Introduction
Welcome to The OpenRA Book!
OpenRA is an RTS game engine that:
- is completely open-source (GPLv3+)
- is data-driven
- is highly-configurable
- is built entirely by volunteers
- is implemented in C# on the .NET Framework
- supports map scripting via Lua
- implements the entity-component-system architecture
- auto-magically discovers mods
- includes the official mods: Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Dune 2000
Who This Book Is For
- Players
- Modders / Game Makers
- Developers
Assumptions This Book Makes About You
Players
You have:
- played one of the above-listed games (or their sequels), or an RTS game in general
- the latest stable version of OpenRA installed
- the original Red Alert assets (either a CD-ROM / ISO or you'll let OpenRA install these for you)
Modders / Game Makers & Developers
You are familiar and comfortable with:
- basic text editing
- reading and writing C#
- using a terminal (such as
cmd.exeon Windows,Terminal.appon macOS,Xterm/Konsole/something else on GNU/Linux) git
How to Read This Book
The current vision for this book is to have 3 sections, in the following order:
In general, the book assumes that you're reading the section(s) relevant to you in sequence from start to finish.
The section order is deliberate because knowing how to play the game is important to being able to create games/mods that players want to play and knowing, at a high-level, how game making / modding is done will help you implement better, reusable, modder- and player-friendly functionality.
Later chapters build on concepts in earlier chapters, and earlier chapters might not delve into details on a topic; we typically revisit the topic in a later chapter.
Truly there is no wrong way to read this book: if you want to skip ahead, go for it! You may have to jump back to earlier chapters, or get help from the community, if you experience confusion. But do whatever works for you.
You can dive in by reading the glossary page, then the Getting Started chapter for modders right now!