Cobblemon Server Setup: Self-Host COBBLEVERSE with Pelican
Cobblemon is a mod that brings Pokémon into Minecraft. You catch Pokémon in the regular Minecraft world, train them and fight turn-based battles with them like in the original games. It’s the most fun with friends, and for that you need a shared server.
In this guide I’ll show you how to set up your own Cobblemon server and host it at home, with the COBBLEVERSE modpack and the Pelican game panel. Throughout, I’ll use my own server CobbleBox as the example. It runs exactly like this and has been open to my community since September 28, 2026.
Cobblemon and COBBLEVERSE in a nutshell
Cobblemon itself is the base mod. COBBLEVERSE is a modpack on Modrinth that bundles Cobblemon with lots of add-ons, for example Raid Dens, Battle Tower, ranked battles and the economy mod CobbleDollars. According to Modrinth (as of October 2026), the pack runs on Minecraft 1.21.1 with Fabric.
You can also use the pack as the base for your own variant. At the time of writing (October 2026), my server runs COBBLEVERSE MBx 1.1.0. That version is based on COBBLEVERSE 1.7.42 and includes Mega Showdown 1.8.4 and Radical Cobblemon Trainers 0.18.1, among others.
Handy for you as the admin: the usual performance mods are already included, among them Lithium, C2ME, FerriteCore, ModernFix, Krypton and ScalableLux. You don’t have to hunt them down yourself.
Your own server or a rented one?
Rented Minecraft servers are convenient. With a modpack of around 200 mods, though, RAM gets expensive there fast. If you already have a machine that can run around the clock, self-hosting is a good option. You also get full access to all files and can add your own mods, datapacks and scripts.
If you don’t have a homelab yet, start with my guide Start a homelab. The article about my mini PC for the homelab covers which hardware works well.
What you need
- A machine that runs permanently, for example a mini PC with Proxmox.
- Enough RAM and CPU cores for the game server. On my server, the Wings container gets 8 cores and 16 GB of RAM.
- The Pelican Panel and Pelican Wings.
- Java 21, which Pelican provides through the Docker image.
- The COBBLEVERSE server files.
- A port forward on your router and ideally your own subdomain.
Pelican is an open source game panel and the successor to Pterodactyl. It has two parts. The panel is the web interface where you create servers, open the console and edit files. Wings is the agent on the host that starts the game servers as Docker containers. My tip: install the two in separate LXC containers. The panel needs very little, 2 cores and 1 GB of RAM in my case, and you can later move Wings to another host on its own.
Set up a Cobblemon server step by step
1. Install the panel and Wings
First install the Pelican Panel and then Wings. I show how to do that step by step on Proxmox, with two LXCs and the community scripts, in my guide Pelican Panel on Proxmox. Without Proxmox, follow the official docs on pelican.dev. In the panel, create a node (the host Wings runs on) and an allocation with the port for Minecraft. The default is 25565.
2. Create a server with Fabric and Java 21
Create a new server with a Fabric egg (Pelican’s server template). Pay attention to the Docker image: Minecraft 1.21.1 needs Java 21, and with an older version the server won’t start at all. My server uses the image yolks:java_21.
Don’t be stingy with the RAM limit in the panel for a modpack this size. The usual Minecraft eggs start Java with -XX:MaxRAMPercentage (Paper, Vanilla) or, like the Fabric egg, with -Xmx{{SERVER_MEMORY}}M. That way the heap follows the limit you set in the panel, and you don’t need to touch -Xmx as well.
3. Upload the modpack files
The server needs the mods, config and datapacks folders from the modpack. Shader packs and resource packs are only needed on the client. You can upload over SFTP, and Pelican shows you the login details in the server settings. Start the server once, set the value in eula.txt to true and restart.
4. Pre-generate and limit the world
With this many mods, generating new chunks is the most expensive thing your server does. So also install the Chunky mod, set a world border and generate the world in advance. On my server, the border sits at ±5,000 blocks in every dimension. In the console it looks like this:
worldborder center 0 0
worldborder set 10000
chunky center 0 0
chunky radius 5000
chunky startThis takes a while. Let it finish before your friends join for the first time. A protection mod for the spawn area is also worth it. I use YAWP.
5. Adjust server.properties
You don’t need to change much here. These values run stable on my server:
view-distance=10
simulation-distance=10
white-list=true
online-mode=true- If your server lags, lower the
simulation-distancefirst. - For a server for friends, the whitelist is a must. Add new players in the console with
whitelist add PlayerName. - With
online-mode=true, only genuine Minecraft accounts can join.
My tip: set the correct time zone, for example America/New_York or Europe/Berlin. Otherwise the timestamps in chat and in the logs won’t match your local time. The easiest way is to add the Java flag -Duser.timezone to the startup command. As an admin, you change the startup command in the panel in the server’s settings under Startup. With the Fabric egg it then looks like this:
java -Duser.timezone=Europe/Berlin -Xms128M -Xmx{{SERVER_MEMORY}}M -jar {{SERVER_JARFILE}}Alternatively, set the time zone for all servers at once: the Wings configuration /etc/pelican/config.yml has a timezone entry under system, for example timezone: Europe/Berlin. Wings passes this value on to every container. Then restart Wings with systemctl restart wings and restart the servers.
Set up restarts and backups
In Pelican you create schedules for this. Plan a daily restart at a time when nobody’s playing, and attach a backup to it. On my server both happen every day at 04:00.
Make sure the backups end up on a different machine than the server. A backup on the same disk won’t help you if that exact disk is the one causing trouble. Mine go to an S3 bucket on my TrueNAS.
Common problems and how to fix them
The server crashes after adding a mod
For every mod you add yourself, check which Fabric Loader version it requires. On my server, the startup crashed after adding Veinminer, and I couldn’t create a new world anymore either. The cause was a conflict with fabric-permissions-api, and updating Fabric Loader to 0.19.2 fixed both.
Broken chunks after the storage filled up
If you use Proxmox with LVM-Thin, make sure the total of your container disks isn’t bigger than the real space in the thin pool. My pool filled up once, and afterwards chunks in the world were damaged. I had to migrate the container disk and restore the affected chunks. A Minecraft world grows over time, so keep an eye on storage.
Too much money in the economy
Look at the CobbleDollars payouts before your server goes live. On my server, trainer battles paid out so much at first that you could buy everything in a short time. Now they only pay a tenth of the default value. You configure the shop and bank through JSON files in the config folder.
Update the modpack without wrecking the world
COBBLEVERSE gets regular updates. With an existing world, this is the best way to go about it:
- Stop the server and make a fresh backup.
- Compare the new mod list with the old one. Your own mods like Chunky or YAWP aren’t part of the pack and have to go back into the
modsfolder after the update. - Check new or changed worldgen files before the server starts again. They affect every chunk that gets generated afterwards.
- Check the Fabric Loader version. The modpack sets one, and your own mods may need a newer one.
- Start the server, watch the console and only then open it to everyone again.
My tip: only roll out bigger updates when nobody’s online, and tell your players beforehand what’s changing. On my server that happens through a changelog on the website and in Discord, most recently for version 1.1.0 on September 29, 2026.
How your friends join
To make your server reachable from outside, you need a port forward on your router for TCP 25565 to the host that runs Wings. Instead of the IP, give your friends a subdomain like mc.example.com that points to your public IP with an A record. Without a static IP you also need dynamic DNS (DynDNS).
Your friends install COBBLEVERSE in the same version as the server, for example through the Modrinth App or Prism Launcher, and enter mc.example.com as the server address. If the versions don’t match, the server refuses the connection. That’s the most common reason someone can’t get in after an update.
If you add your own mods, pack everything as your own modpack in a ZIP file that your players import directly. That’s how it works on my server: players download the ZIP and import it into Prism without unpacking it. Prism can install the right Java version by itself, and for Minecraft 1.21.1 that’s Java 21. Tell your players beforehand what their PC needs. For mine that’s about 5 GB of free storage and at least 16 GB of RAM, 8 GB of which goes to the modpack. Whitelist requests on my server go through Discord, along with the Minecraft name.
Ideas for later
Once your server is running, you can expand it bit by bit. BlueMap gives you a web map of your world where you can set markers for spawn or gyms. On my server this grew over time into a website with player profiles and rankings, a weekly regenerated adventure world, a Discord bot for roles and a Twitch bot that hands out keys during streams. You don’t need any of that to start.
If your server runs around the clock, take a look at Uptime Kuma and ntfy so you notice an outage before your friends do. And if your mini PC runs hot under load, my article Mini PC too hot might help.
What it looks like on my server
To show you where a server like this can go, here are a few key numbers from CobbleBox. A little over two weeks after launch (as of mid-October 2026), the stats page shows 14 trainers, nearly 2,900 Pokémon caught, 865 of 1,025 species in the server dex and over 850 hours of playtime.
- Gyms: 4 regions (Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh) with 8 gyms each, so 32 badges. Each region also has an Elite Four.
- Adventure world: every Monday at 5 AM there’s a new world, and any builds in it get reset.
- Raids: the Raid Dens reset every 2 hours with a new boss. Every other Saturday there’s a raid night from 8 to 10 PM.
- Ranked: a season lasts one calendar month.
- Land claims: without a guild, every player can claim 50 chunks. Guilds get 50 chunks plus 50 per member, up to 500.
- Maps: Xaero’s World Map and Minimap are in the modpack. In the browser there’s also a BlueMap with live player positions and separate layers for the Kanto gyms and the Raid Dens.
- Stats page: the Pokédex, rankings and player profiles update every 2 minutes.
- Support: anyone who supports the server through Ko-fi only gets cosmetic extras and convenience features, no Pokémon and no battle advantages.
My tip: put the rules and fixed dates in one place your players can find easily. On my server the rules (no griefing, be respectful, no cheats or hacks) are on the website and in the game under /rules, and the dates are also available as a calendar feed.
Wrapping up
With Pelican and COBBLEVERSE you can self-host a Cobblemon server just fine. Watch out for Java 21, enough RAM, a pre-generated world with a world border, an active whitelist and backups on a different machine. With updates and your own mods, it pays to check the Fabric Loader version, because that’s exactly where my server got stuck once.
Do you host your Minecraft server yourself, or would you rather rent one? And which modpack are you playing right now? Let me know in the comments.
Did this guide help you? You can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. It keeps MappleBox ad-free.
