I am an ultra beginner with lua, and I am trying to tweak some of the behaviors to work more in my favor. I can understand the actual lua script fairly well. What puzzles me about it, and what makes it harder for me to understand is the .byc file that comes with it. I do not know how to use the code snippet tool here, so I will name the specific file that I am trying to alter.

The file in question is - run_away_if_hurt.byc

Thanks in advance for any help!

A .byc file in GameGuru is a compiled binary file containing scripts that have been transformed from their original human-readable format (such as .lua) into an optimized binary format for improved performance within the GameGuru engine.

No it isn't.

It is a file containing values that are read by a Lua script to define state engine changes and such like which can then edited by the daft visual behaviour editor doodah.

The Lua script is called masterinterpreter.lua and can be found in the files/scriptbank folder.

All Lua scripts are in plain text format until you make standalone, at which point they are pre-compiled into the byte-code format for security purposes (i.e. so they can't be edited by buyers of the game). Byte-code format does load a tad quicker so gives a small performance improvement over loading the text versions but that is a secondary consideration.

btw, I was to one who added the pre-compiling to the engine way back in the Classic days!

Btw, if you look at the masterinterpeter.lua script and scroll down to the bottom you will find the function masterinterpreter_load.

If you examine this function you will be able to see what the .byc file contains.

you don't edit the byc file yourself, it gets changed / updated by the behaviour editor (in test game -> it's the way you can edit scripts logic without coding)