View source for T4 Modules Howto Guide/Entities

=Entities and Egos: Everything comes from here=

==Entity Definitions==
<p>These variables are valid for all entities, that is, grid, actors, objects, stores or traps.</p>



<table class="wikitable">
    <tr>
        <th>Variable</th>
        <th>Default</th>
        <th>Effect</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>display</td>
        <td>'.'</td>
        <td>Character to display in ASCII mode.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>image</td>
        <td>nil</td>
        <td>Image to use as a tile.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>color</td>
        <td>0,0,0</td>
        <td>Display color.  No effect on images.  A table of r,g,b.  Sets color_r, color_g and color_b.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>back_color</td>
        <td>-1,-1,-1</td>
        <td>Back display color.  No effect on images.  A table of r,g,b.  Sets color_br, color_bg and color bb.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>tint</td>
        <td>1,1,1</td>
        <td>Color to tint the display texture with.  Has an effect on both image and ASCII displays.  Sets tint_r, tint_g and tint_b.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>unique</td>
        <td>unset</td>
        <td>If true, only one of these will ever be generated.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>changed</td>
        <td>unset</td>
        <td>Gets set to true whenever an entity undergoes changes.</td>
    </tr>
</table>

==Egos: Adding some variety==
<p>Egos are defined as 'special' versions of usually items that grant additional properties or effects to the user beyond the normal.</p>

<p>Egos are a very generic system in T-Engine.  NPCs, objects, traps, grids or even stores can potentially have egos.</p>

<p>In the entity definitions, 3 ego-related variables are recognized:</p>



<table class="wikitable">
    <tr>
        <th>Property</th>
        <th>Effect</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>egos</td>
        <td>String pointing to a lua file containing ego definitions.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>egos_chance</td>
        <td>Number between 0 and 100 defining the chance of this entity being an ego entity. NOTE: Even a chance of 100% may not pick an ego if none can be generated, for instance due to filters.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>force_ego</td>
        <td>Forces the entity to be generated with the ego (NOT addon) named by this variable. NOTE: this is broken in both 1.3.3 and 1.4.x, requiring workarounds to be used in addons/mods.</td>
    </tr>
</table>

<p>Egos are defined the same way as normal entities, in a newEntity{...} block.  Unlike other entities though they do not have a base (unless the base is another ego).  In addition, the following variables are recognized:</p>



<table class="wikitable">
    <tr>
        <th>Property</th>
        <th>Effect</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>name</td>
        <td>This is the suffix the ego will add to the base entity.  If prefix is set to true, this is a prefix instead.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>prefix</td>
        <td>If true, the ego is a prefix instead of a suffix.</td>
    </tr>
</table>

<p>This allows one ego to apply to a wide range of entities, such as a +strength ego apply to weapons and armor.  It also makes silliness possible such as a 'sharpened troll'.  Take care.</p>


===Ego Grids===
----
<p>Note that while its possible to have ego grids, the way the map works at the moment all grids that are the same are the same object.  This means that the ego chance doesn't get evaluated per grid tile, it gets evaluated once per tile type for the whole level.</p>

<p>It may be possible and has been suggested to force every grid to be a unique object in future versions, but this is still not advised due to increased memory use and larger resulting save files.</p>

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