A bunch of questions I've come across in my first week:

Note: I'm using the free version of Construct 3

1. I suspect that the free version only lets me have one function because I cannot create another one but the comparison chart of the different versions doesn't mention this at all. Am I right or am I missing something?

2. I have a ton of global variables at the top of my main event sheet. Is there a better way of approaching this? I am working on something that will probably exist mostly within one layout but I don't really know best practices for using multiple event sheets.

3. I learned last night about using instance variables on text and storing stuff in there so I can display it directly on the text. I was previously doing it with a global variable and then setting the text to display that. Which is the better way?

4. I'm building a strategy/idle/management style game thats going to have values calculated and compounded frequently and constantly. I currently have those basic events set to go every X seconds with the System>Every X seconds event. Is there a better way of doing this?

2. Read this article about issues with using too many global variables, it has a few good points:

http://tobyr.wtfgamesgroup.com/c2-plugi ... variables/

You can create groups of events and define local variables, they will be accessible only from their groups.

You can add "temporary" local variables inside of event or functions.

Note, that these variables don't always keep their value, so if you want them to preserve the value between calls, you should tick "Static".

3. Instance variables are great! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile"> You should use instance variables whenever possible.

You can attach instance variables to different objects, not just sprites or text. I use them with arrays, dictionaries, some other plugins.

That Globals plugin advertised in the above link is basically an abstract empty object, used only as a storage for instance variables.

4. Every X seconds is OK to use in some cases. If you want a better control, use Timer behavior - you can run independent timers per object, per instance, stop/restart timer.

1. You only need to add the Function plugin once. Then you add "On function" events, giving each function a name. There is no limit.

dop2000: great reading, thank you!

blackhornet: that makes way more sense! thank you! I thought it was a really weird arbitrary restriction. It also explains why I was having such a hard time finding the .Param() when I first started building my function. I had named the Function plugin something very specific and it wasn't coming up when I typed Function into the auto complete field.

Side note: Is there an active community for live chat? I'd love to be able to just ask a question in a chat room and get a quick answer. Especially since I'm pretty green and creating a forum topic for every small thing would be a little overkill.

After all of this time, I have never been able to figure out how to even create a local variable properly.

This Global plugin addon looks like a great solution that I will definitely try.

Although I just discovered this myself and have no idea if there are active users.

(Edit: There are, in chat at least)