Discover

Reference for gameplay_discover, the main entry point for the "Discover" experience system. Loads curated gameplay experiences (freeroam scenarios and missions) from Lua modules, presents them as paginated cards in the UI, and launches them.

Overview

The Discover system provides curated gameplay experiences accessible from the main menu. Each experience is either a freeroam scenario (spawns vehicles, sets up tasks) or a mission reference. Experiences are organized into versioned pages (e.g., "0.37 Highlights", "New Player Experience").

Exports

Experience Structure

Each experience module (e.g., discover_037.lua) returns:

{
  pageInfo = {
    title = "0.37 Highlights",
    sections = {
      { title = "Freeroam Experiences", type = "freeroam", discoverIds = {...} },
      { title = "Missions", type = "mission", discoverIds = {...} },
    },
    description = { title = "...", description = "...", image = "..." },
    order = -1,  -- Lower = shown first
  },
  experiences = {
    { type = "freeroam", id = "037_limousine", name = "...", trigger = function(M) ... end },
    { type = "mission", id = "037_villaVip", missionId = "italy/arrive/005-villaVip" },
  }
}

How It Works

1. loadDiscovers() scans lua/ge/extensions/gameplay/discover/*.lua and loads all modules
2. Each module registers its experiences in discoversById and page info in pageInfosById
3. getDiscoverPages() builds a sorted page list with formatted experience cards
4. startDiscover(id) launches an experience - either starts a mission or calls the trigger function

Mission Experiences

Mission-type experiences resolve their name, description, and icon from the mission system:

{ type = "mission", id = "my_mission", missionId = "italy/arrive/005-villaVip" }

Freeroam Experiences

Freeroam experiences have a trigger function that sets up the level, spawns vehicles, configures tasks:

{
  type = "freeroam",
  id = "my_experience",
  trigger = function(M)
    freeroam_freeroam.startFreeroamByName("italy", "spawn_town", nil, false, function()
      -- spawn vehicles, set tasks, etc.
    end)
    return true
  end
}

Intro Popups

basicControlsIntroPopup() detects the player's input device (wheel, gamepad, keyboard) and shows a device-specific HTML popup from /gameplay/discover/popups/basicDriving_<device>/content.html. Each popup is shown only once per session.

CLI Support

The game can be launched with -discover <id> to automatically start a discover experience on boot.

Key Behaviors

• setExtensionUnloadMode(M, "manual") - Extension stays loaded permanently
• Discover modules are loaded lazily on first access
• lastDiscover prevents double-loading during level transitions
• Pages are sorted by order field (lower numbers first)
• Default images are provided for experiences without custom thumbnails

See Also

• Gameplay Achievement - Related reference
• Gameplay City - Related reference
• Force Field - Related reference
• Gameplay Systems Guide - Guide