Planetary Annihilation Dedicated Server

Docker deployment for Planetary Annihilation: Titans with jemalloc, cutting dedicated-server CPU by ~80% on a stock binary (up to ~92% with a BOLT-optimized binary).

Results

Setup	Typical CPU	Notes
Stock PA server	~259% (2.6 cores)	Baseline under load
+ jemalloc	~52%	This image (LD_PRELOAD)
+ jemalloc + BOLT binary	~20%	See optimization repo

Works with a vanilla server binary or a BOLT build (server_bolt3).

Prerequisites

You provide the game assets (not redistributed here):

1. Server binary — Steam PA Titans server, or BOLT-optimized binary from
   planetary-annihilation-optimization
2. Game data — host/ and media/ (symlinks or mounts to your PA install)
3. icudtl.dat — V8 ICU data from the PA install (same dir as the binary)

Quick start

cp docker-compose.example.yml docker-compose.yml
# Edit volume paths: binary dir + PA data
docker compose build
docker compose up -d

Default game port: 20545/UDP.

Remote deploy helper: edit deploy.sh (REMOTE_*), then ./deploy.sh.

Layout

File	Purpose
Dockerfile	Debian + jemalloc + PA runtime deps
docker-compose.example.yml	Volumes, limits, healthcheck template
entrypoint.sh	Start + verify allocator preload
deploy.sh	Optional rsync/SSH deploy
.env.example	Env var template

Architecture

Docker (pa-optimized)
  └── jemalloc via LD_PRELOAD   → ~80% CPU drop
  └── PA server binary          → optional BOLT for more savings
  └── host/ + media/ + icudtl.dat

Related

• Optimization guide / BOLT: planetary-annihilation-optimization
• Challenge AI mod: SuperAI

Notes

• Do not commit Steam credentials, real paths with secrets, or redistributed PA binaries.
• Older experimental compose/Dockerfile variants live under archive/.