armor-shred

Sabot Rounds

What it is

Sabot Rounds is a stat-category artifact that pulses on a timer. Every few seconds it applies an armor-shred status to every enemy within a radius around the ship, increasing the damage those enemies take from subsequent hits. The shred is a stacking status with a per-tier stack cap and duration, so steady uptime requires staying inside the radius long enough for stacks to accumulate before the previous pulse expires.

Identity

Field	Value
Display name	Sabot Rounds
Category	stat
Icon	🔨
Primary color	aa6633
Secondary color	#774422
Bright/highlight color	cc8844
Damage tag	None (type-agnostic)
Trigger	timer (repeats forever once the artifact is equipped)
Status applied	shredded (per-stack armor reduction on the target)

Per-tier values

Tiers are indexed by rarity. The four authored tiers cover uncommon through legendary; the runtime prepends a fifth “common” tier that reuses the uncommon row’s values and only differentiates via the smaller flat passive bonus.

Rarity	Pulse interval (s)	Pulse radius (px)	Shred per stack	Max stacks	Status duration (s)
Common	4	350	14%	5	6
Uncommon	4	350	14%	5	6
Rare	4	425	18%	6	6
Epic	3	500	22%	7	7
Legendary	3	600	30%	8	8

At maximum stacks the total armor shred on a target is the per-stack value times the stack cap (e.g. legendary = 30% × 8 = 240% total shred applied to the target’s armor).

Effect

Trigger: a repeating timer keyed to the tiered pulse interval. The first pulse fires after one interval has elapsed and then repeats indefinitely for the duration of the run.

When the timer fires, the artifact runs the following actions in order:

Action	Effect
Area status apply	Applies the shredded status to every enemy inside the tiered radius, centered on the ship. Each application adds one stack of the status, up to the tiered max stacks, and (re)sets the per-target duration to the tiered status duration.
Primary VFX	Plays a burst-and-ring effect in the artifact’s bright color: 24 particles, scale 4.5, lifetime 0.40 s.
Artifact flash	Flashes the artifact’s HUD icon to signal the proc.
Banner	Shows the artifact’s banner the first time it procs in a run.

The status itself does no damage — it lowers the target’s effective armor so that incoming player damage hits harder. Targets that leave the radius keep any stacks they already have until the per-target status duration expires.

Stacking rules

Rule	Behavior
Max stacks per target	Tiered (5 → 8 across uncommon → legendary).
Stack accumulation	Every pulse that catches a target adds one stack, up to the cap. Stacks above the cap are ignored.
Per-stack magnitude	Tiered (14% → 30% shred per stack).
Status duration per target	Tiered (6 → 8 s). Each pulse that lands on a target refreshes its duration to the full tier value.
Multiple targets	The pulse hits every enemy in the radius simultaneously; each target tracks its own stack count and duration independently.
Pulse cadence vs. status duration	At every tier the status duration is longer than the pulse interval, so an enemy that stays in the radius accumulates stacks pulse-over-pulse until it hits the cap.
Tier upgrades	Replace the per-tier values record wholesale at run start; tier does not change mid-run.

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Summary: Sabot Rounds pulses every 3-4 seconds on a fixed timer, applying a stacking armor-shred status to every enemy in a tiered radius around the ship. Interval, radius, per-stack shred, max stacks, and status duration all scale with tier (legendary: 3 s interval, 600 px radius, 30% per stack, 8 stacks, 8 s duration). The status duration always exceeds the pulse interval, so targets that stay inside the radius ramp to max stacks within a few pulses; targets that leave keep their stacks until the duration expires.

EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags:

• The “5th common tier reuses uncommon values and differentiates via flat passive bonus” rule is shared across all artifacts and belongs on the artifacts roll-up page, not duplicated per entity.
• The FLAT_BONUS_PCT_BY_TIER table (10 → 50 across common → legendary) is engine-wide and should live on the artifacts overview / authoring guide.
• The shredded status itself (per-stack armor multiplier, stack-cap behavior, duration refresh on reapply) is a generic combat primitive that other sources may apply. Candidate concept page: concepts/status-shredded.md or a broader concepts/status-effects.md.
• The apply_status_aoe action (ship-centered radius, per-target stack tracking, max-stacks cap, duration refresh) is a shared primitive used by multiple artifacts and should live on the artifact authoring guide.
• The trigger: timer pattern (repeating interval keyed to a $interval per-tier value) recurs across timer-pulse artifacts and belongs on the authoring guide.
• The burst_and_ring VFX type and the flash_artifact action are shared primitives across many artifacts — canonical reference belongs on the artifact authoring guide.
• The showBanner: true first-proc banner behavior is shared across artifacts and belongs on the roll-up.
• Color-palette schema (primary / secondary / bright) is shared across all artifacts; only the values are per-entity.