Information

This page intends to kickstart the knowledge about the general game flow of the survival mode, based on the actual game files and tools.
Many different files will be accessed as well as tools used. The flow will be kept short, as most information inside the files are often self-explanatory.

The structue

The basic structure of the survival mode is separated into 4 chunks:
Setting files, Logic files, the DOM, Lua files

Various setting files

The setting files set the actual flow of the files. These include f.e .campaign files, .mission files.

Logic files (Mission editor)

Logic files can be accessed by the Mission editor which shows the actual graph nodes of the things happening in that logic file.
Each logic file is created to complete a particular task by using a graph flow of it happening.

The DOM (Dynamic Objective Manager)

The actual attack waves are triggered by the DOM. It’s like the game master of the actual survival match.
It sets the wave difficulty, chooses a fitting wave and orders it to spawn at a chosen spawn point.
It does not however, create the waves like an algorithm on the spot, but chooses a wave from a pool of pre-created logic files.

Lua files

As usual, Lua tends to be the backbone of most stuff happening - the same applies here.
The Lua files set the start of the logic files for a biome, the game diffituly rules for the DOM, warmup duration, mission duration, etc.
It connects logic files and difficutly rules to the DOM as well as setting the guidelines of the survival match.

Flow overview

Now that the basic functionalities have been explained, we can list a flow of an exemplary survival match in the jungle biome

1. The game menu initiates the .campaign file e.g. campaigns/survival/jungle.campaign when selecting survival jungle
2. The campaign file contains the initial mission definition - in this case:
   startup_mission_def "survival/jungle"
3. That file can be found as missions/survival/jungle.mission
4. In this file it points to the mission startup script:
   script "lua/missions/survival/survival_jungle.lua"
5. Inside the survival_jungle.lua it activates the initial mission .logic file with:

   MissionService:ActivateMissionFlow("", "logic/missions/survival/default.logic", "default", database )
   

6. Inside the survival_jungle.lua it also sets the DOMs rules script with:

   local rulesPath = GetRulesForDifficulty( "lua/missions/survival/v2/dom_survival_jungle_rules_" )
   MissionService:AddGameRule( "lua/missions/v2/dom_manager.lua", rulesPath )
   

7. The mission flow of logic/missions/survival/default.logic activates the
   logic/missions/survival/warmup.logic file - a bit of custom logic that didn’t fit DOM architecture
8. After the warmup.logic is complete, it activates the DOM which then handles the match waves
9. DOM starts by looking at the default dom rules file - other difficulty specific files derive from it and simply overload the data from the default script:
   \lua\missions\survival\v2\dom_survival_jungle_rules_default.lua
10. After the survival time is over, the DOM is deactivated again and a custom final wave logic is triggered, as found in the logic/missions/survival/default.logic

It’s important to understand that the DOM manages the attack waves by pre-defined logic files.
The waves are not triggered by some supervising logic file.

default.logic overview

DOM start

DOM end