Drone Wreck
What it is
The workhorse-alt tier of the world-prop catalog. A cyan-rimmed wrecked-drone destructible that reads as “metal carcass” rather than the slate-grey “trash heap” of the common workhorse tier above it. Slots into the same off-screen spawn pool, breaks on ship contact or under sustained bullet fire, and drops a small XP-orb cluster a touch richer than the most-common tier. Tougher than the lightest props (two rams or a brief burst rather than a one-shot from typical weapon DPS) but not so tough that it stalls the player. Sprite is a baked emoji sticker with a cyan-electric rim halo. No edge-arrow telegraph — Drone Wreck is common enough that the HUD does not point at one off-screen.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Max HP | 18 |
| Visible silhouette radius | 30 px |
| Density multiplier (vs crate slider) | 0.6 |
| Orb drop count on break | 6 |
| XP per orb (fraction of current level bar) | 0.020 |
| Total drop value (level-bar fraction) | ~12% |
| Sticker emoji | broken drone |
| Rim halo color | cyan-electric (#5fc8ff) |
| Edge-arrow telegraph | no |
Spawn behavior
Drone Wreck shares the typed prop pool with every other prop kind (pool cap 48, max simultaneous active 10 at slider=100). Type selection uses a weighted roll where each prop’s densityMult is its weight in the bag; at 0.6, Drone Wreck sits between the most-common workhorse (1.0) and the rare risk-reward crystal tier (0.35), so it lands as the second-most-common pick on any spawn tick. Spawns are gated to be off-screen (never visible-spawn), pushed roughly 500-1400 px from the ship, biased 70% of the time into the player’s heading cone, and reject when too close (under 160 px) to another active prop.
Per-planet active count is driven by the planet’s destructibles.crates slider mapped onto a 0-10 active prop ceiling. Drone Wreck fills a noticeable minority of that ceiling on any planet where the slider is non-zero.
Break behavior
On ship contact the runtime applies max-hp damage in a single hit — the ship one-shots regardless of the 18 HP figure. Bullets do their listed damage per overlap with piercing idempotency (a single piercing bullet cannot chip the same slot twice in one tick). Non-fatal bullet hits play a chip-flash on the rim and emit a small spark cloud; reaching 0 HP triggers the full break sequence.
Break sequence (in order): fire prop_break signal → play the per-type audio cue → telemetry record → spawn XP orbs → spawn break VFX → roll synergy → deactivate slot.
| Break VFX layer | Value |
|---|---|
| Spark cloud particle count | 18 |
| Spark RGB | (120, 220, 255) — electric blue |
| Chunky debris count | 5 |
| Chunk RGB | (80, 120, 160) — dark blue metal |
| Rim shockwave color | #7fd5ff |
| Outward ring burst count | 0 |
| Audio cue id | per-type drone-wreck recipe (heavy mech shutdown); falls back to generic prop break |
Per-type synergy (invuln on ram)
Drone Wreck is the defensive-reward counterpart to the offensive speed-boost the comet-fragment tier grants. On break, the runtime rolls against the invuln chance; on success it engages the ship’s existing invulnerability gate for a brief window, reading as a Hades-boon “phase through danger” beat. The proc reaches into ship-state for a defensive reward; it does not deal damage or mutate velocity, and the engine’s existing invuln tick handles the countdown and clear with no new timer state.
A cyan particle ring bursts around the ship (not the prop) on proc so the player sees the buff land on themselves rather than at the break point. The cue reuses the existing revive recipe (sparkle/sparkle/sizzle/thud) — already reads as “energize + protect.” If the player is already invulnerable from a recent hit, the proc extends the window rather than shortening it. Telemetry records the duration in milliseconds so damage-avoided can be correlated later.
The window is calibrated short enough that it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card (the player still has to position) but long enough to read clearly as “you got a free dodge.”
| Synergy field | Value |
|---|---|
| Proc chance per break | 0.30 |
| Invuln duration | 0.5 s |
| Stacking rule | extends current window via max(current, 0.5) |
| Particle count (ship-centered ring) | 12 |
| Particle palette | reuses spark RGB (120, 220, 255) |
| Audio cue id | revive (sparkle/sparkle/sizzle/thud) |
VFX palette
| Channel | Value |
|---|---|
| Rim halo | cyan-electric (#5fc8ff) |
| Spark cloud | electric blue (120, 220, 255) |
| Chunk debris | dark blue metal (80, 120, 160) |
| Rim shockwave ring | #7fd5ff |
| Hit-flash duration | 0.18 s |
| Chip spark particle count per non-fatal hit | 6 |
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags
- Weighted prop-type roll mechanics — the
densityMult-as-weight pattern and the workhorse-vs-rare ranking belongs on the props roll-up page; only Drone Wreck’s pick frequency claim belongs here. - Shared off-screen spawn pipeline rules (pool cap 48, MAX_DENSITY 10, SPAWN_MIN/MAX 500/1400, 160 px MIN_GAP, velocity-cone bias 0.7, off-screen gating, planet destructibles slider mapping) — common to every prop kind; canonical home is the props roll-up page.
- Break sequence ordering (signal → audio → telemetry → orbs → VFX → synergy → deactivate) — applies to every prop kind; canonical home is the props roll-up page.
- Bullet collision rules (piercing idempotency via
bullet.hits, non-piercing consumed on hit, chip-flash on non-fatal) — same for every prop kind; canonical home is the props roll-up or combat page. - XP-orb drop scheme (fraction-of-level-bar via the leveling curve, fan-out angles, per-orb speed) — same for every prop kind; canonical home is the props roll-up page or the XP-orb page.
- Ship invulnerability gate itself (the
invulnerableflag, the per-frame invuln timer countdown and clear) — the underlying engine primitive belongs on the ship / damage page; this page only documents the Drone Wreck call site, its proc-chance, the duration, and the stacking rule. - Edge-arrow HUD telegraph system — only relevant to high-value props; canonical home is the HUD or props roll-up page. Drone Wreck only needs the “no” flag.