Factorio Forums

Hello everyone!

So i've been playing with ComputerCraft, which is a mod for Minecraft. And if i remember correctly Factorio is programmed in Lua. And ComputerCraft also uses Lua for programming. My only problem with ComputerCraft is limitation. So i looked around in the internet for a way to run things from the Lua source code. I was not able to do so, i would like to get some help from you guys (mainly developers and modders).

Morzan wrote:And if i remember correctly Factorio is programmed in Lua

Just because it makes a difference, Factorio is programmed in C++ and it has a Lua modding interface/API... In comparison to ComputerCraft which is (I assume since it's for Minecraft) programmed in Java and has a Lua interface/API (and almost certainly a Java API as well, for other Minecraft mods)

Just to be clear, are you wanting to know a way to run 'things' from Lua source code in Factorio mods or in CC? And do be a little more specific about 'things' so that people have a better idea of exactly what you need information about

I'll assume in CC, so... I haven't used CC in a long time (because I haven't played Minecraft... in over a year? wow) and I never did anything particularly complicated so I may not be able to help you, but if you provide more info it's possible that someone else may be able to.

Well i want to run "things" from Lua source code. But not in CC because i feel it a little bit limited but also a little bit easier. So i want to try out myself how good i could be with Lua itself.

And i'm thinking about doing a strategy game (pretty much CnC style) with Lua. (By the way my longest CC program is about 500 lines long + an api i wrote which is only 100 lines long)

So my problem is that i can't find pretty much anywhere a good explanation on how to install a Lua developer envinronment. Because i think i can code without the CC's added APIs (for example: term API) and try to make programs that work without a Minecraft instance with CC installed or a CC emulator. (Big sorry for not being clear, i was a little bit tired when i wroted the first post)

Speed difference between lua and c++ is between factor 10 and 100...

Not very relevant, but interesting:
http://onlyjob.blogspot.de/2011/03/perl ... a-tcl.html

If you're looking to write a game in LUA, you probably want to check out Love2D.

BenWo: Thank you very much! I guess i'll have to learn how LÖVE is actually working and everything, but i like it! ssilk: Probably you're right, but i'm only 15 years old and for me Lua right now is enough.

Morzan wrote:BenWo: Thank you very much! I guess i'll have to learn how LÖVE is actually working and everything, but i like it! ssilk: Probably you're right, but i'm only 15 years old and for me Lua right now is enough.

No problem! If you just follow the tutorials for Love you can have a basic game window displaying a sprite in minutes. And once you get the basics it's simply a matter of experimenting!

I learned Lua through using ComputerCraft myself, so good luck.

Morzan wrote:ssilk: Probably you're right, but i'm only 15 years old and for me Lua right now is enough.

Sweet.
Not kidding: maybe you should begin to think a little bit bigger, cause you will be never be so young then yet and will never learn so easy like now.

ssilk wrote:

Morzan wrote:ssilk: Probably you're right, but i'm only 15 years old and for me Lua right now is enough.

Sweet.
Not kidding: maybe you should begin to think a little bit bigger, cause you will be never be so young then yet and will never learn so easy like now.

I'd like to somewhat support this! Feel free to start with Lua but if you do get the time to learn other programming languages (Java, Python, D, C++, C, Perl, PHP etc.) do so! It'll be a bit easier for you now than later and once you learn one or two you'll be absolutely amazed at how quickly you can learn others (not to mention amazed that so many people allow others to control their computing experience )

Okay,okay i'll start those a little bit later. I do programming a little bit everyday, so i learn slowly but surely. But summer is coming so i'll speed up!

BenWo wrote: No problem! If you just follow the tutorials for Love you can have a basic game window displaying a sprite in minutes. And once you get the basics it's simply a matter of experimenting!

I learned Lua through using ComputerCraft myself, so good luck.

Thanks! So far i do pretty good after reading a tutorial from the wiki. And i now understand what callbacks mean. It was weird for me when i first saw it but now i see the potential in it!