Aura

Overview

The Aura component creates a periodic, circular area of effect (AoE) around an entity. When enabled, it regularly scans for other entities within a configurable radius. A custom test function can be provided to filter which targets are affected. The component uses the combat component's DoAreaAttack method to apply its effects, making it ideal for continuous damage or status effects. It also broadcasts events to signal when it starts and stops affecting targets.

Dependencies & Tags

Dependencies:

• combat: This component is used to perform the area attack and apply the effect to targets.

Tags: This component does not add any tags to its owner. However, it will ignore entities possessing any of the following tags:

• noauradamage
• INLIMBO
• notarget
• noattack
• flight
• invisible
• playerghost

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
radius	number	3	The radius of the aura's effect in game units.
tickperiod	number	1	The time in seconds between each aura tick.
active	boolean	false	Tracks if the aura is currently enabled and ticking.
applying	boolean	false	Tracks if the aura successfully affected at least one target on the previous tick.
pretickfn	function	nil	An optional function that is called on the owner entity at the start of each tick, before the AoE check.
auratestfn	function	nil	A custom function to validate potential targets. It receives the aura owner and the target as arguments.
auraexcludetags	table	{ "noauradamage", "INLIMBO", "notarget", "noattack", "flight", "invisible", "playerghost" }	A list of tags that will cause an entity to be ignored by the aura.

Main Functions

Enable(val)

• Description: Enables or disables the aura's periodic tick. When enabled, it starts a periodic task. When disabled, it cancels the task and pushes a stopaura event if the aura was active.
• Parameters:
  • val (boolean): true to enable the aura, false to disable it.

OnTick()

• Description: This function is executed at each interval defined by tickperiod. It first calls the pretickfn if one exists, then performs an area attack via the combat component, using auratestfn to filter targets. It then pushes startaura or stopaura events based on whether any targets were affected.

GetDebugString()

• Description: Returns a formatted string containing the current state of the aura, including its radius, tick period, and whether it is active and applying its effect. This is primarily used for debugging purposes.
• Parameters: None.

Events & Listeners

This component pushes the following events on its owner entity:

• startaura: Pushed when the aura tick successfully affects one or more targets, and was not affecting any on the previous tick.
• stopaura: Pushed when the aura tick affects no targets, but was affecting at least one on the previous tick. Also pushed when Enable(false) is called while the aura was applying.