as it turns out --quiet breaks basically everything. never mind.

build.lua

@@ -1,23 +1,9 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env lua5.2
 -- Initialization
 log = ""
-tA = {...}
-for k,v in ipairs(tA) do
- if type(v) == "string" then
-  if v:sub(1,10) == "--cfgfile=" then
-   cfgfile = v:sub(11)
-  elseif v:sub(1,10) == "--modfile=" then
-   modfile = v:sub(11)
-  elseif v == "--quiet" then
-   quiet = true
-  end
- end
-end
 oldprint=print
 function print(...)
- if not quiet then
  oldprint(...)
- end
  logline = ""
  if #{...} > 0 then
   if #{...} > 1 then
@@ -33,6 +19,16 @@ function print(...)
 end
 print("Initializing and reading configuration")
 ts={}
+tA = {...}
+for k,v in ipairs(tA) do
+ if type(v) == "string" then
+  if v:sub(1,10) == "--cfgfile=" then
+   cfgfile = v:sub(11)
+  elseif v:sub(1,10) == "--modfile=" then
+   modfile = v:sub(11)
+  end
+ end
+end
 ss=""
 cfgfile = cfgfile or "build.cfg"
 modfile = modfile or "modules.cfg"
@@ -121,11 +117,7 @@ if cfg.test == "yes" then
 print("Checking for errors...")
 err={pcall(load,ss)}
 if err[1] ~= true then
- if quiet then
-  io.write(table.unpack(err),"\n")
- else
  print(table.unpack(err))
- end
 else
  print("No errors detected by load()")
 end