Creating New Spells

New spells are intended to be simple to add, if they do not do esoteric things. In particular spells that deal damage, heal, apply a buff, debuff or absorb shield, or combine these elements, should be fairly simple to implement. To add a new spell, a few steps are required.

Creating the Database Entry
The spell database data/db_spells.json needs to be appended with an entry for the new spell. This is done by creating a new entry with a new unique ID, and specifying the key and value pairs. Which keys are required depends on the type of spell that is added. More information can be found here.

The spell also needs to be added to the spell_list of the unit or interactable that should use the spell, in either the data/db_stats_player.json file, the data/db_stats_npc.json file, or the data/db_stats_interactable.json file.

Creating the Spell Scene
Every spell needs an associated scene. The scene consists of a node of type Node, which has to be named spell_[id], where [id] is replaced by the ID of the spell. This scene will then be added to the spell container of the unit that should have the spell available.

Creating the Spell Script
Every spell scene needs an attached spell script that handles the triggering of the spell. The script should inherit from the BaseSpell class, which contains some core functionality. The _ready function of the spell script should call initialize_base_spell with the spell ID as the argument. This creates the dictionaries that contain the spell data, and the cooldown timer. The script should further contain a trigger function, which determines the source and target of the spell, and goes through a number of checks that determine whether the spell can actually be used when it is triggered. The standard checks, such as whether the spell is already on cooldown, whether the target is within range, etc., are contained in the BaseSpell class. After the checks, if the spell can be triggered, the resource cost can be applied using the update_resource function of BaseSpell, and a combat event can be sent using Combat.combat_event_entrypoint or Combat.combat_event_aura_entrypoint, depending on the type of spell.

Note: Spells that increase the maximum health of a target by applying a buff should in principle also send a second combat event to heal the target for that amount. This is done to avoid reducing the health percentage every time such a buff is applied, and to make sure that a tank increasing his maximum health is also healed for that amount, as doing otherwise might feel clunky. If the heal component is not added, it should be carefully reasoned why not. The heal spell requires a separate spell dictionary to be created, which requires the spelltype key to be set to "heal", and requires the name and can_crit keys. If no value is prescribed (which can be constructed from the buff data), more keys are required to function as a healing spell. Spell ID 8 (Player Test Buff) is an example of a buff that increases maximum HP.