Triggers

BattleTech's encounter system makes use of a Trigger, Condition and Result system.

• A Trigger is an event that is sent out. For example, OnEncounterBegin, OnObjectiveUpdated or OnDialogueComplete
• A Condition is a check on a set criteria to determine if the linked Result should run. For example, if an objective's status is 'Success'
• A Result is an action that is taken. This can be anything like activate another Chunk, enable an Objective, change the Camera focus or fire artillery

If you think of Chunks as the building blocks of a contract type then Triggers introduce the logic that chains the Chunks together. They can listen to things like if a unit enters a region, or if a unit is destroyed - then run an action (named a Result) to do something like activate a new Chunk or end the game, for example.

Very basic contract types, like Solo Duel and Duo Duel do not use Triggers. This is because some Chunks do contain some basic logic associated with them depending on their chunk subtype, such as a DestroyWholeLance that contains a DestroyLance objective in the chunk. For anything more complex, a combination of Chunk logic plus Triggers are required - like for Blackout contract type.

Properties

Property	Required	Default	Details
Name	true	-	Human readable name for the modder to help understand the logic flow
TriggerOn	true	-	Trigger message type name from BT enum MessageCenterMessageType or MC enum of MessageTypes. For example: OnObjectiveUpdated, OnEncounterStateChanged and OnLanceSpawned
Description	true	-	Developer description to help follow the logic flow
Conditionals	true	-	Array of Conditionals. Every time the trigger is activated the Conditionals will be checked for success. If multiple conditionals are provided then ALL must be successful for the trigger to be a success and run the Results action. Conditional examples: AlwaysTrueConditional, ObjectiveStatusConditional, EncounterObjectMatchesStateConditional and DialogueMatchesConditional
Results	true	-	Array of Results. Once a succesful Conditionals check is completed then these Results will run. Results examples: SetState, SetStateAtRandom, SetTeamByLanceSpawnerGuid.

Examples

Below is the general Trigger structure in a simple form. This Trigger is tested when any Objective is updated. If the Objective matches the specified Guid and has been marked as a success, then disable the Region by setting its state to Finished.

{
  "Name": "Trigger_Disable_Region_1",
  "TriggerOn": "OnObjectiveUpdated",
  "Description": "Disable the first region on first objective complete",
  "Conditionals": [
    {
      "Type": "ObjectiveStatusConditional",
      "Guid": "786166e2-22ea-45c1-9786-68df31958bd8",
      "Status": "Success"
    }
  ],
  "Results": [
    {
      "Type": "SetState",
      "EncounterGuid": "e7e9f35b-7ed8-404e-9dae-69be61de2dd3",
      "State": "Finished"
    }
  ]
}