Introduction

The new callouts are defined in the Spring.UnitScript table.

Types for arguments are only shown where they're ambiguous. For a number of (common) arguments, the types are:

• unitID: number
• piece: number
• axis: number (1 = x axis, 2 = y axis, 3 = z axis)
• destination: number (elmos (linear), radians (angular))
• speed: number (elmos per second (linear), radians per second (angular))
• accel/decel: number (radians per second per frame)

Animation

Spring.UnitScript.SetPieceVisibility ( piece, boolean visible ) -> nil
Spring.UnitScript.Show ( piece ) -> nil
Spring.UnitScript.Hide ( piece ) -> nil

These may be used to show/hide pieces of the unit's model.

Spring.UnitScript.Move ( piece, axis, destination[, speed] ) -> nil

Move piece along axis to the destination position. If speed is given, the piece isn't moved immediately, but will move there at the desired speed. The X axis is mirrored compared to BOS/COB scripts, to match the direction of the X axis in Spring world space.

Spring.UnitScript.Turn ( piece, axis, destination[, speed] ) -> nil

Turn piece around axis to the destination angle. If speed is given, the piece isn't rotated immediately, but will turn at the desired angular velocity. Angles are in radians. Always uses the shortest angular towards destinationdegree, and if at exactly 180 degrees opposide, will go counterclockwise.

Spring.UnitScript.Spin ( piece, axis, speed[, accel] ) -> nil

Makes piece spin around axis at the desired angular velocity. If accel is given, the piece does not start at this velocity at once, but will accelerate to it. Both negative and positive angular velocities are supported. Accel should always be positive, even if speed is negative.

Beware gimbal lock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock

Spring.UnitScript.StopSpin ( piece, axis[, decel] ) -> nil

Stops a piece from spinning around the given axis. If decel is given, the piece does not stop at once, but will decelerate to it. Decel should always be positive. This function is similar to Spin(piece, axis, 0, decel), however, StopSpin also frees up the animation record.

Spring.UnitScript.IsInTurn (number piece, number axis) -> boolean
Spring.UnitScript.IsInMove (number piece, number axis) -> boolean
Spring.UnitScript.IsInSpin (number piece, number axis) -> boolean

Returns true if such an animation exists, false otherwise.

Spring.UnitScript.GetPieceTranslation ( piece ) -> number x, y, z
Spring.UnitScript.GetPieceRotation ( piece ) -> number x, y, z

Get the current translation/rotation of a piece. The returned numbers match the values passed into Move and Turn.

Spring.UnitScript.GetPiecePosDir ( piece ) -> number px, py, pz, dx, dy, dz

Get the piece's position (px, py, pz) and direction (dx, dy, dz) in unit space. This is quite similar to Spring.GetUnitPiecePosDir, however that function returns in world space.

Threads

Spring.UnitScript.StartThread ( function fun, ... ) -> nil

Starts a new (animation) thread, which will execute the function 'fun'. All arguments except the function to run are passed as-is as arguments to 'fun'. COB-Threads has a decent description on COB threads, which are mimicked here in Lua using coroutines.

Spring.UnitScript.SetSignalMask ( number mask ) -> nil
Spring.UnitScript.Signal ( number signal ) -> nil

These two support functions offer a powerful way to kill running threads. SetSignalMask assigns a mask to the currently running thread (any new threads started by this one will inherit the signal mask). Signal immediately stops all threads of this unit for which the bitwise and of mask and signal is not zero.

What signal will stop which threads?

Spring.UnitScript.WaitForMove ( piece, axis ) -> nil
Spring.UnitScript.WaitForTurn ( piece, axis ) -> nil

Waits until the piece has stopped moving along / turning around the axis. If the piece is not animating, this functions return at once. You can not wait for a spin, because a spin does never finish.

Spring.UnitScript.Sleep ( number milliseconds ) -> nil

Waits a number of milliseconds before returning.

Effects

Spring.UnitScript.EmitSfx ( piece, number id ) -> nil

Emits a CEG effect or weapon from the given piece. The id is based on one of the effect or weapon ids defined in the units unitdef.
Example:

--get the id of the CEG effects:
local smokecloud = SFX.CEG   --the first effect from the list in the unitdef
local smokecloud2 = SFX.CEG +1   --the second effect from the list in the unitdef
local fire = SFX.CEG +2   --the third effect from the list in the unitdef
--get the id of the emiter piece:
local turret = piece "turret"
EmitSfx(turret, smokecloud)   --emit the first effect

Spring.UnitScript.ShowFlare ( number piece ) -> nil

Same as COB's show _inside_ FireWeaponX.

Spring.UnitScript.Explode ( piece, number flags ) -> nil

Explodes a piece, optionally creating a particle which flies off. Typically used inside Killed. Explode does not hide the piece by itself; if using it outside Killed you may want to Hide the piece immediately after. The flags may be any combination of:

• SFX.NONE: do nothing after creating a heatcloud. Other flags have no effect, except NO_HEATCLOUD. If that is given too, the call is a no-op.
• SFX.SHATTER: shatter the piece in many fragments. Only the NO_HEATCLOUD flag has any effect if this is present.
• SFX.EXPLODE | SFX.EXPLODE_ON_HIT: the piece that flies of should explode when it hits something.
• SFX.FALL: the piece should be affected by gravity (this is currently always forced on by Spring, to prevent pieces that float in air indefinitely).
• SFX.SMOKE: leave smoke trail.
• SFX.FIRE: the piece is on fire when it flies off.
• SFX.NO_CEG_TRAIL: disable a CEG trail, if present.
• SFX.NO_HEATCLOUD: suppress the heat cloud that's shown by default.

Other

Spring.UnitScript.AttachUnit ( piece, passengerID ) -> nil
Spring.UnitScript.DropUnit ( passengerID ) -> nil

Attaches or detaches another unit (a passenger, as this is designed for transports) to this unit. For AttachUnit, piece specifies the attachment point.

Spring.UnitScript.GetUnitValue ( ... ) -> number | number, number
Spring.UnitScript.SetUnitValue ( ... ) -> nil

This may be used instead of COB's get and set codes. It is recommended however, to use dedicated Lua functions (e.g. Spring.GetUnitHealth(unitID) instead of GetUnitValue(4)): these functions should be considered a relic of the past.

Note that these are identical to Spring.GetUnitCOBValue and Spring.SetUnitCOBValue (see also Lua_SyncedCtrl#Lua_to_COB for the signature of those functions), except that an unitID argument shouldn't be passed to the versions in the Spring.UnitScript table.

Spring.UnitScript.GetLongestReloadTime ( unitID ) -> number reloadTime

Returns max(reload time) of all the unit's weapons in milliseconds. This utility function exists to aid in porting BOS scripts, which have a SetMaxReloadTime call-in that is called immediately after Create.

Internal

You generally shouldn't need any of the following call-outs, they are provided by the engine to allow the Lua framework to do it's work.

Spring.UnitScript.CreateScript ( unitID, table callIns ) -> nil

This deletes the unit's current script (whether it's a COB or Lua script doesn't matter), and sets it up with a brand new Lua unit script, initially registering the call-ins given in the table as (string, function) pairs.

Spring.UnitScript.UpdateCallIn ( unitID, string name[, function callIn] ) -> nil

This updates a single call-in for the unit's current Lua unit script. If the unit does not currently have a Lua unit script, an error is raised. If the callIn argument is not given (or nil), the call-in with the given name is removed.

Spring.UnitScript.CallAsUnit ( unitID, function fun, ... ) -> nil

As none of the call-outs takes a unitID, the engine needs to know the active unit when one of those is called. Using this function another function can be called with the active unit set arbitrarily.

Spring.UnitScript.SetDeathScriptFinished ( [number wreckLevel] )

Tells Spring the Killed script finished, and which wreckLevel to use. If wreckLevel is not given no wreck is created. May only be called after Killed has been called. DO NOT USE, the framework handles this transparently (it passes the return value of Killed into this function.)