I noticed that when PA.exe launches a local server, it doesn't have the --http flag so I can't interact with the game from say, my phone. Can the --http flag be enabled in Galactic War etc?
If you launch a local server yourself, with whatever flags you want, the game will connect to an open running instance before it tires to start a new one. You'll have a start a new one for every round of GW though. Not convenient, but possible.
The workarounds I'm thinking of: Create a little watch script that restarts the local server when it closes down Create a shim that replaces server.exe and launches the real server.exe with the extra flag
