Field
What it is
The base field emitter — a stationary area-denial enemy that plants itself near the player and creates a rounded-rectangle electric damage zone. Tagged mechanical and electric. The field archetype is the canonical “plant-and-zap” enemy in the game; the burner is its variant (smaller hot zone, longer duration, harder per-tick damage).
The field emitter’s signature loop is four phases: drive to a position 60-100 px from the player, freeze and plant for a moment, project a wide shock arena that fades in then ticks damage, and pause briefly before picking a new spot. The arena is wide and brief: 250 px base radius, 3.0 s of damage time after a 1.0 s fade-in, with damage ticks every 0.3 s.
Appears as a leader-tier elite candidate on city worlds (gunner/racer-heavy planets), where it threads alongside snipers, and as a rare-slot enemy on Network Station, where it threads alongside the burner variant.
Base stats
These are the raw archetype values before rarity multipliers and per-mission scaling.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| HP | 120 |
| Speed | 69 |
| Collision radius | 7 px |
| XP on death | 22 |
| Weapon | enemy field emitter |
| Behavior | field (plant-and-zap) |
| Field radius (hot zone) | 250 px |
| Field fade-in | 1.0 s |
| Field active duration | 3.0 s |
| Field damage per tick | 15 |
| Field tick interval | 0.3 s |
Stats by rarity tier
Rarity multipliers apply to HP, speed, radius, XP, and field damage. Field radius scales separately at a flat +15 % per tier (radius × (1 + index × 0.15)). Field duration is unchanged across the first four tiers and gains a 1.5× bonus only at legendary. Field fade-in is the same across all tiers.
| Tier | Tint | HP | Speed | Radius | XP | Field damage | Field radius | Field duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | grey | 324 | 97 | 7 px | 66 | 45 | 250 px | 3.0 s |
| Uncommon | green | 594 | 101 | 8 px | 132 | 68 | 288 px | 3.0 s |
| Rare | blue | 832 | 108 | 9 px | 264 | 99 | 325 px | 3.0 s |
| Epic | purple | 1188 | 116 | 10 px | 396 | 126 | 363 px | 3.0 s |
| Legendary | orange | 1426 | 126 | 11 px | 528 | 158 | 400 px | 4.5 s |
Field fade-in is 1.0 s and field tick interval is 0.3 s at every tier.
Behavior
State machine: moving → planting → active → cooldown → moving.
| Phase | What happens |
|---|---|
| Moving | Drives toward a target position 60-100 px from the player, picked at random and re-rolled whenever the player drifts more than 150 px from the original spot. A preview rounded-rectangle outline appears at the chosen spot, oriented vertical or horizontal at random, fading in over 0.4 s so the player sees where the zone will land. Movement uses the shared car-steer with a 1.3× speed multiplier so the emitter can catch a moving target. |
| Planting | Triggered when the emitter reaches its target spot (within 20 px) or when it gets within 120 px of the player. The targeting preview is cleared. The emitter freezes in place with a small jitter shake for 0.3 s and cannot be interrupted. |
| Active | A rounded-rectangle damage zone replaces the preview at the emitter’s position. The zone fades in over 1.0 s (no damage during fade-in), then ticks damage every 0.3 s for the remaining 3.0 s active window (4.5 s at legendary). Total zone lifetime including fade-in is 4.0 s (5.5 s at legendary). |
| Cooldown | 0.5 s pause, then the emitter picks a new target and starts moving again. |
Damage application during the active phase
While the rounded-rect zone is past its fade-in, the emitter checks the player’s distance from the zone center on every 0.3 s tick. The hit check uses a circular distance of fieldRadius rather than the visual rounded-rect outline.
- Damage per tick: scaled field damage from the rarity table (45 common → 158 legendary), multiplied by the enemy’s damage multiplier.
- On hit, the player’s horizontal and vertical velocity are multiplied by 0.1 — the electric shock kills momentum and pins the player in place for the remainder of the tick.
- Damage is routed through the standard player-damage pipeline (invulnerability check, electric-hit flash, etc.).
The 0.3 s tick means a player who stays inside the full 3.0 s active window absorbs up to 10 pulses (15 at legendary).
Other behavior notes
- The field emitter is
stunnableandknockbackable. Stuns halt all movement and combat; the active zone is owned by the emitter, so killing the emitter during the active phase clears the forecast and ends damage immediately. - Uses shared separation against other enemies (push-apart) but does not use the shared attack FSM or the shared aggro pathway.
- Smart-range (the distance at which the AI activates) is 350 px.
- If the emitter is not aggroed (player far away or not yet engaged), it idles with friction-decay instead of seeking a plant spot.
- When the emitter dies, any preview or active zone forecast it owns is removed from the world.
- Personality profile (caution, tactical, supportive): 0.2 / 0.9 / 0.6 — low caution, very tactical, moderately supportive.
Tier scaling — relationship to the burner variant
The field emitter is the base archetype; the burner is its variant. Both share the four-phase behavior FSM verbatim and share the same per-rarity scaling rules. Differences sit entirely in the per-archetype tuning numbers:
- Field emitter’s hot zone is 250 px at common, scaling to 400 px at legendary. The burner’s hot zone is 140 px at common, scaling to 224 px at legendary — the burner’s zone is 56 % the size of the emitter’s at every tier.
- Field emitter’s active duration is 3.0 s base (4.5 s legendary). The burner runs 6.0 s base (9.0 s legendary) — the burner zone lingers exactly 2× as long at every tier.
- Field emitter’s damage per tick is 15 base (45 common → 158 legendary). The burner’s is 28 base (84 common → 294 legendary) — roughly 1.87× harder per pulse.
- Field emitter’s fade-in is 1.0 s vs the burner’s 0.8 s — the burner arms slightly faster.
- Field emitter HP is higher (120 vs 80) and speed is higher (69 vs 50). The emitter is tougher to kill and faster to reposition between plants, at the cost of weaker per-tick damage and a briefer hot zone.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: The shared four-phase field behavior FSM (moving → planting → active → cooldown), the rounded-rect zone primitive with fade-in + 0.3 s tick, the preview targeting outline, the 1.3× seek speed multiplier, the 120 px plant range, the 0.3 s plant duration, the 0.5 s cycle pause, the 150 px re-target distance, the 350 px smart-range, and the on-hit vx *= 0.1, vy *= 0.1 momentum-kill all live on the field archetype and are shared between the field emitter and the burner. Belongs on the enemies concept page or a behavior-internals page so per-entity pages can just state the tuning numbers.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: The rarity multiplier table (HP / XP / speed / radius / damage per tier) and the special field-archetype scaling rules (fieldRadius × (1 + index × 0.15), fieldDuration legendary-only × 1.5, fieldFadeIn flat across tiers) are shared across every field-family enemy. Belongs on the central enemies concept page.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Player damage application (invulnerability check, damageMult, electric-hit flash, momentum dampening) is a shared player-damage pipeline used by orb, charger, gunner, field, burner, etc. Belongs on combat.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: The forecast/preview primitive (field_zone type, _preview flag, fade-in, owner cleanup on death) is shared by orb, mortar, field, burner. Belongs on combat or a forecast/telegraph page.
Summary
The field emitter is the base “plant-and-zap” elite — it drives to a spot near the player, plants for 0.3 s with a shake, then projects a wide rounded-rectangle electric damage zone (250 px base radius) that fades in over 1.0 s and ticks 15-base damage every 0.3 s for a 3.0 s active window. Each tick also kills 90 % of the player’s velocity, pinning them in place for the next tick. The emitter picks a new target after a 0.5 s pause and repeats the cycle. Compared to its burner variant, the field emitter trades a narrower, longer, harder-hitting zone for a wider, briefer, lighter-hitting one, paired with more durability and movement speed. Scales from common (45 dmg / 250 px / 3.0 s) to legendary (158 dmg / 400 px / 4.5 s).