What Is RCON?
RCON — Remote Console — is the built-in administration protocol that Hell Let Loose exposes on every dedicated server. It lets external software send commands to your game server and receive responses over a TCP connection. Think of it as a private API for your server: kick a player, change the map, broadcast a message, pull the current player list. All of it runs through RCON.
Every HLL server operator gets three pieces of information when they spin up a server: an IP address, an RCON port (separate from the game port), and an RCON password. That’s everything a bot needs to take control.
Why Direct RCON Beats Hosted Middleware
A lot of bot platforms route your commands through a central relay server. Your game server talks to their cloud, their cloud talks to Discord, and somewhere in that chain you pick up latency, rate limits, and a single point of failure that isn’t yours. When their relay goes down, your bots go silent — even if your game server is perfectly healthy.
StoneyRebel Studios bots connect directly to your RCON port. There is no relay, no intermediary API, no third-party dependency between the bot and your server. The bot you subscribe to runs on our infrastructure and dials your server IP and RCON port directly, the same way an admin client would. The round trip is server → bot → Discord, nothing in between.
This matters at 3 AM when your server is mid-seeding and you need a map switch. A relay architecture might be asleep. A direct connection either works or it doesn’t — and when it does, the response is immediate.
What You Need to Connect
Getting your bots connected takes about two minutes:
- Server IP — the public IP of your HLL dedicated server
- RCON port — usually shown in your server panel, distinct from the game port (28015 by default)
- RCON password — set in your
HLLserver.cfg
That’s it. No software to install on the server. No firewall rules to punch open beyond what already exists for RCON. You paste those three values into the StoneyRebel dashboard and the bot authenticates on the next heartbeat cycle.
The Three Bots and What They Do
Zone Manager controls match-flow rules. It enforces configurable combat zones — locking certain sectors during early-game, preventing early-game artillery abuse, and keeping matches competitive from the first spawn. Rules update automatically when the map changes, so you set it once per map variant and forget it.
Map Vote gives your community a voice in what plays next. After each match ends, the bot posts a Discord poll with a curated selection of maps. Players vote, the winner goes into the rotation. You control which maps are eligible, how many choices appear, and how long the vote window stays open. With Hell Let Loose’s expanding map pool, keeping rotation fresh without manual intervention is increasingly important.
Seeding Manager handles the hardest part of running a community server: getting from zero players to a full lobby. It detects when your server is in seeding phase, automatically broadcasts seeding rules to players in-game, enforces fair-play restrictions (no artillery, no base camping), and adjusts behavior when the server crosses your population threshold and transitions to live play.
How to Get Started
Every bot is $4.99/month with no setup fee and no long-term contract. Subscribe on the StoneyRebel Studios dashboard, add your RCON credentials, and the bot connects within the next polling cycle — typically under a minute.
If your RCON port isn’t accessible from external IPs, your server host’s control panel will have a setting to enable it. Once that’s open, no further configuration is needed on the server side. The bot handles reconnects automatically if your server restarts or the RCON connection drops.
Questions before subscribing? Hit up the StoneyRebel Studios Discord and someone from the team will walk you through the setup.