Nah, it is a requirement... I could do a bad job at it so our team doesn't fail, but I take pride in my work, so I wanted a useful system.
anyway, I think that all my problems came from not knowing enough about lua and calling
lua_close(L);

thinking it did something else

I should be able to get it working how I need now, once again, thanks for your help

edit:
doesn't everone know, it makes u feel better when you blame someone else