OPEN WORLD VOXEL ENGINE

BUILD GAMES.
CONTROL THE
SERVER.

Luna3D is a heavily customized and highly optimized fork of the Minetest engine, designed from the ground up for powerful server administration and advanced game development.

EXPLORE LUNA3D How compatibility works

ABOUT THE PROJECT.

Luna3D was born out of the need for a more reliable and scalable platform for the Just Test Tribute server.

The project began as a fork of Minetest 0.4.14 in December 2016. With ongoing improvements to the C++ codebase as well as many additions to the Lua modding API, the fork was eventually dubbed Minetest S3.

To celebrate the project's 10th anniversary, the Minetest S3 engine was rebranded as Luna3D in early 2026 to signify its Lua-based mod architecture: "Luna" is the ancient roman goddess representing the moon.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

MORE THAN A GAME SERVER.

Luna3D is designed from the ground up for large-scale, multiplayer games while prioritizing both security and stability.

Command-Line Tools An exhaustive suite of customizable Lua scripts to analyze and maintain your worlds.	Lua-based Modding A comprehensive modding API to bring your unique visions to life with minimal friction.
Reporting and Logging Player reports and performance logs provide daily insight into your server's operation.	Streamlined Backups Realtime logging of map database changes allow for fully-automated incremental backups.
Minetest Ecosystem Compatible with the original Minetest 0.4 network protocol and many existing mods.	Looking to the Future Ongoing security fixes and support for Luanti 5.x clients are currently on the roadmap.

Pipeline is an issue tracker for easily managing bug reports and feature requests while also supporting thread-based discussions and notifications directly in-game.

Pipeline allows for easily prioritizing and tracking issues submitting by players.

Bedrock Markup Language is an extensible markup language and API specifically tailored for Luna3D formspecs with simple-to-use tags for layout and formatting.

Bedrock Markup Language is a full-fledged API for in-game content publication.

DataMiner is an analytical tool for Luna3D server operators, providing comprehensive player and server statistics within a graphical user-interface.

DataMiner offers a day-by-day overview of server activity for administrators.

AuthRedux provides an efficient and scalable backend solution for player authentication, making it suitable for even the most demanding server environments.

AuthRedux includes a database management console with search functionality.

ActiveFormspecs provides secure session tracking, session-based state tables, localized event handling, callback signals to formspecs within Luna3D games.

Stopwatch is an API for benchmarking portions of Lua code, providing valuable performance metrics including total, average, and maximum execution times.

MODDING ON OVERDRIVE.

Luna3D's modding API is backwards-compatible with the specification for Minetest 0.4.15, with the following additional functions, callbacks, classes.

Core Functions & Callbacks minetest.include(filespec, ...) minetest.include_env(filespec, env) minetest.load_config(base, options) minetest.schedule(spec, func) minetest.get_form_timer(player_name) minetest.get_context_field(fields, prefix) minetest.create_form(meta, player, formspec, on_close, signal) minetest.update_form(player, formspec) minetest.destroy_form(player, signal) minetest.hash_node_pos(pos) minetest.unhash_node_pos(hash) minetest.has_empty_password(player_name) minetest.get_node_above(pos, dy) minetest.set_node_above(pos, node, dy) minetest.count_nodes_in_area() minetest.get_date_string(fmt) minetest.get_time_string(fmt) minetest.get_config_status() minetest.get_player_status() minetest.get_system_path(filespec) minetest.register_on_authplayer(func) LuaEntitySAO Methods entity.on_deactivate(self, id) entity.on_step(self, dtime, pos, rot, new_vel, old_vel, move_result)

Global Classes & Helpers MapManager() PatternMatch() Stopwatch(id, color, scale, prec) ListPaginator(list, page_size) Timekeeper(this) globaltimer.start(period, name, func, delay) table.join(list, sep, func) vector.offset(v, dx, dy, dz) vector.offset_y(v, dy) binary(str) Bitwise Library bits.format(str, ...) bits.AND(num1, num2) bits.OR(num1, num2) bits.XOR(num1, num2) bits.NOT(num) bits.LSHIFT(num) bits.RSHIFT(num) ObjectRef Methods obj:set_speed(speed, angle) obj:set_speed_lateral(speed_x, speed_y) obj:set_velocity_vert(vel_y) obj:set_acceleration_vert(acc_y) obj:turn_by(angle, interval, cycles) obj:get_entity_name()

YOUR WORLD IN FULL VIEW.

Luna3D comes bundled with several powerful backend tools including DataMiner, Auth Redux, and RocketLib Toolkit.

DataMiner provides a command-line interface for generating offline player analytics reports.

NEW POWER, SAME PROTOCOL

HOW COMPATIBILITY WORKS.

All Minetest 0.4.x clients, including unofficial forks for Android and iOS, are capable of connecting to Luna3D servers.

Minetest 0.4.15	Minetest 0.4.16	Minetest 0.4.17.1
Kawaii World	Buildcraft	World Craft

Support for Minetest 0.4.15 and earlier will be dropped in 2026 as new compatibility-breaking features are phased in.