Factorio wait,sleep,etc?

[Dominic92x]

Hello! For learning Factorio/lua I am working on a personal mod. One part of this mod is having the enemy bases slowly spread creep (Like Zerg from SC2).

I have the creep working with the line below:

Code: Select all

function check_spawners()
   if global.biterbase ~= nil then
				for k,gen in pairs(global.biterbase) do
					local tiles={}
					local surface = gen.surface
					for y=-(global.CreepSpread),(global.CreepSpread) do
					for x=-(global.CreepSpread),(global.CreepSpread) do
            if not string.match(surface.get_tile(gen.position.x+x,gen.position.y+y).name, "water") then						
                table.insert(tiles, {name="Creep", position={gen.position.x+x,gen.position.y+y}})
					end
					end
					end	
					surface.set_tiles(tiles)	
end
end
end

However, this makes all the bases update their "creep" at once. How do you make each entity in the table execute this command at a random interval? Like in other games I have modded I would simply put a sleep 2 + ((random 2)) after the "do" command, to have the commands staggered. How would you do this in Factorio? Thank you! I can't seem to find anything on the forums/web.

[DaveMcW]

Code: Select all

script.on_tick(function()
  local creep_delay = 3 * 60   -- 3 seconds
  
  local i = game.tick % creep_delay

  if (global.biterbase and global.biterbase[i]) then
    local gen = global.biterbase[i]
  
    ... spread creep around this base ...

  end
end

This will work for up to 180 bases. If you have more than that, you need to update multiple bases per tick.

[Dominic92x]

Wow! Thank you,
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that - but I will keep working with it until I get it.

Would you have time to explain this line?

Code: Select all

   if (global.biterbase and global.biterbase[i]) then
    local gen = global.biterbase[i]
  
    ... spread creep around this base ...

  end

I can see how it is interacting (Guesssing that "local gen" is pulling the entity from the table) but I am having a hard time understanding what that line actually is checking for and how.

Thank you for your time and the quick response!
I appreciate it!


edit: It is working in-game...Just don't fully understand WHY lol

[DaveMcW]

i counts from 0 to 179 over three seconds.

global.biterbase returns the base at the i'th position in the table.

Actually I guess that is a bug... it should be i+1 because lua tables start at index 1.

[Dominic92x]

Ahh, thank you so much!

I understand better now - it works very well.

This is what I ended up with,

Code: Select all

function check_spawners()
   if global.biterbase ~= nil then
					local tiles={}
					local creep_delay = 4 * 60 -- 4 seconds
					local i = game.tick % creep_delay
					--game.players[1].print(tostring(global.biterbase))
					if (global.biterbase and global.biterbase[i+1]) then
					--game.players[1].print(tostring(global.CreepSpread))
					local gen = global.biterbase[i+1]
					if global.biterbase[i+1].valid then
					for y=-(global.CreepSpread),(global.CreepSpread) do
					for x=-(global.CreepSpread),(global.CreepSpread) do
            if not string.match(gen.surface.get_tile(gen.position.x+x,gen.position.y+y).name, "water") and not string.match(gen.surface.get_tile(gen.position.x+x,gen.position.y+y).name, "Creep") then						
                table.insert(tiles, {name="Creep", position={gen.position.x+x,gen.position.y+y}})
					end
					end
					end
					gen.surface.set_tiles(tiles)
					end		
					end
end
end

Unfortunately, depending on how big the spawned tile is, it causes some pretty bad stutters (Still good to learn though).

I wonder how to create a system to perpetually spread a tile across a base without simply increasing the tile creation size.