Combat roles, interruption and recovery¶
The current opt-in foundation supports ordinary shooters, large elite shooters and the M8 crawler/melee fixture. Shared pressure supplies a purpose; each role retains its own evidence, useful range, paid actions and safe movement. Normal production bindings remain passive, and other specialist attacks remain separate work.
Shooters need their own firing opportunity¶
A report can guide a shooter toward a useful region, but cannot authorize a bolt. Release still checks personal sight/reaction, target lifetime, range, muzzle path, status and the 30° horizontal forward firing arc. The body turns toward a legal shot; broad sensing FOV does not imply firing in every direction. Preparation and recovery are paid once. A launched bolt is owned by its flight service after ordinary shooter death; terminal encounter cleanup cancels hostile effects.
Normal and large elite shooters share these rules with their own native agent/body sizes. A narrow route useful to a normal actor may be unsafe for a large actor. Preferred shooting distance does not forbid safe closer transit on an accepted approach. A full approach faces the legal goal on arrival; an intermediate safe prefix does not falsely report that the approach is complete.
Alerts and teammate clearance¶
Accepted direct damage or a valid original squad report can produce a bounded stationary turn toward captured evidence, including during Breakoff. A separate roaming elite still needs valid cooperation permission for an allied report. Turning grants no personal sight, chase time or firing permission; the enemy must earn its own legal attack. Root/stun, another selected target or an active attack can release that observation; an old consumed alert cannot restart indefinitely.
A shooter with its own unexpired personal sight and current movement permission can make a short safe step when a living teammate blocks eye/muzzle clearance. The productive front shooter keeps useful fire. The rear actor shares two attempts, 4 m reserved travel and 3 s reserved action time inside one original window of at most 6 s. Each accepted action reserves its full cost even if cancelled. Only the authored fresh-combat reset can reopen it; alerts, retries and elapsed time cannot. All support, collision, actor occupancy, claims and cycle limits remain. No touching-teammate or wall-crossing exception is granted.
M8 crawler: a committed attack can miss¶
The crawler approaches to its own melee range rather than inheriting shooter stand-off. A valid paid attack confirms Fight immediately, even if the player dodges its later contact. The readable windup, commitment, finite lunge and paid recovery provide the avoidance opportunity; a miss is not a free retry.
| Captured OrdinaryMeleeAttack field | Baseline |
|---|---|
| Damage / close reach | 20 / 1.5 m |
| Lunge admission range | 3.5 m |
| Maximum lunge distance / duration | 2 m / 0.2 s |
| Preparation / commitment / recovery | 0.35 s / 0.12 s / 0.5 s |
| Attack cooldown / lunge cooldown | 1.2 s / 2.5 s |
These fields have separate meanings; they are not a single summed attack timer. The fixture captures its definition at initialization. Admission range is not guaranteed contact range, and native safety can shorten or reject movement.
Commitment locks the attack's paid intent rather than steering after a late dodge. Root before an out-of-range attack cannot buy an unreachable stationary strike. Valid close contact and already paid lunge/recovery retain their own rules; control effects do not refund cost or create a new target/heading. Wall, edge, support, collision and exact target/actor/run/stage lifetime checks remain required.
M8 implementation and automated qualification are recorded; mixed melee/shooter feel, moving lunge readability, host/remote cues and independent two/four-player acceptance remain in the playtesting checklist.
M7: recover first, retire only when safely hidden¶
An expired pursuit is not proof an enemy is stranded. M7 separately gathers actual completed route/capability assessments across living players. A reachable alternate player or useful legal attack prevents false retirement. Unknown/deferred queries, temporary blockage, root/stun and paid recovery do not become failed alternatives or eligible inability time. Reassessment preserves wounds, cooldowns and earned space; it does not teleport, heal or refill pursuit.
The recovery policy requires bounded completed alternatives and eligible inability time, with all supplied target/candidate slots accounted for. Its baseline includes at least eight eligible seconds and a three-second/one-metre meaningful-progress trigger; clocks alone never substitute for the required assessments.
Only eligible ordinary actors can retire. Bosses and explicitly protected custom actors retain their own policy. Execution rechecks lifetime, opportunity and actual observer visibility, including downed observers. Unsupported, stale or uncertain view/occlusion evidence keeps the actor present. A visible actor cannot disappear merely because a route failed.
Retirement is nonlethal despawn: release live capacity once, with no kill, loot/progression reward, split, spawn-credit refund or immediate replacement. Future purchases still follow normal income/cadence. All-down, encounter close, stage transition and session cleanup retain their separate lifecycle owners. Human visible/hidden comparisons remain open.
Extension boundary¶
M9 Bombardier is the next roster role, gated by the M6–M8 prerequisites or an explicit exception. Keeper, Lancer, Bulwark, Splinterbeast/children and boss attacks remain separate milestones. Their retained visuals, catalogue definitions, credit cards or ledger contracts do not establish implemented role behavior or production promotion.
Source: bolt owner, melee owner, melee definition, alert positioning, ally clearance, recovery policy, retirement guard, M7 execution, implementation roadmap.