Scripting Guide

The syntax of variant of AngelScript used in Gothic 1 Remake can probably be best described as a mix between C# and C++. If you’ve used a C-family language before, it should feel somewhat familiar to you.

Object Nullchecks

Unreal AngelScript deliberately made the choice to not support this pattern:

if (!SomeObject) { ... } // Does not work
if (SomeObject) { ... } // Does not work

instead, you’ll have to be explicit if you really want a nullcheck

if (SomeObject == nullptr) { ... }
if (SomeObject != nullptr) { ... }

however, in general, it is cleaner to just use IsValid instead:

if (!IsValid(SomeObject)) { ... }
if (IsValid(SomeObject)) { ... }

StaticClass

All UObject-derived types have a ::StaticClass() static member function that returns the type’s UClass. To not have hundreds of ::StaticClass() sprinkled throughout the scripts, the class name itself has been made to act as a global variable set to the class itself.

So these two are the same:

UClass Test1 = UMyObject;                 // New, shorter style
UClass Test1 = UMyObject::StaticClass();  // Old explicit style

This was a feature that was added later during development, so you will still find ::StaticClass() being used in the scripts, but in general, prefer the shorter variant.

Automatic return type deduction

Template support is limited to data-types, i.e. TArray<>, TSet<> etc. There is no function template support in the language at all. The odd one out is Cast<>, which is not really a function template but a language feature.

On many native bindings, the script engine can be instructed to change the return type of a function to match the type of a UObject or TSubclassOf, so that you don’t need to do another cast.

For example:

// Bad: Useless extra cast, GetTypedOuter already returns the right type
AActor OuterActor = Cast<AActor>(GetTypedOuter(AActor));
AGothicCharacter OuterCharacter = Cast<AGothicCharacter>(GetTypedOuter(AGothicCharacter));
UTextBlock TextBlock = Cast<UTextBlock>(NewObject(this, UTextBlock));

// Good: Return type is inherited from the passed class
AActor OuterActor = GetTypedOuter(AActor);
AGothicCharacter OuterCharacter = GetTypedOuter(AGothicCharacter);
UTextBlock TextBlock = NewObject(this, UTextBlock);