Increment timing

[sudojunior]

The current logic of running the death event is dependent solely on storage.time_until_event.

Prior iterations had used a delta_acc or the inclusion to only advance the timer when a valid player is found (which is currently only done when a player joins).

Consideration of how 1 / game.speed may effect save timing would also need to be reviewed, and whether it advances when the game is paused.

[sudojunior]

Delta accumulation

script.on_init(function()
  storage.delta = 0
end)

script.on_event(defines.events.on_tick, function(event)
  storage.delta = storage.delta + 1 -- or + 1 / game.speed
  if storage.delta < 216000 then return end -- 1 hour
  storage.delta = 0

  -- run event
end)

[sudojunior]

Delta 'Bleed'

Current implementation - timer - 1 / game.speed, paraphrased.

function reset_timer()
  storage.timer = 216000
end

script.on_init(reset_timer)

script.on_event(defines.events.on_tick, function()
  storage.timer = storage.timer - 1 -- or - 1 / game.speed
  if storage.timer > 0 then return end
  reset_timer()

  -- run event
end)

[sudojunior]

Further extending into character presence check

• https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/classes/LuaBootstrap.html#on_event
• https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/classes/LuaPlayer.html#character

-- initialize (timer)/delta with whatever setup is used

local events = {}

function events.on_tick()
  storage.timer = storage.timer - 1
  if storage.timer > 0 then return end
  -- reset_timer()

  -- run event
end

function has_valid_character()
  for _, player in pairs(game.connected_players) do
    if player.character ~= nil then
      return true
    end
  end
  
  return false
end

script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_joined_game, function(event)
  -- not sure if the player is loaded by this point...
  if not has_valid_character() then return end

  for name, handler in pairs(events) do
    script.on_event(name, handler)
  end
end)

script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_left_game, function(event)
  if has_valid_character() then return end

  for name, _ in pairs(events)
    script.on_event(name, nil)
  end
end)

[sudojunior]

A likely conclusion on the 1 / game.speed vs. event.tick - last_tick or +-1 (etc.), would require a test to determine exactly what happens through the lifecycle of the game.

The methodology of incrementing or decrementing the tick counter would ultimately be a style choice, with decrementing requiring less overhead to maintain (as it currently stands) - even if it falls solely to control.lua.

[sudojunior]

Game speed will not be used as part of the tick counter in the initial release.

Likely alternative to accurate tick counting would be to track the last tick, but that also needs a value to be stored in the map (similar to how tick accumulation would have worked).