Open Source RTS
Introduction
NetPanzer is an online multiplayer tactical warfare game designed for FAST ACTION combat. Gameplay concentrates on the core - no resource management is needed. The game is based on quick tactical action and unit management in real-time. Battles progress quickly and constantly as destroyed players respawn with a set of new units. Players can join or leave multiplayer games at any time.
20+ Years of Development
The original development of NetPanzer was done from PyroSoft inc. In 1999 they stopped development and released the game 2002 in GPL and it was nearly forgotten, until Ingo announced it at happypenguin.org. Soon after this announcement a group of coders did the linux port in roughly 2 weeks, with another 2 weeks polishing for the first release. Since then development has picked up and slowed down, with various different teams and maintainers. The current maintainer of the game and masterserver is "winrid" on GitHub.
AI Policy
All communication - pull request titles, descriptions, comments - must be written by a human. Anyone doing otherwise is instantly banned from the project forever.
The use of AI for development outside the core team members is not allowed.
The fact is you can vibe code a Netpanzer clone in five minutes. Netpanzer now serves the purpose as something we enjoy working on when we have time. This does not mean reading 50+ untested changed files by Claude or asking Claude "review this PR".
Nobody cares about fixing sanitizer bugs or a 500kb memory leak in Netpanzer. Find something more impactful to do that doesn't waste my time.
All PRs must include a video or screenshot showing the change, or the affected component still working.
All graphics system related changes must be tested on Linux and Windows.
To Play
Go to the Releases tab in GitHub and download the version for your OS. The version in Linux repos as of 2024 is very (8+yrs) old, so we suggest simply downloading the latest release directly.
Note: If you only are able to get v0.8.7 from your distribution, change the 'server.masterservers' value in your client.cfg and server.cfg to
server.masterservers = "netpanzer.io"
One we release our next official version, this will be done automatically and the newer version will be more accessible to you. Do not leave the old master server in your config or else the game will crash, as 0.8.7 has a bug causing it to segfault if any servers are not available. We've fixed this in 0.9.0.
Latest Download
You can download the latest version here.
Weekly Linux AppImage is available here.
Most current servers (as of 2024) are running 0.9.0+, so this is what you want if you want to play on a public server.
Contributing and Reporting Bugs
See CONTRIBUTING.md
Gameplay
An extensive list of commands is available in the Help section of NetPanzer binary, together with some useful tips and guides.
The same list is available while in game too - just press F1 key.
Dedicated Server and Configuration Files
See SERVER-HOWTO.md
Building NetPanzer
See BUILD.md
Music
Netpanzer doesn't come with own musicfiles yet. However, you can place your favourite .mp3, .ogg or .mod files into the sound/music directory and netpanzer will play these in random order while you play.
Contact
It's important to remember that any discussions about bugs or desired features in a chat room usually scroll away and become forgotten, so it's best to create a ticket or discussion on GitHub (mentioned above) if you really want a bug fix or new feature.
- NetPanzer Discussions on GitHub
- Issues/Bug Tracker
Unofficial
These areas are not moderated or maintained by the NetPanzer team. If looking for information about the game, always be sure to verify with official sources.