Scrap Pile
What it is
The workhorse tier of the world-prop catalog. A grey industrial-salvage destructible that joins the off-screen spawn pool, breaks on ship contact (or under sustained bullet fire), and drops a small XP-orb cluster. Sits as the most common prop kind in any planet field — it sets the baseline density that every other prop’s densityMult is measured against. Reads as “trash heap” rather than “metal carcass,” distinguishing it from the slightly tougher drone wreckage tier above it. Sprite is rendered as a baked emoji sticker with a slate-grey rim halo. No edge-arrow telegraph — Scrap Piles are too common to be hunted.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Max HP | 10 |
| Visible silhouette radius | 32 px |
| Density multiplier (vs crate slider) | 1.0 |
| Orb drop count on break | 4 |
| XP per orb (fraction of current level bar) | 0.018 |
| Total drop value (level-bar fraction) | ~7.2% |
| Sticker emoji | trash bin |
| Rim halo color | slate grey (#9aa3ad) |
| Edge-arrow telegraph | no |
Spawn behavior
Scrap Piles share 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. With Scrap Pile at 1.0 versus the sum of all other multipliers, it dominates the roll and lands as the modal 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. Scrap Piles fill most 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 10 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 | 14 |
| Spark RGB | (220, 220, 220) — bright dust-white |
| Chunky debris count | 5 |
| Chunk RGB | (110, 110, 110) — dark grey |
| Rim shockwave color | #cfd6df |
| Outward ring burst count | 0 |
| Audio cue id | per-type scrap-pile recipe (light metal scatter); falls back to generic prop break |
Per-type synergy (magnet pulse)
Scrap Pile is the only common-tier prop with a dedicated break-synergy. On break, the runtime rolls against the magnet-pulse chance; on success it engages the global XP-orb magnet primitive, which flips every active XP orb in the field into exponential lock-on toward the player. It is the iconic “vacuum up the field” beat.
A grey magnet-pulse particle ring spawns around the ship (not the prop), with particles traveling inward at the ship to visually reinforce the magnet metaphor. The cue is the existing extraction-completion sparkle/click/sizzle recipe — already reads as “rewarding.” Telemetry records the active orb count at proc time so the magnet’s reward density can be tuned later.
The proc chance is lower than other prop synergies on purpose: Scrap Pile sits at density 1.0 (the most common kind), so an unbounded magnet proc would feel routine instead of climactic.
| Synergy field | Value |
|---|---|
| Proc chance per break | 0.15 |
| Magnet behavior | global XP-orb lock-on toward player |
| Particle count (ship-centered ring) | 10 |
| Particle palette | reuses spark RGB (220, 220, 220) |
| Audio cue id | extraction-done (sparkle/click/sizzle) |
VFX palette
| Channel | Value |
|---|---|
| Rim halo | slate grey (#9aa3ad) |
| Spark cloud | bright dust-white (220, 220, 220) |
| Chunk debris | dark grey (110, 110, 110) |
| Rim shockwave ring | #cfd6df |
| 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 how Scrap Pile at 1.0 anchors the rest of the catalog belongs on the props roll-up page; only the resulting modal-pick 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) — all 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
xpForLevel, fan-out angles, per-orb speed) — same for every prop kind; canonical home is the props roll-up page or the XP-orb page. - Global XP-orb magnet primitive itself (exponential lock-on, every active orb) — the underlying engine primitive belongs on the XP-orb / magnet page; this page only documents the Scrap Pile call site and its proc-chance / VFX wrapper.
- Edge-arrow HUD telegraph system — only relevant to high-value props (Supply Pod, Magnetar Pulse); canonical home is the HUD or props roll-up page. Scrap Pile only needs the “no” flag.