Atrium Overgrowth

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-04

Overview

The atrium_overgrowth prefab represents a static, immobile environmental object placed in the Atrium area (likely the Ruins or Grotto zones) that serves as a lore delivery mechanism. It displays one of five pre-defined story lines sequentially when inspected by a player wearing an item tagged with "ancient_reader". It also acts as a sanity sink, applying a large negative sanity aura, and supports persistent story state across saves. This prefab is built using core entity components including transform, animstate, soundemitter, minimapentity, and network, with additional behavior injected via the inspectable and sanityaura components.

Usage example

-- Instantiate an Atrium Overgrowth entity (typically handled by worldgen)
local inst = CreateEntity()
inst.entity:AddTransform()
inst.entity:AddAnimState()
inst.entity:AddSoundEmitter()
inst.entity:AddMiniMapEntity()
inst.entity:AddNetwork()

inst:AddTag("ancient_text")
inst.AnimState:SetBuild("atrium_overgrowth")
inst.AnimState:PlayAnimation("idle")

-- Attach inspectable and sanity aura components
inst:AddComponent("inspectable")
inst:AddComponent("sanityaura")
inst.components.sanityaura.aura = -TUNING.SANITYAURA_SUPERHUGE

-- Assign custom inspect handlers for story progression
inst.components.inspectable.getstatus = function(inst) ... end
inst.components.inspectable.descriptionfn = function(inst, viewer) ... end

Dependencies & tags

Components used:

• sanityaura (sets aura property)
• inspectable (overrides getstatus and descriptionfn handlers)

Tags:

• Adds "ancient_text" to the entity.
• Checks "ancient_reader" on the inspecting viewer’s inventory (via EquipHasTag).

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
storyprogress	number	nil (initially)	Current story line number (1 to NUM_STORY_LINES). Persisted across saves.
animstate (via AnimState)	read-only	nil	Provides animation state for the overlay’s visual representation.
minimapicon (via MiniMapEntity)	read-only	nil	Set to "atrium_overgrowth.png" for minimap display.

Main functions

rune_AdvanceStory(inst)

• Description: Internal helper that advances the global _storyprogress counter and assigns it to inst.storyprogress. Ensures sequential cycling through story lines.
• Parameters: inst (entity) — the overgrowth instance being inspected.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Uses modulo arithmetic to wrap 1..NUM_STORY_LINES if inst.storyprogress is nil, otherwise increments it.

rune_getstatus(inst)

• Description: Implements inspectable.getstatus. Advances the story line and returns nil (indicating no short status line is displayed).
• Parameters: inst (entity).
• Returns: nil.

rune_getdescription(inst, viewer)

• Description: Implements inspectable.descriptionfn. Returns a localized story line string if the viewer has an item tagged "ancient_reader". Advances the story on successful inspection.
• Parameters:
  • inst (entity) — the overgrowth instance.
  • viewer (entity) — the inspecting player character.
• Returns: A localized string key such as STRINGS.ATRIUM_OVERGROWTH.LINE_3, or nil if viewer lacks "ancient_reader" or story lines are exhausted.
• Error states: No active error handling; relies on STRINGS.ATRIUM_OVERGROWTH table being populated.

rune_onsave(inst, data)

• Description: Saves current story state for persistence.
• Parameters:
  • inst (entity) — the overgrowth instance.
  • data (table) — the save data table passed by TheSim:Save().
• Returns: Nothing.

rune_onload(inst, data)

• Description: Restores saved story state on load; ensures global _storyprogress is at least as high as the loaded value.
• Parameters:
  • inst (entity) — the overgrowth instance.
  • data (table) — the loaded save data.
• Returns: Nothing.

Events & listeners

• Listens to: None explicitly (uses object callbacks like inst.OnSave, inst.OnLoad).
• Pushes: None.

Special considerations

• Network sync: entity:AddNetwork() is used for persistence, but the component itself is not designed for frequent real-time replication. Only master simulation runs the inspectable and sanityaura component logic.
• Story state: A shared global _storyprogress is used across all overgrowth instances to ensure sequential progression of the narrative, rather than per-instance tracking.
• Deprecated alternative: A second prefab, atrium_idol, is also registered but explicitly marked as deprecated in this file. Modders should use atrium_overgrowth.