I would totally use a search engine called dogdog

Revolt

They got a C&D over the name and switched it to Stoat, which OP said they’ve tried before.

I don’t get why they picked Stoat; it’s a terrible name, but it is what it is

But you could have a setup where one server hosts the game and syncs the game state with the other servers in the network, and if one server fails the network decides which failover server to connect to, all the clients connect to that server and continue playing on the new host.

This is kinda what I was hoping that kubernetes did. It’d be awesome if there was some software that automatically did the hand-off, but I haven’t heard of one either

Going through some of the more detailed responses, yeah this is probably the best bet, and it’ll most likely be my server that’s the primary. I’ve got a Jellyfin server / NAS with an Intel 12700k, and I could either simply add a docker container or dedicate resources via Proxmox.

Meanehile one of my friend is experimenting with an old $50 desktop with a 3rd gen i3. It’s… a decision, but he’s got more free time than I do

I wasn’t asking for recommendations for chat servers

Keeping it all one one LAN would defeat the point. I’m looking at avoiding downtime from internet and power outages, which would require separate locations