Line

What it is

Line is an epic-rarity laser-line weapon. Each cast spawns a pair of electric balls that fly forward together along the aim direction, drifting apart perpendicular to flight as they travel and damaging anything between them. Damage tag is energy. Hits destructibles. Pierces all targets along the line for the duration of flight.

Identity

Field	Value
Rarity	epic
Family	projectile
Damage tag	energy
Damage type	normal (routes through shield)
Target mode	closest
Collision mode	pierce all
Area mode	line spread
Scaling curve	linear
Can hit destructibles	yes
Warmup	0.0 s

See target modes, damage tags, collision modes, scaling curves.

Stats by level

Base stats from the weapon spec, evaluated as base + scaling * (level - 1).

Stat	L1	L10	L20
Damage per contact (base)	31.20	78.85	131.80
Fire rate (casts/s)	0.200	0.421	0.667
Cast interval (s)	5.000	2.373	1.498
Acquire range (units)	220	256	296
Travel range multiplier	3.0	3.0	3.0
Projectile speed (units/s)	120	147	177
Projectile size (units)	14.0	19.4	25.4
Max ball spread (units)	55	109.5	170.1
Spread speed (units/s)	30.0	37.2	45.2
Per-enemy contact cooldown (s)	0.08	0.08	0.08

Effective per-contact damage after the global damage multiplier curve (includes early-level buff):

Level	Base damage	Level multiplier	Effective damage per contact
L1	31.20	1.30	40.56
L10	78.85	2.50	197.13
L20	131.80	7.50	988.50

Behavior

Each cast aims at the closest enemy in acquire range and spawns one pair of energy balls at the ship’s position, both flying forward along the same aim angle. The balls start coincident and drift apart along the perpendicular axis at the spread speed, capped at the max ball spread. The damaging line is the segment connecting the two balls — anything caught between them on any frame takes damage.

Targets struck stay damageable as the line keeps moving, but each enemy has a per-enemy contact cooldown so the same target is not re-hit faster than the cooldown allows. Pierce is unlimited along the flight path.

Flight lifetime is acquire range * travel range multiplier / projectile speed, so the line covers roughly three full acquire ranges before expiring. On expiry the balls dissipate.

“More Projectiles” upgrades add extra parallel line pairs fanned out from the main aim angle, with 15 degrees of angular offset between each successive pair.

Horizontal modifiers

Modifier	Rate
Damage per H	0.04
Fire rate per H	0.10

Area horizontal modifiers feed the line-spread area mode, scaling the max ball spread so the damaging segment between the two balls grows wider. See horizontal modifiers.

Scaling

Linear curve — effective level equals nominal level at every step. Damage, fire rate, acquire range, projectile speed, projectile size, max spread, and spread speed all grow linearly with level via their respective base + scaling * (level - 1) formulas. Contact cooldown and travel range multiplier are flat across all levels.

Global damage scaling is layered on top via the shared damage multiplier curve. Spec history notes two damage rebalances at L20 (cumulative -67% from the original tuning) while L1 base damage was left untouched, so the curve flattens at higher levels relative to early game.

EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags

• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-scaling-curves should document the six curve types (linear, exponential, steep_exp, front_loaded, s_curve, linear_fast) and their t -> curvedT formulas.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-damage-multiplier-curve should document the piecewise-linear anchors [1, 1.00], [4, 1.25], [8, 2.00], [12, 3.00], [16, 5.00], [20, 7.50] and the low-level early-game buff (+30% at L1, -5% per level, 0% at L7+).
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-target-modes should enumerate closest, furthest, flanking, low_hp with selection rules.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-collision-modes should enumerate first_hit, pierce_all, target_only, beam_trace, chain_arc.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-damage-tags should enumerate bullet, energy, bomb, fire and the legendary secondary-tag rule.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-area-modes should enumerate the eleven area modes including line_spread and how the Area horizontal modifier maps to each.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-horizontal-modifiers should document the dmgPerH / ratePerH rates and how H-stacks compound, including the RANGE_SCALE_PER_H constant that lengthens acquire range and the line’s flight lifetime.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-line-spread-behavior (new) should document the two-ball perpendicular spread pattern shared by line-spread weapons — coincident spawn, perpendicular drift up to max spread, per-enemy contact cooldown, and the damaging-segment-between-balls hit model.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-more-projectiles-fan (new) should document the angular-fan pattern used by line weapons when extra projectiles stack — fixed 15-degree spacing centered on the aim angle.
• EXTRACT-CANDIDATE: concept-travel-range-multiplier (new) should document how travelRangeMult extends projectile lifetime past acquire range.