Entity.destroy(), Surface.create_entity() about factorio-stdlib HOT 8 CLOSED

There is some documentation of attack_reaction on the factorio wiki, but I learned about it through this thread.

from factorio-stdlib.

@aubergine10 This is a good idea and solid start, but theoretically you can do even better than this. If entities have a trigger defined entity-spawn on death (used for biter spawners dropping alien artifacts), you can update prototypes to spawn an invisible entity on death, look for that spawn event, then use that as a general entity death notification. The only drawback is that prototype for the entity type that you want to notify upon death has to be updated before-hand. However, the advantage is that if the entity dies for any reason, in-game or scripted, it should trigger an event.

I think there should be an API to handle updating the prototype in the data-lifecycle phase and triggering the appropriate entity-death events from that as well.

from factorio-stdlib.

Fleshed it out a bit more: https://github.com/aubergine10/lifecycle-events

from factorio-stdlib.

By entity spawn on death do you mean "loot"? If so, that only happens when an entity .die() but not when it .destroy(). Also, the .die() method already triggers an event - the reason that .die() is unsuitable in most cases is that it causes all kinds of other things to happen - explosions, remnants, etc. The mods currently affected require immediate destruction of the entity (such as a vehicle put on to vehicle train, or creative mode clearing entities from an area)...

Also, by time loot is generated, entity has died - this is part of the problem the events are trying to solve. In mods that don't iterate lists of the entities they create/manage, knowing that "something" died is not sufficient - they need the actual entity so they can perform cleanup (eg. of related spawned entities or data).

If I've misunderstood what you were saying, maybe a pseudo-code example would help illustrate?

from factorio-stdlib.

I actually meant prototypes attack_reaction, which will trigger on damage or death. I suppose it has exactly the same issue as you've described as loot though.

from factorio-stdlib.

I've never seen attack_reaction in any of the vanilla prototypes or mods - do you have some examples of it?

from factorio-stdlib.

Ah, nice, I can think of several uses for that already :)

IMO there still needs to be an optional event for .destroy() and .create_entity() to improve interoperability between mods.

from factorio-stdlib.

Closed with 536e9a7

from factorio-stdlib.