an update won't delete your mods, though it can still stop them working. Keep copies on your PC anyway, because Reinstall on the Settings tab can wipe the game files, mods included.

Does Windrose have mods? Can you mod it?

Yes, unofficially. There's no modding kit, no Workshop tab on the Steam store page, and I went back through the studio's Steam announcements and couldn't find a single mention of mod support. What exists is entirely community-made.

Nexus Mods lists a few hundred Windrose mods, and CurseForge added Windrose at the end of April 2026, so most mods turn up on one or both. Most of them are Unreal Engine .pak files that override a piece of the game's data: a stack size table, a loot table, a building limit. The engine loads anything it finds in ~mods at startup, which is why installing one is just a copy.

The catch is the word "unofficial". Nobody at Kraken Express is testing these against their patches, so every update is a coin flip for every mod you run. For which mods to try, that's what our best Windrose mods roundup is for.

Where do Windrose mods go?

Most installs go wrong here, because mod pages list up to three different paths and they're not interchangeable:

Dedicated server:              R5/Content/Paks/~mods
Your own game (client):        Windrose\R5\Content\Paks\~mods
Server bundled with the game:  Windrose\R5\Builds\WindowsServer\R5\Content\Paks\~mods

When a mod page says "Multiplayer" and gives that long Builds\WindowsServer path, it means the server that ships inside the Windrose client, the one you'd run from your own PC. On a rented dedicated server you want the first line, which is the path step 6 uses.

Keep the tilde. ~mods is the folder every Windrose mod page uses, and it keeps mods apart from the game's own paks. A couple of mod authors say their files also work dropped straight into Paks, but I'd keep everything in ~mods anyway. On our servers it's the one folder a game update is guaranteed to leave alone (anything loose in Paks can be replaced), and when something breaks you want every mod in one folder you can empty in one go.

Do players need the mod too? Server-side and client-side mods

It depends on the mod, which is why step 4 says to read the page. Windrose mods fall into three groups:

• Server only. The server makes the decision and players just see the result. The 2x 3x 5x 10x All loot mod is a good example: its page says clients don't need it on a server.
• Both sides. Fast Travel Plus explains why better than I could (its one-line summary says client-side only; the install notes further down say both, and explain why). The server enforces the raised fast travel limit, but the "Can place X more" count is worked out on each player's PC. Server without the mod means building past the default 10 silently fails. Player without the mod means a wrong count on their screen.
• Client only. Anything that only changes what one player sees, like a minimap range tweak, doesn't need to be on the server.

When a page doesn't say, I'd install it on both and match the version exactly. The game itself checks that a player's client and the server are on the same Windrose build, but I couldn't find anything suggesting it compares mods, so a mismatch shows up as odd behaviour rather than a clear error.

Do you need a mod loader for Windrose?

Not for .pak mods, and that's most of them. They need nothing but the ~mods folder.

UE4SS is a scripting framework that a smaller group of Lua and C++ mods depend on, things like server whitelists and loot cleaners. It goes into R5/Binaries/Win64 as a DLL rather than into ~mods, and the UE4SS for Windrose page is blunt about it: crashes with the game's engine version, and "major issues where dedicated servers crash with UE4SS installed" (it links a replacement settings file as a temporary workaround). You can't add it to a LOW.MS server yourself, because the Files tab doesn't accept .dll files, so stick to pak mods and open a ticket if a mod you want depends on UE4SS.

Simple Mod Loader (SML) turns on the developer console in your own game and loads blueprint mods. Its Nexus Mods page was last updated before Early Access launched, and none of the server mods we looked at list it as a requirement.

The CurseForge app installs into your own copy of the game, not a rented server. One community tool, Windrose Mod Manager on Nexus Mods, can push mods to a hosted server over SFTP or FTP from your PC, though we haven't tested it against our SFTP. Otherwise, download the mod's file from its page and upload it yourself.

Load order and mods that clash

Windrose has no load order setting. Order comes from the pak file names (some authors suggest renaming with a _p suffix to change it), and if two mods edit the same piece of data, whichever loads last wins and the other does nothing, with no warning. Fast Travel Plus, for example, says it conflicts with any other mod that touches the same building limits, including bonfire mods that bundle a fast travel change.

Two habits avoid most of this. Only ever have one variant of a mod in ~mods (a 5x and a 10x stack mod side by side is a clash, not a 15x). And when two mods sound like they do the same job, pick one. I keep a plain text list of every mod and version on the server, which sounds fussy until the morning after a patch.

What breaks after a Windrose update

You'll see a few mods stop working, or the server to refuse to start, every time Kraken Express ships a patch.

Update the server first. It's the step people skip. Players' games update through Steam, and since the client won't join an outdated server, a server left on the old build locks everyone out whether you run mods or not. Then check each mod's page for a new version before you put it back. The More Backpack Slots author, for one, says to remove every old version after a game or mod update, and after the 4 May patch the Stack Size author shipped a fix for a 16-slot inventory limit on dedicated servers.

Not every mod comes out cleanly, though. The More Backpack Slots author also warns that taking the mod out once it's installed "may cause game save corruption", which is the real reason step 1 is a backup and not a suggestion.

Ashlands, the first big content update, is "expected this winter" and reworks ships and adds new items, so I'd plan on it breaking a lot of mods for a while.

Windrose mods not working? Troubleshooting by symptom

The mod does nothing. Usually it's in the wrong folder (often that Builds\WindowsServer path), the folder name is wrong, or the file is still zipped. Restart after any change, and check it isn't a client-only mod sitting on the server.

I installed a stack or backpack mod and nothing changed. Several only apply to items you pick up or craft after installing them. The Stack Size mod says existing inventories aren't changed retroactively, and More Backpack Slots says it works on new items only. Pick up or craft something fresh before you decide it's broken.

The server won't start after adding a mod or after an update. Move everything out of ~mods (keep copies), start the server clean, then add mods back one at a time with a restart between each. Whichever one breaks it is the one to update or drop.

Players see the wrong numbers, or building and placing silently fails. Server and client copies don't match, or one side is missing the mod. Get everyone on the same file and variant.

Players get a version error when joining. That's the game's own build check, not a mod. Update the server, and if it still won't connect, our failed to connect guide goes through the rest.

The world won't load, or things are missing after removing a mod. Restore the backup you took in step 1 from the Backups tab (stop the server first). Backups include the ~mods folder as well as the world, so after a restore check that it holds the mods you expect.

And if you don't have a server yet, our Windrose server hosting page has the options.