# BeamMP is the Lua mod that puts other players into BeamNG.drive

> BeamMP is an AGPL-3.0 Lua mod that brings online multiplayer to BeamNG.drive, working through a separate launcher that relays car positions, rotations and chat between the game and a remote server. It suits BeamNG players who want to play with other people rather than solo.

**BeamMP/BeamMP** — Bringing multiplayer to BeamNG.drive

- Repository: https://github.com/BeamMP/BeamMP
- Website: https://beammp.com
- Stars: 528 · Forks: 127
- Language: Lua
- License: AGPL-3.0
- Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/beammp-beammp

## What BeamMP adds and who it is for

BeamMP is a Lua mod bringing online multiplayer to BeamNG.drive, and that single sentence contains most of what you need to know. BeamNG.drive is a vehicle simulation game with an open world and a physics sandbox, and out of the box it is a single player experience. The mod adds the ability to be in the same world as other people.

The project describes itself as made for players, and the install path is deliberately short. You go to the project website, click download, and get a zip file containing an installer executable. Run the executable and follow the instructions, and afterwards there is a desktop shortcut. You click Play, then Multiplayer, log in with either a guest account or a BeamMP Forum account, and select a server to play on.

That flow has one implication worth naming. The mod is not a drop-in folder you copy into the game's mod directory. There is a separate launcher program that starts the game and connects to the Lua mod. So installing BeamMP is installing two things, and the launcher is the piece that requires the download and the account.

For hosting, the project is equally clear. There is a step-by-step guide on the documentation site for setting up and running a server for you and your friends, and the server is usable free of charge for non-commercial use with the source code available on GitHub in a separate repository. That licence split is the important detail, and it comes up again in the limitations below.

## How the launcher, the mod and the server fit together

The README includes a technical explanation of the inner workings and marks it as not relevant for most players, which is a reasonable signal that the following is the part you only need if you are debugging or extending.

There are three components. The Launcher is a separate program which starts the game and connects to the Lua mod right away. The launcher then connects to a remote server of your choice, and these two communicate. The launcher then forwards some packets to the game, like car positions, rotations, chat messages, and so on.

That packet forwarding is the whole trick, and it explains why a separate native program exists at all. So the launcher sits between the two, translating between the game's Lua side and the server's socket. The launcher and server are written in C++, and their source is in separate repositories, linked from the README.

This architecture has a practical consequence for anyone reading the code. The Lua mod in this repository is only one third of the system. A change to how a vehicle's position or rotation is encoded happens in the launcher, and a change to the server side happens in the server. The three repositories move together, which is why the release tags in this repository are named after the game version they target rather than after independent feature releases. The current release is v4.23.1 for BeamNG.drive 0.40, following v4.23.0 for 0.40.0 and v4.22.6 for 0.39.4, which the release note describes as UI and bug fixes.

The repository layout follows the mod structure that BeamNG expects. There is a lua/ directory, a scripts/ directory, a settings/ directory, a ui/ directory, an icons/ directory, a locales/ directory, and a vehicles/ directory, alongside the project files including CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, a NOTICES file and a third_party_licenses directory.

## Finding the right version, and the documentation split

Because the release names carry the game version, the single most common question for a new user is which release to install, and the project answers it by pointing you at the website rather than at a table in the readme. The installation section links to a step-by-step guide on the documentation site for installing the mod on Windows, and the servers section links to a separate step-by-step guide for creating and running a server.

The documentation itself is split across several places, and knowing which is which saves time. There is a documentation site hosted at the project's GitHub Pages site, a separate docs site at docs.beammp.com, a forum at forum.beammp.com, a Discord server, and an IRC channel, #beammp on irc.libera.chat, with a web chat link provided.

The troubleshooting section points at three specific resources rather than a generic help page: a frequently asked questions and common issues page on the forum, a page of error codes in the docs, and the server auth key page at the project's keymaster site. That last one is worth understanding. Server keys are the mechanism by which a server author proves they own the server, and the keymaster site is where a key is obtained, so if you are setting up your own server and cannot get it to appear in the browser list, the key is the first thing to check.

If none of those fix the problem, the readme says there is a dedicated support team reachable through the Discord and the forum support category. For an open source project with no formal support contract, that is a reasonable arrangement, and it is also a signal about the scale of the community behind this.

## Translations, funding and how the project is run

The project makes an effort to be maintained for multiple languages and tracks that effort with GitLocalize, a service that manages the translation workflow. The readme lists fourteen languages with per language progress badges: Catalan, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese for both Brazil and Portugal, Russian, Slovak, Spanish and Turkish. Contributors can take part through the GitLocalize project page.

That is an unusual amount of translation coverage for a game mod and it is worth a moment's thought on why it matters here. BeamMP is a community project with an international player base, and the interface is the first thing a new player touches. A mod whose launcher is only in English reaches a fraction of the audience that its own server list does.

Funding comes from community donations through Patreon, and the readme is explicit about what that buys: perks such as Patreon-only channels on the Discord, early access to new updates, and more server keys. That last perk is the substantive one. Since server keys are required to run a server and are obtained through the keymaster site, more keys for contributors means more hosted servers.

Development progress is tracked on the GitHub projects board linked from the readme, and on the GitHub Issues section of each of the three repositories. Regular updates are also posted to the Discord, and the forum carries additional detail. The combination of an open issue tracker, a public roadmap and a chat channel is a reasonable governance arrangement for a project with no single company behind it, and it is the kind of thing that determines how quickly a bug report turns into a fix.

## Where BeamMP is the wrong choice

The first limitation is the version coupling, and it is the one that will actually bite you. Because the launcher and the mod have to agree on how to encode vehicle state, a BeamMP release is tied to a specific BeamNG.drive version, which is visible in the release names. When the game updates and your mod does not, or when they are on different versions, the symptoms range from a failed connection to silent state desynchronisation where cars appear in the wrong place. The release history shows the pace, with three releases in the first half of October 2026 alone across game versions 0.39.4 and 0.40, so the mod does track the game closely, but it does not track it instantaneously.

The second limitation is that this is a mod for a specific game. There is nothing here you can reuse in another simulator, and the AGPL-3.0 licence means that if you derive work from it you must keep the same licence and publish your source. For a game mod that is entirely reasonable. For anyone hoping to lift the networking architecture into another project, the licence is a real constraint to plan around rather than discover later.

The third is commercial use of a server. The server is usable free of charge for non-commercial use, and the readme says the server source is on GitHub, but the commercial case is not something the project documents. If your plan is to run a server for a business, for paid members, or attached to a stream with sponsorship, the licensing position needs to be settled with the project rather than assumed from the fact that the source is public.

The alternative is straightforward and worth stating. The difference in approach is that the official route is integrated with the game and the account system, while BeamMP is a third party layer that adds community servers, a forum account system and per-server hosting on top of the game's single player world. If you want to play the game as its designers intended and their support covers it, that is the lower risk option. If you want to run a server for a specific group of friends with your own rules, BeamMP is the tool for the job.

## Conclusion

Adopt BeamMP if you play BeamNG.drive and want to join public servers or host one for a group, and you are happy to install the launcher alongside the game. Do not adopt it as a source of truth for anything but the game itself, since the mod is tied to specific BeamNG.drive versions and the release names track the game version. Before you start, read the getting started guide on the project site for the Windows install steps, check that the release you are on matches your BeamNG.drive version, and note that hosting a server for commercial use is outside what the free server licence covers.

## FAQ

### How do I install the BeamMP mod?

Go to the project website and click download, which gives you a zip file containing an installer executable. Run the executable and follow the instructions, then double click the desktop shortcut. In the game, click Play and then Multiplayer, log in with a guest account or a BeamMP Forum account, and select a server.

### How does BeamMP connect the game to a server?

A separate launcher program starts the game and connects to the Lua mod immediately, then connects to a remote server of your choice, and the two communicate. The launcher forwards packets to the game, including car positions, rotations and chat messages. The launcher and the server are written in C++ and live in their own repositories.

### Can I run my own BeamMP server?

Yes, there is a step-by-step guide on the documentation site for creating and running a server for you and your friends. The server is usable free of charge for non-commercial use and its source code is available on GitHub in a separate repository, and server keys are obtained through the project's keymaster site.

### Which BeamNG.drive versions does the current BeamMP release support?

The release names carry the game version. The current release is v4.23.1 for BeamNG.drive 0.40, preceded by v4.23.0 for 0.40.0 and v4.22.6 for 0.39.4, whose release note mentions UI and bug fixes. The last push to the repository was on 2026-10-22.

### What licence does BeamMP use and how is it funded?

The mod is released under AGPL-3.0, with a LICENSE file, a NOTICES file and a third_party_licenses directory at the repository root. The project is supported by community donations through Patreon, which brings perks such as Patreon-only Discord channels, early access to updates and more server keys.

## Sources

- [BeamMP/BeamMP on GitHub](https://github.com/BeamMP/BeamMP)
- [License: AGPL-3.0](https://github.com/BeamMP/BeamMP/blob/development/LICENSE)
- [Project website](https://beammp.com)
- [README](https://github.com/BeamMP/BeamMP/blob/development/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/BeamMP/BeamMP/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/beammp-beammp