Question regarding the managing of entities

[glad stratus]

Hi y'all. Im still very much new to Roblox Studios and working my way up with Luau. But one thing that got my attention was the way scripts work. As to my knowledge all scripts get called at the start of the game and do certain things etc.

But how could you use entities? As to my knowledge I would have to store their model and logic somewhere in the world and replicate them when they need to spawn. But how would I go about making their logic only run when spawned and not when they just exist outside of the play area, waiting to be duplicated and spawnd. (Let me know if this is the wrong idea of managin entity models).

That is part one of my question. Part two is "How can you efficiently make scripts comminicate with one another?" I heard about module scripts as a form of "global" script that anyone can call toward. But I dont know if thats the way to go. Like lets say I want a script in a bear comminicate with a script in a tree and make that tree fall down or smth.

And for the last part of my question; "When to use what script and where?"
As far as I know you have normal scripts, module scripts, scripts in the server( serverscript holding thingy ), client scripts( clientscript holding thingy ) and possible more?
But when should I make a script inside the server hold and when in the client? What's the use of normal scripts( the grey ones ) as I could also run them in the server or client hold?

Sorry for all these questions but this is my major confusion from switching from Godot to Roblox Studios. The way scripts comm and where they are stored are just way diff from the Godot engine. And making like three diff posts for this in here seems like overkill.

I am so thankfull for everyone who will try and explain this to my 😂 🙏

[ivory plover]

How to use/manage entities: you could opt for one of the following approaches, first is OOP (Object Oriented Programming), you would have a specific entity class that you can instantiate when needed to spawn that entity and give it functionality and destroy it when it's not needed anymore instead of having a script inside each model. Or the other way which is ECS (Entity Component System) which could be a bit complicated to explain here so I recommend searching up what ECS is to get better understanding of how it works, both have their pros and cons and there are many other ways to handle entities but these are just the two I usually use, as for when to use different kinds of scripts and how to organize them I would say you learn that as time goes by and as you gain more experience, scripts usually handle server sided stuff which need to be replicated to all players, players have no control over server code (unless you give them access to) so it's more secure for handling critical things like purchases, some game logic and to avoid having the player exploiting and manipulating things to gain unfair advantage, local scripts on the other hand run on the client's machine so they have control over them, that's why usually you only handle some things on it like user interface (only seen by the player on his screen) and inputs, and other things, to communicate between the server and client you use remote events/functions, which are used to send data between the client and server, as for module scripts they are usually used for things that are needed by multiple scripts or usually used to split up code for organization and productivity purposes, module scripts return a value which can be accessed by any script that requires it whether it's a script or a local script

I would recommend checking the api docs to understand some things better

[glad stratus]

Ah I see...this is a lot to take in and like you said, I will probably find out most of the things as I go regarding placement n all.

[ivory plover]

have you used unreal engine or unity before ?

[glad stratus]

I have a question, would you be willing to explain more about OOP? As what I am doing atm does not include any fancy AI or complicated logic(im far too early in Luau for that imo) so trying to understand ECS this early would be overkill

[glad stratus]

No.

I have experience with Python and Godot 😄

[ivory plover]

you can take things slow to learn, if you prefer learning from the docs then the roblox api docs are available, if you prefer videos then there is a youtuber on yt called brawldev that teaches roblox api, I recommend getting familiar with luau first before getting to learning the api

[ivory plover]

they might be a bit complicated for beginners, you should learn more of the basics first before getting into those

[glad stratus]

You mentioned api a few times. What is this exactly?

Like what does it mean

[glad stratus]

Ah oke. I do tend to take things fast sometimes. But right now I am trying to include a simple entity that moves from waypoint A to B like a towerdefense game. Where should I store all the info for this thing tho?

[ivory plover]

Application Programming Interface, it is the methods that an app gives you to interact with it

[glad stratus]

oooh that

Thats neat

but not really what I need to focus on atm. Like u said 😅
No point in using api if you can't connect any logic to the interfaces haha

[ivory plover]

well you can first get all the waypoints, then move the entity model to them in order, they should be numbered to know their order, as for moving the character model you can use https://create.roblox.com/docs/reference/engine/classes/Humanoid#MoveTo

[glad stratus]

Ah yes I saw this come by in a video

[ivory plover]

which takes a vector3 or a part and attempts to move the character to it

[worn cliff]

** You are now Level 12! **

[glad stratus]

What is the best position to place/store this model and the logic?( Explorerwise as in what folder or smth? )

[ivory plover]

assets that need to be accessed by both the server and client could be placed in ReplicatedStorage, assets that only need to be accessed by the server could be placed in server storage

[glad stratus]

Like, if I dont want my clients to manipulate the enemie(as in attacking it or smth) it would go in server storage?

while it would go in replicated storage if he does need to or can manipulate it?

[ivory plover]

well he can change things only if you are doing sanity checks on the client and trusting those checks on the server, if the server does it's own checks and never trusts the client then the client can't do anything even if you give them the model

[glad stratus]

huh?

wdym "trusts" the client? 😅

Does having cartain things in certain storages restrict clients from even being able to use them?

(Would be very cool)

[ivory plover]

as I mentioned earlier, it might be a bit hard to understand things with the brief explanation I am giving, I still recommend checking the docs to learn

[ivory plover]

yes, client cannot access things in server storage

[glad stratus]

Okidoki

[glad stratus]

Thats good to know

Oh one thing tho

When I put a model in replicatedstorage, why did it go invisible?

[ivory plover]

only models in workspace are rendered

[glad stratus]

oooh

is there a way to make them render in storage, so you can kinda see whatever you all store there 😅

[ivory plover]

you put instances in other places to store them and clone them or move them when needed

[ivory plover]

nope

[glad stratus]

Then why would you place things in a storage like that? It would be hard to adjust the models and all, no?

Or do people just take them out of storage, alter them, then put it back?

[ivory plover]

nope, you just store the model there and when needed you would clone it and put it in workspace

[glad stratus]

Hmmmm So wait a minute

So when I need the model during runtime I clone it and then put in workspace, no?

(Clone it via accessing the storage)

And what if I need one of them to be there from the very start, do I just put them inside of workspace already while keeping one in storage for during runtime?

[ivory plover]

you would do something like

local enemyModel = ReplicatedStorage.EnemyModel

--- when needed

local newEnemy = enemyModel:Clone()
newEnemy.Parent = workspace```

[glad stratus]

Ah oke. And then alter its position to place it where you want

Makes sense

As I assume after parenting it it would be at (0,0,0)

[worn cliff]

** You are now Level 6! **

[ivory plover]

it would go to the same position it was in before being moved into replicated storage

[glad stratus]

ooh cool

but I would change the position anyways, right?

Cuz it will probably need to be elsewhere

[glad stratus]

Actually thats a stupid question

it totally depends on where I need that model

[glad stratus]

In this scenario?

@ivory plover

[ivory plover]

you can just spawn them in the wanted positions as the game starts

[glad stratus]

that makes sense

[ivory plover]

you could have some kind of indicators to where the models should spawn and just spawn them when the game starts

[ivory plover]

that way you can change the models and maybe their logic by editing a single line of code instead of having to delete those already existing models and replacing them with new ones

[glad stratus]

Oh and another question 😅
I got like a dozen or so models in my project atm inside of workspace, they make up the map atm, but would it be good sport to have like a folder in there called "world" and inside of there "trees", "rocks", etc. To organize them?

[glad stratus]

oh wow

[glad stratus]

that makes sense lol

[ivory plover]

yeah that would be fine, it totally depends on how you want to organize them

[glad stratus]

nice

[ivory plover]

organization helps in the long run when things get big and there are a lot of assets

[glad stratus]

Im still kind off struggling to understand what all the pregiven things are for in the explorer

Like replicatedstorage

serverstorage

serverscriptservice

But I think I might understand them

[ivory plover]

https://create.roblox.com/docs/tutorials

[glad stratus]

So the replicatedstorage are for models that anyone can acces
serverstorage for server only acces
serverscriptservice for scripts that run on the whole server, so anyone can see the changes etc
and starterplaterscripts are logic for client-only. Like showing certain models that only he can see or UI

Is this correct? kinda

[ivory plover]

maybe also check brawldev's course on youtube

[glad stratus]

Definetly, I watched his entire beginner tutorial series

[ivory plover]

yeah kinda correct

[ivory plover]

he has advanced course I believe

[glad stratus]

So I know the verry root Luau now 😄

[glad stratus]

Yup. Will watch that one too one day.