Cavelightmoon

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

Overview

cavelightmoon is a prefab template responsible for rendering cave-specific moonlight and optionally spawning molebats when players approach. It dynamically adjusts light radius, intensity, falloff, and color based on the current cave phase (day, dusk, night, fullmoon) and world settings. When configured as a spawner (the default normalfn variant), it also listens for player proximity and dispatches molebat allies with a configurable cooldown. It relies on networked state (net_tinybyte) to synchronize light phase changes across the client-server boundary.

Usage example

-- Instantiate the default spawner variant
local inst = SpawnPrefab("cavelightmoon")

-- Example: adjust spawner behavior at runtime
if inst.components.spawner then
    inst.components.spawner:CancelSpawning()
    inst.components.playerprox:SetDist(8, 15)
    inst.components.playerprox:SetOnPlayerNear(function(self_inst, player)
        -- custom handler if needed
    end)
end

Dependencies & tags

Components used: combat, playerprox, spawner, light, animstate, transform, network Tags: daylight, FX, NOCLICK, sinkhole

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
widthscale	number	0.7 (normal), 0.4 (small), 0.2 (tiny)	Scales the light radius and visual size; smaller values may disable light in certain phases.
_lightphase	net_tinybyte	—	Networked light phase ID, drives lightphasedirty event.
_currentlight, _startlight, _endlight	table	{}	Internal tables storing lerp state for smooth light transitions.
_lighttask	task	nil	Task reference for periodic light updates.
_player_spawn_target	Entity	nil	Target player used by the spawner’s onvacate callback to direct spawned molebats.

Main functions

OnUpdateLight(inst, dt)

• Description: Called periodically to interpolate light properties between start and end phases and update the visual representation. Resets and cancels the task when the transition completes.
• Parameters: inst (Entity), dt (number, time since last frame).
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: None documented; assumes inst._startlight, inst._endlight, and inst._currentlight are properly initialized.

OnLightPhaseDirty(inst)

• Description: Triggered by lightphasedirty event (client-side) or world state changes (server-side). Updates light parameters for the new cave phase, beginning a transition if parameters changed.
• Parameters: inst (Entity).
• Returns: Nothing.

OnCavePhase(inst, cavephase)

• Description: Server-side callback for cavephase world state changes. Determines the effective moonlight phase (including special handling for small lights and full moons) and updates the networked light phase ID.
• Parameters: inst (Entity), cavephase (string: "day", "dusk", "night").
• Returns: Nothing.

OnCaveFullMoon(inst, fullmoon)

• Description: Server-side callback for iscavefullmoon world state changes. Activates the fullmoon light phase when a full moon occurs in the caves.
• Parameters: inst (Entity), fullmoon (boolean).
• Returns: Nothing.

onvacate(inst, child)

• Description: Spawner callback invoked when a spawned molebat entity vacates this spawner’s space. Instructs the molebat to fall and suggests the last nearby player as its combat target.
• Parameters: inst (Entity, the spawner), child (Entity, the spawned molebat).
• Returns: Nothing.

on_player_near(inst, player)

• Description: Player proximity callback for spawners. Initiates a new molebat spawn with a random delay (5–10 seconds) if no spawn is pending.
• Parameters: inst (Entity, the spawner), player (Entity).
• Returns: Nothing.

Events & listeners

• Listens to: lightphasedirty (client) — triggers OnLightPhaseDirty.
• Pushes: lightphasedirty (server) — fired when _lightphase changes, to synchronize phase on clients.
• Listens to world state changes: cavephase, iscavefullmoon (server only).
• World state watched: cavephase, iscavefullmoon (server).