Wanda

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-07

Overview

The wanda prefab implements the core logic for Wanda’s unique aging mechanic in DST. As Wanda’s health fluctuates, she transitions between three age states: young, normal, and old. These transitions dynamically modify her physical appearance (skin), movement/build speed, Hammer effectiveness, Sanity gain multiplier, maximum health/hunger/sanity, and special behaviors (e.g., Pocket Watch recall, shadow item damage, and warp distance). It leverages the oldager, positionalwarp, staffsanity, skinner, and combat components to achieve this behavior.

Key dependencies include:

• oldager: Handles age-based damage calculation (aging is treated inversely to health).
• positionalwarp: Manages the Pocket Watch warp-back system with varying history cache sizes per age state.
• skinner: Updates Wanda’s character model based on overrideskinmode.
• staffsanity: Applies health-state-dependent Sanity modifiers.
• combat: Applies health-state-dependent damage multipliers and visual effects for shadow weapons.

Usage example

This is not a reusable component. It is instantiated automatically via MakePlayerCharacter("wanda", ...) in prefabs/player_common.lua. However, modders may observe its behavior through events and component interactions.

-- Example of observing Wanda's age transitions (typically done in a mod)
local function onWandaAgeChange(inst, data)
    print("Wanda is now " .. (inst.age_state or "unknown"))
end

inst:ListenForEvent("becomeolder_wanda", onWandaAgeChange)
inst:ListenForEvent("becomeyounger_wanda", onWandaAgeChange)

Dependencies & tags

Components used:
oldager, positionalwarp, staffsanity, skinner, combat, health, hunger, sanity, inventory, foodaffinity, talker, rider

Tags added:
clockmaker, pocketwatchcaster, health_as_oldage
(in non-Lua Dedicated environments only: quagmire_shopper when in Quagmire mode)

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
age_state	string	nil → "normal" after spawn	Current age state: "young", "normal", or "old". Set/changed by age-threshold logic.
overrideskinmode	string	nil	Temporary skin override; set to "young_skin", "normal_skin", or "old_skin" during state changes.
talksoundoverride	string | nil	nil	Sound override for speech; set per age state (e.g., "wanda2/characters/wanda/talk_old_LP").
_no_healing	boolean	true	Internal flag preventing standard healing; health.canheal is set to false.

Main functions

becomeold(inst, silent)

• Description: Transitions Wanda into the old age state. Increases health (scaled), reduces movement/build speed, lowers Hammer effectiveness, applies old-age Sanity multiplier, sets talk sound override, and adjusts warp-back distance.
• Parameters:
  silent (boolean) — If true, suppresses visual FX, sounds, and speech announcement.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Exits early if inst.age_state == "old".

becomenormal(inst, silent)

• Description: Transitions Wanda into the normal age state. Resets most stats to baseline, restores default talk sound, and resets warp distance.
• Parameters:
  silent (boolean) — If true, suppresses FX and announcements.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Exits early if inst.age_state == "normal".

becomeyoung(inst, silent)

• Description: Transitions Wanda into the young age state. Increases health (scaled), improves build speed, restores default Hammer effectiveness, applies young-age Sanity multiplier, sets talk sound override, and adjusts warp distance.
• Parameters:
  silent (boolean) — If true, suppresses FX and announcements.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Exits early if inst.age_state == "young".

onhealthchange(inst, data, forcesilent)

• Description: Core age-threshold callback. Monitors health:GetPercent() and triggers age-state transitions using thresholds defined in TUNING.WANDA_AGE_THRESHOLD_*. Ensures transitions only occur when appropriate and respects silentmorph and visibility flags.
• Parameters:
  data (table) — Event data (unused directly).
  forcesilent (boolean) — If true, overrides visibility to enforce silent transitions.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: Exits early if nomorph state tag is present, the entity is dead, or playerghost tag exists.

GetEquippableDapperness(owner, equippable)

• Description: Provides Shadow-item Sanity dapperness multiplier based on Wanda’s age state. Applies resistance scaling (e.g., WANDA_SHADOW_RESISTANCE_OLD) to items with the shadow_item tag.
• Parameters:
  owner (Entity) — Wanda’s inst.
  equippable (Entity) — The item being evaluated.
• Returns: number — Final dapperness value (scaled if shadow item, unchanged otherwise).

CustomCombatDamage(inst, target, weapon, multiplier, mount)

• Description: Custom combat damage multiplier based on weapon type (shadow_item) and age state. Applies WANDA_SHADOW_DAMAGE_* for shadow weapons and WANDA_REGULAR_DAMAGE_* for others. Non-mounted combat only.
• Parameters:
  inst (Entity) — Wanda’s inst.
  target, weapon, multiplier, mount — Standard combat callback parameters.
• Returns: number — Damage multiplier (1 for mounted combat, otherwise per-age scaling).

OnGetItem(inst, data)

• Description: Hooks into itemget/equip events to mark Pocket Watch items as keepondeath, keepondrown, and nosteal (to visually attach them to her outfit).
• Parameters:
  data (table) — Event data containing item.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnLoseItem(inst, data)

• Description: Hooks into itemlose/unequip to revert Pocket Watch properties (keepondeath, keepondrown, nosteal).
• Parameters:
  data (table) — Event data containing item.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnWarpBack(inst, data)

• Description: Handles Pocket Watch recall logic. If data.reset_warp is true, resets the positional warp history; otherwise, rewinds to the last recorded history position. Triggers delayed speech after recall (if idle).
• Parameters:
  data (table) — Event data; may contain reset_warp.
• Returns: Nothing.

UpdateSkinMode(inst, mode, delay)

• Description: Delegates to skinner:SetSkinMode(mode, "wilson"). Supports delayed skin updates via task scheduling if delay is truthy; cancels pending tasks on re-entry.
• Parameters:
  mode (string) — Skin mode: "young_skin", "normal_skin", "old_skin".
  delay (boolean) — Whether to delay update by ~15 frames.
• Returns: Nothing.

PlayAgingFx(inst, fx_name)

• Description: Spawns and parents aging FX (oldager_become_older_fx, etc.), appending _mount suffix if Wanda is riding (via rider:IsRiding()).
• Parameters:
  inst (Entity) — Wanda’s inst.
  fx_name (string) — Base FX prefab name (e.g., "oldager_become_younger_front_fx").
• Returns: Nothing.

Events & listeners

• Listens to:
  healthdelta — Triggers onhealthchange to monitor health-based age transitions.
  newstate — Triggers onnewstate to resume age monitoring after exiting nomorph states.
  ms_becameghost / ms_respawnedfromghost / ms_playerseamlessswaped — Manages transition between ghost/human states and initializes age logic.
  itemget, equip, itemlose, unequip — Manages Pocket Watch properties.
  onwarpback — Triggers OnWarpBack for recall behavior.
  show_warp_marker, hide_warp_marker — Enables/disables the warp-back marker.
• Pushes:
  becomeolder_wanda, becomeyounger_wanda — Custom events fired during age transitions (usually with inst.sg:PushEvent(...)).