Stratagus

How to use a NumberDesc as if it were an integer?

Asked by Andre Novellino Gouvêa

I am not managing to get information out of array by using a NumberDesc. For instance, with this code:

 { Pos = {114, 11}, More = {"Text", {Text = DwarvenNames[ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName")], Centered = true}} },

The text doesn't appear, but if I replace the "ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName")" part with an integer, then it works perfectly. What am I doing wrong?

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cybermind
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Best cybermind (iddqd-mail) said : 		#1

There is no way to convert NumberDesc into ordinary Lua number, since NumberDesc is computed real-time and so Lua can't index DwarvenNames with it.
The only way to make this thing is to program a new dynamic type (maybe called TableDesc or something like that) which could be initialized with ordinary Lua types and index it's contents by NumberDesc

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Andre Novellino Gouvêa (andre-ng) said : 		#2

Thanks, cybermind! In that case, do you happen to know of another way to access a variable of the "active" unit?

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Joris Dauphin (joris-dauphin) said : 		#3

I would like to remove NumberDesc stuff, and expose more variable to lua.

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Andre Novellino Gouvêa (andre-ng) said : 		#4

By looking at cybermind's Doom Wars lua code, I was able to come up with code that implements this:

 { Pos = {114, 11}, More = {"Text", {Text =
  If(Equal(ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName"), 1), DwarvenNames[1],
  If(Equal(ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName"), 2), DwarvenNames[2],
  If(Equal(ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName"), 3), DwarvenNames[3],
  If(Equal(ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName"), 4), DwarvenNames[4],
  If(Equal(ActiveUnitVar("CharacterName"), 5), DwarvenNames[5],
  ""
  ))))), Centered = true }}
 },

It is not ideal, since I have to manually add a new line for each possible element of the array, but it works.

Joris, it would be great if more variables were exposed to lua. In particular, I think that it would be nice if we could change the HP, Attack Range and etc. of individual units, instead of just that of unit types. I implemented a trait system which randomly gives units individual traits, but I was only able to change an individual unit's damage and armor (since I could access the damage formula, I could use that to create a work-around to make a unit with the trait "Strong" do more damage, and then I changed ui.lua to reflect that in the unit's display), and the trait system would be much more interesting if I could change things such as HP and etc. as well.

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cybermind (iddqd-mail) said : 		#5

You can use NumberDesc only for active(currently selected) unit variables representation in UI.
For getting and setting individual unit variables you could use GetUnitVariable/SetUnitVariable.