Have "following_robots" field on standard entities

[xlomkn]

TL;DR

Make the field "following_robots" works for standard entities, not only for characters.

What ?

The LuaControl field "following_robots" needs to be called on an object that is a character, but from a script, I can create combat robots and by setting the source parameter, make them follow a standard entity (let's say a vehicle):

Code: Select all

surface.create_entity({
      name = "defender-capsule",
      force = source_entity.force,
      source = source_entity, -- my vehicle
      ...

When making combat robots follow a vehicle, I can create more than the "maximum_following_robot_count" limit.

My suggestions:

• make the field "following_robots" works for standard entities, not only for characters - at least vehicles, but seems to me it could be used on other entities types.
• and maybe respect the "maximum_following_robot_count" limit on a per entity basis. Not sure about this, as it would be easy to check table_size(following_robots) and letting this unlimited gives more modding possibilities.

Why ?

Because robots can follow a vehicle, I would like to be able to manage them as with a character.
As an example:

• by now to respect the "maximum_following_robot_count" limit on a vehicle, I have to handle the following robots count myself.
• when a robot dies, I don't know which vehicle it was following, to create a new one... or to override the dying animation to make it come back to the vehicle.

[Rseding91]

This would require additional memory usage on every entity in the game when base game would never use it. Not going to happen.