Spitter
What it is
A slow, tanky standoff variant of the ranged orbiting shooter. The spitter reuses the standard shooter behavior and projectile weapon but with roughly 1.8x the health, about two-thirds the move speed, and a noticeably wider orbit radius. It pressures the player into either closing distance through a stream of inbound projectiles or sweeping with area-of-effect or long-range weapons. It is a rare-slot bug-set enemy that pairs with the base shooter on planets emphasizing ranged pressure.
Base stats
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| HP | 38 |
| Move speed | 70 |
| Hit radius | 7 |
| XP on kill | 28 |
| Weapon damage (per burst, pre-rarity) | 78 |
| Orbit radius | 200 |
| Tags | mechanical |
Per-rarity stats
Final stats are base stats multiplied by the rarity scalar. Damage is the shared shooter weapon damage scaled by the rarity damage multiplier.
| Rarity | HP | Move speed | Hit radius | XP | Burst damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 102.6 | 98 | 7 | 84 | 234 |
| Uncommon | 188.1 | 102.9 | 8.05 | 168 | 351 |
| Rare | 263.34 | 109.9 | 9.1 | 336 | 514.8 |
| Epic | 376.2 | 117.6 | 9.8 | 504 | 655.2 |
| Legendary | 451.44 | 127.4 | 10.5 | 672 | 819 |
All rarities share the same AI behavior, weapon, and orbit radius. Tier color is set by the shared rarity tint palette.
Behavior
The spitter uses the shared ranged-orbiter fish-swim movement model: continuous smooth arcs around the player at a target orbit distance of 200 (vs. 130 for the base shooter), with a steering force pulling it back toward that radius and a tangential force sweeping it sideways. Orbit direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) is randomized per enemy at spawn. The enemy always faces its movement direction.
Smart-range aggro activates inside a radius of 250. Outside aggro range the enemy drifts with idle friction.
The attack cycle has four phases:
- Cooldown — fire timer counts down; the enemy keeps orbiting.
- Charge-up — a thin red arrow forecast spawns and grows toward the player. For the first 80% of the charge the aim tracks the player; for the final 20% the aim freezes, giving the player a dodge window.
- Burst fire — the arrow shatters into red dust and a 12-shot machine-gun burst fires along the locked aim line. Each shot has small angle scatter and origin jitter. Damage per shot is the weapon damage divided across the burst.
- Post-fire pause — the enemy stands nearly still for a fixed window before resuming orbit and starting the next cooldown.
While firing, the enemy continues swimming but at reduced tangent force and capped at 60% of its max speed (vs. 150% when not firing). A damage flash is active during the burst itself.
The spitter is stunnable and knockbackable. On death any remaining arrow forecast owned by the enemy is removed.
Weapon parameters
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Total burst damage (pre-rarity) | 78 |
| Fire rate | 0.075 |
| Projectile speed (per shot, pre-multiplier) | 150 |
| Projectile size (pre-multiplier) | 5 |
| Charge time | 1.68 s |
| Aim-tracking window | first 80% of charge |
| Burst shot count | 12 |
| Delay between burst shots | 0.06 s |
| Post-fire pause | 2.5 s |
| Projectile target range | 208 (with up to 40% random bonus) |
| Projectile arm distance | 18 |
Spawning
Spitter is a rare-slot bug-set enemy. It appears in the shooter-heavy rare pool, alongside the base shooter on planets that emphasize ranged pressure (notably Speedway), and contributes to mixed rare pools on Desolation and Obelisk.
Tier scaling
Tier-to-tier scaling follows the shared rarity multiplier table — HP, speed, radius, XP, and damage all scale together. Behavior parameters (orbit radius of 200, charge time, burst count, post-fire pause, aim-tracking split) do not scale with rarity. The wider orbit radius and slower base speed remain the spitter’s defining differences from the standard shooter at every tier.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Shared rarity-multiplier table (HP 2.7→11.88, XP 3→24, speed 1.40→1.82, radius 1.0→1.5, damage 3.0→10.5) is repeated across every enemy-entity page — belongs on the central enemies rollup as the canonical source.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Fish-swim movement model (steer force 3.0, tangent force 1.8, drag 0.97, turn speed 8.0, firing speed cap 60%) is shared by spitter, shooter, and other orbiting ranged enemies — belongs on a shared movement-models page.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Generic enemy-fire FSM (cooldown → charge → burst → post-fire pause, with 80/20 aim-track/freeze split) is shared across projectile shooters — belongs on a shared enemy-attack-pipeline page.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: Shared enemy_shooter weapon stats block (damage 78, fireRate 0.075, projectileSpeed 150, projectileSize 5, chargeTime 1.68) is duplicated between shooter and spitter entity pages — belongs on a shared enemy-weapons reference page.