lua is pretty easy over all, once you get the hang of its its manly just finding the functions to do what you want.
the thing is you cant do lua with out knowing .ini modding, and its hard to get the feedback you need to learn ini modding because lua makes almost all non lua mods pale in comparison. maby mod releases could get divided into ''Mini'' ''Pack''
and ''Beginner'' subforums. This way, polished mini mods could get feedback, the lack of which is what prevents most modders from using the minor mod dump, factions and packs could have a home diffrent from mini mods, enabiling more discussion, and newb modders could finally have a place so that they stopped litter mod making/ mod releases/ minor mod dump, and get the feedback they desperately need to improve minus the flaming.

Problem with Lua mods today is that they become the central attraction, while sprites and code (though most all good Lua mods have excellent specimens of each) are somewhat put into the background.
I don't think this is the fault of the modder or even the community itself, but more the novelty of Lua and all the cool stuff that for a long time back in pre-Lua times we could not do.

Also, I don't think that we will escape from this problem for a good while yet, though perhaps with B24 (assuming it comes out before the predicted "good while") there will be enough novelty on all fronts to put Lua back into balance.

wow lafe i don't even care about the rest of your posts but really I support this ALL THE WAY.

i was making a mod database with a point and I usually never look through the mod section...but all these packs are so terrible. I really do not want 500 actors and ships made by you. i probably want this actor...this actor...and this weapon. none of that other ♥♥♥♥.

please stop with the corporations it makes me sad that I have to bloat my ♥♥♥♥ just to use one of the things you've made that I like

shout outz to all the homies not packing all their ♥♥♥♥ into one archive and actually making a decent thread(i am going to write out the XML for your stuff first)...



no no i disagree. sprites are still the main attraction IMHO. if you make something that looks GOOD i would prefer it over some luamagic piece of crap

Yeah, standalones are great, though i do enjoy my factions.
however, you forget that most ''luamagic crap'' is also very well sprited and ini coded. which is where the problem starts, cause to make innovative stuff in CC you generally need to learn how to make basic stuff.

So uh, where did your argument go? Sounds like you now agree that Lua isn't everything.

His original argument was that Lua was cutting down on new modders. He's also saying that the Lua-infused mods tend to be made very polished on the .ini side as well as the Sparkle Magic side. Which adds to the scary-oh-my-god-this-is-so-hard-I'll-never-be-a-modder-baaaww factor.
SOMGTISHINBAMB factor.

what im saying is that in lua mods, lua is only part of what makes the mod quality. for a lua grapple gun [looking at you cricket] you need to be both an relent ini modder, spriter, and lua magician. but you must learn the modder and spriter parts before you attack lua, which is hard because lua is what most of the modding community gives the most feedback too.

...What?

You can't have Lua without .ini, your argument is invalid.

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His point is that generally, Lua mods are regarded with more esteem than well-done ini mods, and because of that, it's hard to learn and get comments on your ini code when you need Lua to get attention. Stop trying to deny that, because whether or not he's right, that's what he's said and stuck to this whole time.
Personally, I think the misconception here is that it's the Lua making mods more prominent. As you pointed out, most Lua-based mods are well-sprited and well-coded. This is true, and I think this is why Lua mods get more attention - most of them have more effort put in. There are still plenty of ini mods that prove it's not all about Lua, though.
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Not a piece of Lua to be found in most of LFoW's mods, and yet they're all over the place.
The fact is, in the big picture, most people that are downloading mods have no idea what Lua is. Unless you mention that something uses Lua, they probably don't even know. It's a matter of presentation. If you make your mods look good, and you present them well, they will be noticed, downloaded and commented on. A great case study of this is lafe - and I truly mean no offense by this - but notice that everything he makes with decent sprites gets significantly more posts, regardless of content. Why do Crobotech and Darkstorm have such huge post counts on them? They look damn good, and they do it for a whole pack of stuff.
It's the basics of marketing, folks. Make it look good and people will like it more.

i like how all those threads are made by LFOW.

Yeah, me too. It really seems to make sense considering what I said in the next line.

I don't think Lua makes a mod better by itself.
An insta-gib rifle is just about the most easy thing ever, and is less than ten lines of code.

I had programming experience, so getting enough Lua under my belt to make fun stuff has been easy (actually more straightforward than CC's ini). Actually, of ini, spriting, and Lua, I think the most easy one to learn has been Lua, even without the wiki. If you can imagine what you want to happen programmatically, then you can probably find examples of somebody doing the same kind of thing in another existing mod. It's easy to just search my entire modding repository for strings I think could be relevant, and then reading the script it's used in. Time consuming, but you get results.

While it's been said already, there are tons of quality mods that have no Lua at all. I don't know if anyone has used the Jericho missile by deathbringer as an example yet. It's not even that crazy to read through, for ini. My own modifications to it ended up making it work worse, when trying to replace its functions with lua.

I think the biggest block to mod making is organization (maybe time too). Ini is super hard to read straight through and understand, for me anyway.
Function collapsing is invaluable in that kind of "language."

ive been thinking about creating a template for a mod, with modules, devices and actors / dropships.
with the code fully annotated to help with understanding.

but ive not done it yet cause im not sure anyone would actually use it.

StoneCrow, Azukki already did that.