Collectable

A Collectable is the practical parent for all floating pickups in space. The collectable datatype itself declares no properties — its job is to anchor the hierarchy of concrete collectables (ammo, wares, blueprints, data).

Inheritance: component → destructible → object → drop → collectable.

Why this exists separately from drop: vanilla’s find_object class="class.collectable" is the conventional “find pickup-able items” query. Using class.drop would also work (drop is parent) but vanilla never does — collectable is the on-ramp.

Properties

There are no collectable-specific properties. Use:

Inherited from object: .sector, .zone, .position, .owner
Inherited from destructible: .hull

The subtype determines what’s inside (Collectableammo, Collectablewares, etc.).

Common patterns

”Find all collectables in a zone”

<find_object
    groupname="$PickupTargets"
    class="class.collectable"
    space="$Zone"
    multiple="true"/>

Pattern from vanilla rml_collect_crates.xml:202.

”Exclude collectables from a generic find”

Vanilla scenario_advanced.xml:1570 shows the exclusion idiom:

<do_if value="not $asteroidshards.{$i}.isclass.collectable">
    <!-- this is a non-collectable shard — keep it -->
</do_if>

Used when picking objects but wanting to skip floating pickups.

”Branch by collectable subtype”

<do_if value="$collectable.isclass.collectablewares">
    <!-- ware-style pickup -->
</do_if>
<do_elseif value="$collectable.isclass.collectableammo">
    <!-- ammo-style pickup -->
</do_elseif>
<do_elseif value="$collectable.isclass.collectableblueprints">
    <!-- blueprint-style pickup -->
</do_elseif>
<do_elseif value="$collectable.isclass.collectabledata">
    <!-- data-style pickup -->
</do_elseif>

Events

Collectable lifecycle uses standard object events:

Event	When	Notes
`event_object_destroyed`	Picked up or expired	Player flies over → “destroyed” via collection

There’s no separate “collected” event — destruction with appropriate killmethod is the proxy.

Common gotchas

⚠ Collectable declares NO datatype properties. Read the subtype for actual data.
⚠ Vanilla uses class.collectable for filters, not class.drop. Both work (drop is parent); collectable is the convention.
⚠ Pickup is destructive. Player flying over a collectable destroys it. Don’t expect persistent references after collection.

Drop — parent abstract class.
Collectableammo / Collectablewares / Collectableblueprints / Collectabledata — concrete subtypes.