Starting and joining

Starting a game

Start Game lets you select an existing world or create one. New worlds can choose the installed game's default generator or one of several Terrain Diffusion worlds. Each is a whole 62 km world at a metre a node; they differ in where they are, not in how detailed they are, and the picker shows a map and a size for each. The one you choose downloads once, is verified against its published hash, and is kept for later worlds; choosing a second world does not discard the first. Generated data belongs to each world and is not overwritten when the shared cache changes.

Do not select Terrain Diffusion for an existing populated conventional world. The launcher rejects that combination because old mapblocks would remain and produce two overlapping landscapes.

The same screen controls creative mode, damage, mods and optional hosting. PBR companion maps are independently versioned assets rather than part of the Goanna executable download. Install a bundle once and Goanna composes its terrain, billboard and creature tranches under user://content/goanna-assets/profiles/<game>/textures. The Materials dropdown can also select a conventional installed texture pack such as Craft and Ruin, or Standard to disable PBR.

When joining a remote server, choose PBR: server materials, an installed game profile, or Standard, no PBR on the Join Game screen. Remote selection is client-side and supplies only normal and material companions, so a server's Iron, Stone or other style textures stay visible. Hosting starts a normal Luanti server and can expose a name, description, password, port, player limit and public-list announcement.

Server media

Goanna keeps the server's announced textures, sounds and models in user://cache/media, shared across connections by content hash. Each join checks the cached bytes against the server's hashes and downloads missing or corrupt files. A changed file is downloaded again. If the cache cannot be written, joining still continues with downloaded media.

The join screen distinguishes Loading cached media, Downloading media and Preparing world. The download count excludes cache hits; preparation loads the media into textures and models for the new session. This cache is separate from the enhanced material bundles below.

Enhanced materials

Enhanced materials (the depth, gloss and relief on a game's surfaces) come in bundles, one set for each supported game. The first time you join a world whose materials you do not have, Goanna downloads them while you join, and the connecting screen shows how far it has got. They are used from that first visit. Skip and play now joins straight away with the server's own art instead; the download carries on, and the materials apply from your next connection. A server tells a client nothing about which game it runs, so Goanna works it out from the textures the server sends, which is why this waits until they have arrived. Settings, Updates, Download material updates turns all of it off.

To run a server of your own for other players, see hosting.