Grass

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-05

Overview

The grass prefab manages renewable grass patches that grow over time, can be harvested (producing cutgrass), and have a chance to morph into grassgekko entities under specific conditions. It integrates with several components: pickable for harvest mechanics, witherable for disease states, lootdropper for loot spawning, and workable for digging. World settings timers (worldsettingstimer) control morphing delays and cycles, ensuring correct behavior under paused or seasonal game states.

Usage example

local inst = SpawnPrefab("grass")
-- Grass is fully initialized with components in its prefab function
-- No further setup required for basic use
-- To manually trigger morphing:
inst.components.worldsettingstimer:StartTimer("morphdelay", 5)

Dependencies & tags

Components used: pickable, witherable, lootdropper, inspectable, workable, worldsettingstimer, herdmember, knownlocations.
Tags: plant, renewable, silviculture, lunarplant_target, witherable (added for optimization), FX, NOCLICK (for grasspartfx only).

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
inst.scrapbook_specialinfo	string	"NEEDFERTILIZER"	Marks the grass as needing fertilizer for the scrapbook.
inst.components.pickable.product	string	"cutgrass"	The primary loot item dropped when harvested.
inst.components.pickable.regentime	number	TUNING.GRASS_REGROW_TIME	Time in seconds for grass to regrow after harvest.
inst.components.pickable.max_cycles	number	TUNING.GRASS_CYCLES	Total number of harvest cycles before becoming barren.
inst.components.pickable.cycles_left	number	TUNING.GRASS_CYCLES	Remaining harvest cycles before barren.

Main functions

dig_up(inst, worker)

• Description: Digs up the grass, spawning loot (either cutgrass or dug_grass depending on withered state) and removing the grass entity. May trigger nearby morphing if the worker is a player passing a luck check.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance; worker (entity) - the entity performing the dig action.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Only proceeds if both pickable and lootdropper components are present.

onregenfn(inst)

• Description: Called when grass regrows after being picked. Animates growth (grow animation) followed by a looped idle animation.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance.
• Returns: Nothing.

makeemptyfn(inst)

• Description: Plays an animation when grass becomes empty (picks depleted but not yet dead). Animations differ if the grass is withered or currently showing idle_dead.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance.
• Returns: Nothing.

makebarrenfn(inst, wasempty)

• Description: Plays an animation when grass becomes barren (no more harvest cycles left). Animations differ if the grass was already empty and/or withered.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance; wasempty (boolean) - whether the grass was already empty before becoming barren.
• Returns: Nothing.

onpickedfn(inst, picker)

• Description: Triggered when grass is picked (harvested). Plays a pickup sound, the picking animation, triggers morph logic on luck success, and transitions animation state.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance; picker (entity) - the entity performing the pick action (typically a player).
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: If picker is nil or not a player, morphing is skipped.

triggernearbymorph(inst, quick, range)

• Description: Finds nearby grass instances within range and triggers morphing or relay timers on eligible grasses, potentially expanding the search radius if none found.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the trigger source; quick (boolean) - whether to use faster morph timers; range (number) - the radius to search.
• Returns: Nothing.

onmorphtimer(inst, data)

• Description: Handles timer completion events (morphing, morphrelay) for morphing grass into grass geckos. Checks density limits and spawns a grassgekko if conditions are met, otherwise delays and re-scans.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance; data (table) - timer event data containing name of completed timer.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Grass is only morphed if not already at max density (TUNING.GRASSGEKKO_MAX_DENSITY) and passes canmorph() check (current animation is idle).

makemorphable(inst)

• Description: Adds worldsettingstimer and related timers (morphdelay, morphing, morphrelay) to enable morphing, and registers the timerdone event listener.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Only adds components/timers if worldsettingstimer is not already present.

ontransplantfn(inst)

• Description: Called when grass is transplanted (e.g., via dig action followed by planting). Makes the grass barren and reinitializes morph timers.
• Parameters: inst (entity) - the grass instance.
• Returns: Nothing.

Events & listeners

• Listens to: timerdone - fires onmorphtimer to handle morphing timers; animover on grasspartfx to remove the entity after animation ends.
• Pushes: loot_prefab_spawned - fired by lootdropper:SpawnLootPrefab when loot is dropped (via dig_up); no direct pushes from grass itself beyond component events.