Lua

Wip Lua documentation

introduction

currently lua is not complete, and not yet usable in keeperfx, wip code for it in this PR https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx/pull/2043 the documentation itself is also wip and bound to change

the lua version keeperfx uses is 5.1 for the base language see the lua documentation, this page will only go over the keeperfx specific implementation https://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/

lua is used in a lot of places, documentation of those games could also prove useful an example would be Warcraft III reforged, ofcource the Warcraft specific stuff won't apply to Dungeon keeper, but might still prove usefull https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/a-comprehensive-guide-to-mapping-in-lua.341880/

setup ide

the recommended ide for writing is vscode together with this lua extention

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=sumneko.lua vscode extention, point workspace to correct folder,

triggers

local party_spawn_timer = CreateTrigger()
        TriggerRegisterTimerEvent(party_spawn_timer, 4800, true) -- true for repeating timer
	TriggerAddCondition(party_spawn_timer, function() return (Game.wavenumber < 10) end) -- only up to wave 10
        TriggerAddAction(party_spawn_timer, partySpawn)

see fxdata/lua/triggers.lua for all existing triggers

commands

all native functions can be found in this file, https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx/blob/d3c1fb33bd25dd01eac76385a07ae99b6040eb0f/lua/native.lua the file makes the IDE aware of the functions DK provides, and doubles as documentation if you want to find something

the lua has support for most of the commands in the DKscript language, while also repeated in the native.lua file, the dkscript documentation could also be referenced for the overlapping ones, some commands might be changed, and some might only exist in 1 of the 2 or have an alternative way of doing so New-and-Modified-Level-Script-Commands

the flow control is also different NEXT_COMMAND_REUSABLE is not a thing in lua, all commands are always reusable in lua you have to control flow in other ways, GameStart for example will generally only be run once, so all initialization code goes there

the special IF's in dkscript are also replaced with different syntax you just compare variables which you can fetch like this

• PLAYER0.MONEY
• IF_ACTION_POINT todo
• IF_AVAILABLE PLAYER0.AVAILABLE.WORKSHOP
• IF_CONTROLS PLAYER0.CONTROLS.IMP
• IF_SLAB_OWNER and IF_SLAB_TYPE slb = GET_SLAB(x,y) slb.owner slb.type slb.style
• IF_ALLIED PLAYER0.ALLIED_WITH(PLAYER2)

the commands related to flags are removed to assign to a flag simply assign PLAYER0.FLAG0 = 1 calculations can also be done in lua, so no need for COMPUTE_FLAG either PLAYER0.CAMPAIGN_FLAG2 = PLAYER0.MONEY + 75 * PLAYER0.IMP

the assignable variables, are regular flags eg. PLAYER0.FLAG0 = 1

campaign flags eg. PLAYER0.CAMPAIGN_FLAG2 = 1´

sacrificed creatures eg. PLAYER0.SACRIFICED.IMP = 1

and temple rewarded creatures eg. PLAYER0.REWARDED.IMP = 1

attempting to assign to a variable that's not assignable will throw an error

savegames

all globals should be the global Game table, so it gets serialized