SAND Players per Server and Matchmaking Guide
One of the most practical pre-raid questions in SAND: Raiders of Sophie is how many players can actually be in a server. Official support material answers that directly, and it matters because route pressure feels very different in solo, small-team, and large-team matchmaking buckets.
This page turns those official numbers into planning advice. The goal is not to promise an exact fight count in every run. The goal is to help you choose the right queue, set crew expectations, and understand why a quiet route in one bucket can feel much busier in another.
Official Queue Sizes
| Expedition bucket | Crew size | Maximum players |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | 15 |
| Small teams | 2–3 | 36 |
| Large teams | 4–6 | 45 |
What Those Numbers Mean in Practice
Do not read these buckets as a promise that every raid will be full. Read them as a pressure ceiling. A solo player choosing the solo expedition is not opting out of PvP. They are choosing a queue where the overall population cap is lower and where route discipline matters more than brute-force team coverage.
Small-team and large-team queues raise the chance that another organized group appears while your crew is still looting or repositioning the Trampler. That does not automatically make them worse. It means your route plan, extraction trigger, and comms discipline need to be sharper as the bucket size rises.
Solo Matchmaking Warning
Official Update #1 communication and support guidance both make it clear that solo matchmaking has been an active watch item during Early Access. The important takeaway for guide readers is not panic. It is freshness. If you play solo, treat the current solo experience as something to re-check after major updates instead of assuming last week's advice is still exact.
What the July 1 Matchmaking Update Changes
The official July 1 mission update added an important clarification on top of those bucket sizes. The developers said the coming patch is not just about stability and bug fixes. It also responds to the big community argument around gear-based matchmaking. For practical planning, that means two things. First, expedition size buckets still matter because they define the broad traffic level. Second, loadout strength may become part of the matchmaking conversation without replacing those bucket rules entirely.
That is why a solo player should still choose the correct solo expedition first, while a duo or trio should still expect more route traffic than a solo. The new official question is whether very rich or very poor loadouts inside those buckets should be protected from the worst mismatch cases. If you want the full breakdown, read the dedicated gear-based matchmaking guide after you finish this page.
July 17 matchmaking clarification
The current developer position is more specific than the old July 2 rollback note. In the July 17 Community Q&A, the team said it does not want to split matchmaking into too many separate queues. Instead, it will try to place teams on servers with equal team sizes whenever possible, while acknowledging that a team may still meet a larger group within its queue limit.
The same Q&A says gear-based matchmaking is not live yet. Launch issues have priority, with the team hoping to release GBMM during summer. New-player separation and matching by similar progression were described as intended outcomes, not current guarantees.
How to Choose the Right Expedition
- Use solo expedition when you want the lowest official population bucket and a shorter, cleaner learning route.
- Use the small-team bucket for duos and trios that want coverage without committing to the busiest official cap.
- Use the large-team bucket only when your crew actually has a plan for loot calls, Trampler repositioning, and extraction authority.
- After patches, run a low-value route first because matchmaking feel can shift even when the official caps do not.
Queue Troubleshooting
If matchmaking feels strange, do not assume the population numbers are wrong. Official support troubleshooting points players toward basics first: make sure the client is updated, restart after patches, and confirm you are selecting the expedition you actually want. Support guidance also notes that long waits can happen, especially when expedition selection is off or the queue is under temporary strain.
That means a long wait is not the same thing as a dead game, and a busy raid is not proof that matchmaking ignored the intended bucket. Check the current official note first, then use one cheap test run before risking valuable loot or a long crew session.
Queue rule: party size tells you who you can bring, but server bucket size tells you how much traffic your route may have to survive.
Direct official sources
- Official support FAQ — team sizes and 15/36/45 server caps.
- July 17 Community Q&A — queue splitting, team-size matching, and GBMM status.
- Official connectivity guide — region selection and long matchmaking waits.