Table of Contents

Create Your First Systems

This page is the second beginner path after Create Your First Content.

The first path teaches the basics:

  • one item template
  • one Lua brain
  • one NPC template

This second path teaches small gameplay systems that combine those building blocks into something more useful.

These guides assume:

  • your shard root is ~/moongate
  • the server already runs against --root-directory ~/moongate
  • you can restart the server after changes
  • you can log in with an account that can run in-game admin commands
  • you already know the difference between ~/moongate/** and the repository moongate_data/**

Learning Path

Follow these in order:

  1. Create Your First Item Script
  2. Create Your First Loot Container
  3. Create Your First Scheduled Event
  4. Create Your First Gump
  5. Create Your First Lua Admin Command
  6. Create Your First Plugin
  7. Create Your First C# Admin Command

That order keeps the beginner path clean:

  • item script teaches item behavior
  • loot container teaches template-driven item generation
  • scheduled event teaches shard-level timed logic
  • gump teaches player-facing UI on top of the item script path
  • Lua admin command teaches scripted operator workflows
  • plugin and C# command move into compiled extensions only after the Lua path is clear

Shard Systems

These guides stay inside the shard root:

  • ~/moongate/templates/**
  • ~/moongate/scripts/**

They are the fastest way to add gameplay and operator tools without compiling C#.

Extension Path

The last two guides move into compiled extensions:

Use that path when you need:

  • a real compiled console command
  • plugin-local services or handlers
  • something you do not want to keep in Lua

What You Will Use

Across the phase 2 guides you will only see commands and paths that already exist in the repo:

  • moongate-template validate --root-directory ~/moongate
  • .spawn_item <templateId>
  • dotnet new moongate-plugin ...
  • dotnet build
  • bash scripts/pack-plugin.sh

After These Tutorials

Once you finish this path, the deeper references are here:

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