Commands & Lua Console

The console is a simple TextInput UI element.

How Input is Processed

Type in the input field and click Send.
The console differentiates between two types of input:

1. Slash Commands

Any input starting with a / is matched against the Command Registry.
For example, /help will list all built-in commands.

Input field truncates long text

Pasting more than a few lines will silently cut the input and produce an unfinished string near '<eof>' error. Use Scriptum for anything longer than a short expression.

No Enter key

You cannot press Enter to send - you must click the Send button each time.

No output copy

You cannot select or copy text from the console output. All output is also written to consul.output in the game root folder - open it in a text editor.

2. Lua Mode

Anything that does not start with / is treated as raw Lua and executed directly in the game's scripting environment. The full game scripting API is available - you can use the console to register listeners, trigger events, or interact with the internal game model on the fly.

-- Write to the console output
consul.console.write("hello from Lua")

-- Access the game model
local world = consul._game():model():world()
consul.console.write("Factions: " .. world:faction_list():num_items())

Modder & Script Authors

The functions shown above are part of the core ConsulScriptum API. You can use these identical calls in your own external .lua scripts. For a full list of accessible functions, see the Internal API Reference.

Run scripts from Pack Files

You can use the console to execute any script - not just files in your game folder, but also those hidden inside the game's .pack files.

This is perfect for reloading internal game scripts or running one-off files:

dofile("lua_scripts/all_scripted.lua")

If the script fails, the console will print the error message directly to the output.

How it works

The console is not "magic". When you send raw Lua, the system performs a standard Lua execution flow:

1. Your input is parsed into a function via loadstring(cmd).
2. That function is then executed within a pcall(f) to catch errors.

-- Behind the scenes:
local f, err = loadstring(your_input)
if not err then
    pcall(f)
end

This means you are interacting directly with the game's Lua environment just as you would with any other script.

Command history

Previous commands are saved to consul.history (one per line, max 100 entries). Use the on-screen up and down buttons to navigate. The keyboard arrow keys do not work.

Auto-clear

/autoclear toggles automatic clearing of the output area after each command. Useful when running repeated commands and the output gets cluttered.

Available Commands

To view the list of available commands, see Consul Commands.

Custom Commands

To learn how to add custom commands, see How To Add Custom Commands.