Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

You might want to see if you can download the dedicated server from Steam using SteamCMD even without owning the game itself on Steam. That is possible for many games which have dedicated server options, I do not know if it is for Valheim or not, but based on the instructions in this thread[valheim.fandom.com] I think it probably is, seeing as they aren't using an actual steam login to download it.

hey thanks so much, it's my fault I was following that ai chatgpt bot guide after I asked it too much in one hit, I should have been reading it properly and paying attention, solved by asking it just how to do a headless valheim with steam and got this info, cheers very much.