View source for T4 Modules Howto Guide/Zones

<h1 id="toc0">Zones: Your local adventurer hangouts</h1>
<p>Zones are description files for areas.  The dungeon is a zone, the ice themed cave is a zone, the overland map is a zone, the town is a zone.  They can be relatively simple or complex, and can be interconnected in various ways.</p>

<p>What a zone is to the module writer is a directory in the /data/zones folder with 5 files in it:</p>



<table>
    <tr>
        <th>File</th>
        <th>Purpose</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>zone.lua</td>
        <td>Zone description file</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>grids.lua</td>
        <td>Description of the zone terrain</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>npcs.lua</td>
        <td>NPCs that exist in the zone</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>objects.lua</td>
        <td>Objects in the zone</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>traps.lua</td>
        <td>Traps in the zone</td>
    </tr>
</table>


<h2 id="toc1">Zone Description: zone.lua</h2>
<p>The zone name, as referred to by other files, is the same as the folder name that this file is in.</p>



<table>
    <tr>
        <th>Variable</th>
        <th>Effect</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>name</td>
        <td>Display name of this zone.  May contain punctuation and spacing.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>level_scheme</td>
        <td>If &quot;player&quot;, scale zone and NPC levels to match player level, if &quot;fixed&quot;, do not scale NPC levels.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>level_range</td>
        <td>If level_scheme is &quot;player&quot;, this limits the min and max that NPC levels can scale to.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>max_level</td>
        <td>Depth of a multi-level dungeon</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>actor_adjust_level</td>
        <td>See below under &quot;On level_scheme and level_range&quot;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>width</td>
        <td>Width of levels. No effect if static level generated.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>height</td>
        <td>Height of levels. No effect if static level generated.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>all_remembered</td>
        <td>If true, level starts explored.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>all_lited</td>
        <td>If true, level starts lit.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>persistant</td>
        <td>If not set, randomizes the level again every time it is entered. If true it saves one level per file.  If &quot;zone&quot; it saves all levels in a zone file.  If &quot;memory&quot; it saves the level with the mail savefile.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>generator</td>
        <td>Defines the generators used for this zone, read below.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>levels</td>
        <td>Used to override zone defaults for single levels, such as to add a static boss level at lowest level of zone.</td>
    </tr>
</table>


<h2 id="toc2">Generator</h2>
<p>There are four kinds of generators at the time of writing.  You can only select one of each type per zone, though you can override this in the levels variable.</p>


<h3 id="toc3">map</h3>

*<h5 id="toc4">engine.generator.map.Cavern</h5>
**Generates a caven-like level. Used e.g. for Ardhungol in the tome module.

*<h5 id="toc5">engine.generator.map.Empty</h5>
**makes an empty level<br />

*<h5 id="toc6">engine.generator.map.Forest</h5>
**Generates a forest level with possible ponds of water. Used for the Trollshaws.<br />

*<h5 id="toc7">engine.generator.map.GOL</h5>
**GOL is game of life I should rename it

*<h5 id="toc8">engine.generator.map.Heightmap</h5>
**Heightmap is just a bad experiment;<br />

*<h5 id="toc9">engine.generator.map.Maze</h5>
**Maze makes well, a maze...like in .. the maze ;)

*<h5 id="toc10">engine.generator.map.Roomer</h5>
**Roomer is the standard dungeon builder

*<h5 id="toc11">engine.generator.map.Rooms</h5>
**yeah Rooms is badly named and half working

*<h5 id="toc12">engine.generator.map.Static</h5>
**Loads a map file from the data/maps/ folder. It is used e.g. for towns or special levels (the map is then fixed) or for placing special fixed rooms/structures in a random map (e.g. the last level of Amon-Sûl).

*<h5 id="toc13">engine.generator.map.TileSet</h5>
**TileSet splits the level in tiles of 3x3, 5x5, .. (customizable) each with a set of defined tiles possibilities and it randomly places them, matching existing ones. Examples are the ancient elven ruins, the moria, the first level of the lost merchant quest

*<h5 id="toc14">engine.generator.map.Town</h5>
**Generates a random town composed by L-shaped and rectangular buildings. Used e.g. for the Rak'shor Pride.


<h3 id="toc15">actor</h3>

*<h5 id="toc16">engine.generator.actor.Random</h5>

<h3 id="toc17">object</h3>

*<h5 id="toc18">engine.generator.object.Random</h5>

<h3 id="toc19">trap</h3>

*<h5 id="toc20">engine.generator.trap.Random</h5>

<h2 id="toc21">Additional file contents</h2>
<p>The files grids.lua, npcs.lua, objects.lua and traps.lua are used to load or define the features available in the zone.</p>

<p>At its simplest, a load() call to one of the files defined in the /data/general/ directory is used, but zone special features can also be defined here, such as ice tiles in a ice cave or a boss that appears only in that zone.</p>

<p>The reason for this is so you can have only orcs or trolls appear in your zone, with a forest tileset and only outdoor traps.  This is also one of the main reasons for segmenting your definition files.</p>


<h2 id="toc22">Static maps</h2>

<h2 id="toc23">Travelling between zones</h2>

<h2 id="toc24">Word of DarkGod</h2>

<h3 id="toc25">On level_scheme and level_range</h3>
<p>&lt;&gt; max_level is the &quot;physical&quot; depth<br />
&lt;&gt; and level_range is the range of levels allowed<br />
&lt;&gt; if the scheme is set to &quot;fixed&quot;, or not set, then actors will only have their natural level<br />
&lt;&gt; if it is set to &quot;player&quot; then the zone calls game:getPlayer() to get a player, takes its level and uses it to select a level for the zone<br />
&lt;&gt; imagine:<br />
&lt;&gt; if you haev a zone with max_level = 5; level_range={10,20}<br />
&lt;&gt; then if a level 12 player enters, the zone &quot;levels itself&quot; to be level 12 for the first level and then one more per level<br />
&lt;&gt; basically it means that you can have zones that levelup with the player, as to provide a challenge even if the player is not at the exact right level<br />
&lt;&gt; actors are always created as level 1, then they are leveled up to theuir minimun level (their own level_range)<br />
&lt;&gt; then the zone force levelup to the selected level\&lt;dg_&gt; using the <br />
&lt;&gt;  actor_adjust_level = function(zone, level, e) return zone.base_level + e:getRankLevelAdjust() + level.level-1 + rng.range(-1,2) end,<br />
&lt;&gt; field of the zone</p>

Go back to [[T4modules-module-howto-guides]]