Fireteam Roles & Server Hosting

The default way a four-player squad dies is not an infected attack. It is four players independently deciding to build, forage, and fight at the same time, which means the base gets four partial attempts and the food pipeline gets none. Every role above exists to make one of those queues somebody's explicit responsibility.

Redundant crafting queues

When two players both run the ammunition bench, you spend twice the lead for the same rounds and neither player notices the shortage until the first firefight. The bench should have one owner — WRENCH-4 — because ammunition is a throughput problem, not a manpower problem.

Nobody guards the perimeter during a build

Building generates noise. If all four players are inside the compound hammering, the acoustic model is broadcasting continuously and there is no one positioned to answer what it attracts. A standing rule that at least one role is always outside the wall, facing out, is worth more than any additional fortification.

The scout's value is not killing

EAGLE-1 exists to convert unknown terrain into a known map. A scout that comes back with three dead walkers has done nothing; a scout that comes back knowing where the raider camp is, and which approach to it is unwatched, has changed the squad's whole next day. Suppress the instinct to engage.

The game supports two hosting models: Steam P2P, where the host's PC simulates the world, and a standalone dedicated server. P2P is fine for a casual four-player run; the dedicated server is what you want if the same squad plays nightly, because it removes the host's framerate from everyone else's experience.

The two ports that matter

Forward UDP 7777 for the game traffic and UDP 27015 for the Steam query layer. Both must be forwarded to the host machine's local address, and both must be allowed through the host's Windows Defender firewall as inbound rules. A half-forwarded setup does not fail cleanly — it produces a session where players connect, then rubber-band, which is much harder to diagnose than a connection refusal.

Symptom	Usual cause	Fix
Players cannot see the session at all	UDP 27015 not forwarded or blocked	Forward the query port and add the inbound firewall rule.
Players join, then rubber-band	UDP 7777 partially forwarded	Verify the rule points at the host's current local IP, not a stale DHCP lease.
Sessions drop when the host alt-tabs	P2P hosting under load	Move to a dedicated server, or have the host avoid tabbing out.
Everyone desyncs at night	Host PC memory pressure from fog volumes	Dual-channel RAM on the host; close other applications.

Why the host machine's specs are the squad's specs

In P2P mode the host simulates everything, including the volumetric fog field, for every connected player. That means the host's RAM configuration is a squad-wide performance ceiling. A host running single-channel memory will stutter for all four players whenever the mist rolls in — which is precisely when the squad needs reliable input. If anyone in the group has a dual-channel rig, they should host.

A stable session is not a networking achievement. It is a hardware decision made before anyone connects.