shield-break-nova

Failsafe Core

What it is

A unique reactive artifact that turns taking damage into a counter-attack. Whenever the ship is hit, the core releases a shockwave that damages and knocks back nearby enemies, and the ship gains a short burst of extra max speed to reposition. The proc is gated by a cooldown so chip damage cannot trigger it on every frame.

Identity

Field	Value
Display name	Failsafe Core
Category	Unique
Icon	💥
Primary color	4488ff
Secondary color	2255cc
Bright/highlight color	88bbff
Damage tag	None (type-agnostic)
Proc audio cue	Plays the artifact’s dedicated shockwave sound on every proc.

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 adds a smaller flat passive bonus.

Rarity	Shockwave damage	Shockwave radius	Knockback force	Speed boost (added to max speed)
Common	150	375	90	+35%
Uncommon	150	375	90	+35%
Rare	250	480	120	+50%
Epic	400	600	150	+65%
Legendary	600	750	225	+85%

Effect

Trigger: the player-damage signal (fires whenever the ship takes damage).

Cooldown between procs: 8.0 seconds.

When the cooldown is clear and the ship takes damage, the artifact runs the following actions in order:

Action	Effect
Area damage	Deals the tiered flat damage to every enemy inside the tiered radius, centered on the ship.
Knockback	Pushes every enemy inside the same radius outward with the tiered knockback force.
Max-speed modifier	Adds the tiered speed boost to max speed as a percent modifier, lasting 4 seconds.
Primary VFX	Plays a dual-ring burst in the artifact’s primary and bright colors at scales 10.0 and 5.0.
Particle burst	Emits 40 particles in the bright color at speed 220.
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 shockwave and the speed buff resolve on the same trigger, so each proc both clears the ship’s immediate space and lets it escape the follow-up.

Stacking rules

Rule	Behavior
Max stacks	1
Stacking mode	Refresh — a fresh proc replaces the existing speed buff, resetting its remaining duration to the full 4 seconds.
Modifier source	The artifact tags its speed modifier with its own source key so subsequent procs find and refresh it rather than stacking a second copy.
Speed buff duration	Fixed at 4 seconds regardless of tier.
Cooldown gating	The 8.0 s cooldown is independent of the speed-buff duration. Because the cooldown is longer than the buff, the speed bonus has a 4-second active window followed by a 4-second gap between procs at maximum trigger rate.
Damage/knockback stacking	The damage and knockback are one-shot per proc and do not persist between procs.

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Summary: Failsafe Core is a unique damage-triggered artifact on an 8.0 s cooldown. Each proc deals flat area damage, knocks enemies back, and grants a 4-second percent max-speed buff that refreshes on re-trigger. Damage, radius, knockback force, and speed boost all scale across tiers (e.g. 150 → 600 damage, +35% → +85% speed); the speed-buff duration is constant. Common reuses uncommon’s values per the shared-tier convention.

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) referenced in the shared types is engine-wide and should live on the artifacts overview / authoring guide.
• The stacking: 'refresh' / maxStacks / per-source modifier semantics are generic effect-engine concepts; canonical definition belongs on a combat or effect-engine page.
• The damage_aoe, apply_knockback, modify_stat, vfx (dual_ring and particles), flash_artifact action types are shared primitives across many artifacts — canonical reference belongs on the artifact authoring guide.
• Color-palette schema (primary / secondary / bright) is shared across all artifacts and belongs on the roll-up, with per-entity pages only listing the values.
• The procAudioCue mechanism (audio cue keyed to the artifact’s flash action, routed through the spatial game bus with LPF + reverb) is an engine-wide convention and belongs on the artifact authoring guide.
• The showBanner: true first-proc banner behavior is shared across artifacts and belongs on the roll-up.