Wizards of Lua

New: A mob can search a path before it walks it: MobEntity:findPath, MobPath and MobEntity:startPathAlong

• mob:findPath(target, options) searches the path startPathTo would start on and returns it as a MobPath, without moving the mob. It returns nil if there is no path at all.
• A MobPath has the read-only fields length, nodes, reachable and target. So a spell can compare the ways to two targets, or see where a way leads, before the mob takes a step.
• Given a list of positions, findPath searches a path that comes by each of them in order: a patrol, or a way around a place the mob should avoid.
• mob:startPathAlong(path, options) starts a task that moves the mob along that path and no other. It doesn't search again: if the mob is held up, the task fails with "unreachable". It doesn't start if the mob isn't on the path ("off_path").

  local a, b = villager:findPath(well), villager:findPath(farm)
  local path = a
  if not (a and a.reachable) or (b and b.reachable and b.length < a.length) then
    path = b
  end
  if path and path.reachable then
    villager:startPathAlong(path)
    villager:awaitTask()
  end
  

New: Hide aspects of a living entity from the players: LivingEntity:setHidden and isHidden

• entity:setHidden(aspect, hidden) hides one aspect, or a list of them, and entity:isHidden(aspect) tells whether one is hidden.
• The aspects are "equipment" (what the entity holds and wears), "arrows" (the arrows and bee stingers that stick in it), "effectParticles", "stepParticles" (the dust of sprinting and landing) and "stepSounds".
• Together with invisible, which hides the body only, nothing gives an entity away any more.
• The entity itself is not changed: it keeps its items and its effects. The settings are not saved. A player keeps them through death and respawn, and loses them at logout.

  local player = spell.owner
  player.invisible = true
  player:setHidden({ "equipment", "arrows", "effectParticles", "stepParticles", "stepSounds" }, true)
  

New: A player can wear another player's skin: Player:setSkin and Player.skin

• player:setSkin(name, timeout) puts on the skin of the player account with that name, also in the middle of a game. The player keeps their own name and UUID. All players see the new skin at once.
• The skin is looked up at Mojang, which needs internet access. The function waits for it, usually less than a second, and returns true, or false and the reason: "not_found", "unavailable", "offline", "replaced" or "timeout".
• player:setSkin(nil) gives the player their own skin back. The read-only player.skin is the name of the player whose skin they wear.
• The skin stays on through death and respawn, and is gone when the player logs out.

  local ok, reason = spell.owner:setSkin("jeb_")
  if not ok then
    print("No skin: " .. reason)
  end
  

New: Player.online

• The read-only player.online tells whether the player is still on the server. It is false once the player has left or was kicked; a dead player is still online.

Change: A reference to a player follows the player through respawn

• A variable that holds a player, and spell.owner, now refer to the respawned player after a death. Before, they kept referring to the dead one, whose position and health no longer changed.
• In an AfterPlayerRespawnEvent, spell.owner therefore equals event.newPlayer, no longer event.oldPlayer.
• A reference doesn't follow a player through logout: a player who logs in again is a new player, and an old reference stays offline, as player.online tells.

Change: MobEntity:startPathTo reaches targets beyond its search range

• A path search looks searchRange blocks ahead, so a path to a distant target, or along a long, winding way, may end short of it. The mob now searches again from where such a path ends, as long as that gets it nearer the target. Before, the mob went no further than the end of that first path.
• task.reachable is false while the current path stops short of the target; the mob may still get there.