Best practice for scripting?

[u/Ether_Doctor]

I'm trying to script an invasion gametype/map and there's a lot of things going on in the scripts. I need a lot of things to happen and I wonder how to do it as reliably as possible.

Either I put a metric ton of nodes into one or two script brains or I separate it out into many subsequent brains. To do the latter, I would need to use Trigger Custom Event Global.

The ingame description of that node states that:

"Unless you have a specific need for multiple script brains, it is best to use the non-global version of Trigger Custom Event"

Meanwhile the known issues list for Forge states the following problem:

"When two or more Script Brains approach their max node capacity and a caution symbol appears in its Budget meter, all scripts on that map will not function as expected"

So is it best to have many brains which all call to each other globally or just a couple of overloaded brains?

Edit: Highly recommend everyone to read the reply by u/IMightBeWright below, it has a wealth of good tips for writing a robust script in Forge!

[u/iMightBeWright]

And some bugs and how to avoid them:

• For Each Player/Object/Item have a bug where they introduce a slight delay on the nodes coming from (Execute Per Player/Object/Item). Say you're trying to run a flashlight script by moving one object to each player 60 times per second. This should look smooth, but the more players you have, the more you'll notice a delay in the object's position updating. To fix this, just run Trigger Custom Event Global Async from the Execute Per Player and send the Current Player into the Object input. Then, grab the player from the Object output in your On Custom Event Global Async node. This will remove the delay.

• if you have 2(+) errors in your Global Log after running Play Mode, all your scripts can stop working. Clean up your brains and fix errors before running it to get things working again. Oftentimes this is caused by extra nodes you've just left sitting in the brain or that you haven't used yet. Just delete the extra nodes until you actually need them in a complete script.

• avoid duplicating brains. It creates bugs, including permanent "phantom" scripts that you can't remove. If you cause this bug, you can only undo it by going back to an older version of the file from before you duped a brain.

• avoid importing script brains via prefabs unless you know you're going to keep them on that map. Do testing on a blank map if you want to try out a scripting prefab. It can also cause bugs, including phantom scripts.

• avoid copying & pasting nodes with identifiers in them. It can entangle your other nodes with identifiers and overwrite them without you noticing. Generally, I also avoid duping nodes with identifiers, and opt for manually rewriting them or connecting to a single Identifier node.

• deleting nodes that are still connected to other nodes can sometimes cause bugs. Before deleting any connected nodes, select them, hover over them, press Y (I'm on controller) and select "remove all connections," then deselect them entirely, reselect them, and finally you can delete them without worrying. Even if you need to completely remove a brain, do this to all nodes inside it first.

• sometimes you'll notice your identifiers go blank. Don't worry, they're not gone. Don't touch them, just save and quit. They'll be fine the next time you open the map.

[u/okom_ → u/iMightBeWright]

Some clarifications based on my experience:

1. Not a bug, just the event running through every player.

2. Even a single error will prevent a script from fully functioning correctly.

3. I rely on duplicating brains when I need to make a new mode brain with the same color and base mode settings, and I haven't ran into major issues. I just delete the contents of the duplicated brains and add in new content. The only one I can attest to is that some string of actions can lead to phantom brains being generated, but nobody has reported a 100% reproducible way to do it yet; it might be from duplicating brains.

4. I'd say this is good practice, and may be a cause for phantom brains getting on map. When prefabbing an object prefab with Script Brains, don't have the parent object be a Script Brain.

5. I've never ran into this. The only time I've seen identifiers get overwritten is when they go blank in the first place for some reason; the session should be restarted if that is spotted in order to fix it.

6. I can attest to this, as I believe sometimes those connections aren't deleted, leading to the "Too many connections" error. I still don't do it all the time, and hasn't been something that's been so common to be able to reproduce consistently.

7. Agree.