Sidedata.lua

Location

sidedata.lua is a file in the Gamedata/ directory of a Spring Game.

Purpose

This file defines the playable factions/races/sides in a game. (ie ARM & CORE, Terran, Protoss, USA, Bananas,...)

Source

The engine source code which parses the data from this file is viewable here:

• rts/Sim/Misc/SideParser.cpp

Details

Each faction can have two properties:

• name (displayed in lobby)
  
• startUnit (must be read by a gadget to actually spawn the start unit)
  

These values are available to lua via Spring.GetSideData (See Lua_SyncedRead):

local sideName, startUnit = Spring.GetSideData(sideID)

Example

Single Faction

local sideData = {
  {
    name = 'AwesomeDudes',
    startunit = 'awesomedudebase',
  },
}
return sideData

Multiple Factions

local sideData = {
  {
    name = 'NKG',
    startunit = 'bflagship2',
  },
  {
    name = 'Drone',
    startunit = 'kdroneengineer',
  },
  ...
}
return sideData

Faction Icons

Faction icons are not defined in this file but just read from the Sidepics/ directory.

(NB: Some widgets, such as advanced playerlist, may complain about missing faction icon if they are not present)

Can be .bmp and maybe other formats. Filename is same as Faction name ie for above examples: AwesomeDudes.bmp NKG.bmp Drone.bmp