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Welcome to the OpenRA project.

OpenRA is an open-source reimplementation of Westwood's Command & Conquer: Red Alert game engine, updated to use the hardware acceleration of modern video cards using OpenGL and cross-platform positional sound built upon OpenAL. It runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. Feel free to improve upon OpenRA. The development process is public and open to everyone. We are happy to include your patches after a code review.

• FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
• Installation
• Hotkeys
• Settings
• Changelog
  • development branch
  • historical
  • historical (2015 and older)
• Community Discord Server - Primary communications channel
• Media - A guide on how to use OpenRA media to spread your message.

Community Resources

• Server Browser - List of current OpenRA games
• Master Server Stats - Player activity graphs
• API Reference - Documentation for modders
• OpenRA - Resources - Exchange units, maps and replays
• IRC: #openra on Libera.Chat (webchat)
• Forums - Bulletin Board
• ModDB
• X
• Reddit
• YouTube
• Mastodon
• Facebook
• Bluesky
• Game Replays
• PC Gaming Wiki
• OpenRA Editing Forums at Project Perfect Mod
• OpenRA 1v1 Ladder
• Red Alert Global League
• UptimeRobot

Guides

• Playing the game - Learn the basics of gameplay
• ORA Academy Discord - Learn how to play competitively
• Making maps guide - Learn how to make maps with easy and advanced settings
• Modding Guide - Learn how to make additional mods for the game, beyond RA and C&C
• Dedicated Server - Instructions on how to run an OpenRA game server
• Audio guide - How to edit, convert to aud and implement it on maps, units, and mods
• Pixelart - 3D models to sprite tutorials and other fileformat conversions

Development Topics

• Development Goals - A description of our philosophy and long-term goals
• Contributing - Detailed guide on how to contribute to the project
  • Reviewing
• Compiling - How to set up your development environment
• Branches and Releases - Source code organization and schedules
• License - Legal blurb about Free/Libre Open-Source Software
• Coding Standard - please follow those when contributing patches
• Playtest or Release Checklist - how to fire up the build server and quality assurance
• OpenHub Code Metrics

Architecture and Notes

• Hacking - Understand the organization of the source code and some architecture notes
• Mod manifest - Structure and meaning of mod.yaml entries
• Sequences Introduction and Initialization - How to define sprite animation sequences
• Palettes and Remaps - How player colors are applied to sprites
• World Coordinate System - Differences between map and world coordinates
• Traits - Documentation of the available YAML rules
  • Traits (playtest) - Documentation of the upcoming new YAML rules
• Map scripting - How to write mission scripts in Lua
  • Lua API and Lua API (playtest)
• Veterancy - How the unit promotion system works

Other Topics

• Reverse Engineering - Documentation on Westwood game files
• Translation - Localization
• Glossary - Abbreviations and developer slang explained