LUAAdvice

Advice LUA's are an important type of LUA. They are composed of 4 blocks total.

Specification

Start Block

Dofile("filename.lua") -- load this file before parsing and executing

Helper block

This block contains helper functions. Helper functions do things based on LUA system script and constants from advices such as a.type.

function create_advice_transportation_with_base(guid_string, base_advice)
   local a =  advices : create_advice(tonumber(guid_string, 16), base_advice)
   a.type = advice_types . TRANSPORTATION
   return a
end

Advice Block

The following is an annotated Advice Block for a game advice to build roads upon the start of a new city. It demonstrates the commands used in this block, and potential values for these commands. Any of the following necessary things may be used.

a = create_advice_transportation('2a355b3b')
      -- Advice ID to create.
a.trigger  = "game.g_month > 3"
      -- Triggers for this advice. For example, game months over 3.
a.once = 1
      -- Execute this advice only once per game.
a.timeout = tuning_constants.ADVICE_TIMEOUT_MEDIUM
      -- How long the advice takes to timeout.
a.title = [[text@ea50e830  Celebrate City Birth--Roads Make Perfect Gift]]
      -- Text reference for LTEXT in locale.dat to use as the title, otherwise show this title.
a.message   = [[text @aa50e837  Greetings, Mayor. I'm Glint Wheels, your transit man,
                here to give you the skinny on moving in the city. You can really put
                a shine on #city# by placing some roads in good spots. And think of the
                city's zones--the exchange of goods and services can't go anywhere unless
                they're connected by roads. You could even zip a road 'round each zone--touring
                your great city will be easier than ever, and your Sims will be singing with the tops down.]]
      -- Text reference for LTEXT in locale.dat to use as the message, otherwise show this message.
      -- Note the use of the variable #city# in the above text - LTEXTs can support variables and HTML code.
a.priority = tuning_constants.ADVICE_PRIORITY_MEDIUM
      -- Advice priority on the list.
a.mood = advice_moods.GREAT_JOB
      -- Advisor S3D model mood.
a.type = advice_types.TRANSPORTATION
      -- Advice type.
a.frequency = tuning_constants.ADVICE_FREQUENCY_MEDIUM
      -- Frequency to show advice.
a.news_only = 1
      -- Show in news ticker only, not with advisers.
a.event = game_events.NEW_CITY
      -- Execute advice on this event.

End Block

This will try to execute triggers for all registered advices to make sure they don't have any syntactic errors.

if (_sys.config_run == 0) -- if the config option is set to 0 in the _sys.lua, then
then
   advices : run_triggers() -- Activate all triggers
end

Section Declaration Table

Here's the section declaration table for all advice.

base_advice = 
{
   _base = nil,     -- no base advice for itself
   guid = 0,        -- this will be persisted in saved games and will have to be set to each advice by hand. 
   class_id = hex2dec("8a09f5f4"), -- C++ advice class ID (cSC4Advice class by default) 
   type = advice_types . NULL,     -- NULL types never get triggered 
   mood = advice_moods . NEUTRAL,
   priority = 100,  -- 0 to 100 scale, 100 = highest
   title = "",
   message = "",
   frequency = 720, -- in days, 30 days min.
   timeout = 36000, -- in days, disappear message
   trigger = "0",   -- never trigger this one
   once = 0,        -- show this advice only once
   news_only = 0,   -- set to 1 for news ticker messages only 
   event = 0,       -- this has to be a valid event ID (see constants file for the event table.)
   command = 0,     -- game command to trigger along with the advice message
   persist = 0,     -- if 1, message will remain visible once triggered whether or not trigger condition remains true
                       (useful for random triggers)
   effects = {}     -- Here is the format: a.effects = {effects.POOR_FIRE_COVERAGE, effects.UNHAPPY_SIMS}
}

These are the things that can be called during an advice. You've seen an actual advice sample above so this should be easy enough to understand.