Statuses, factions and pickups

Three systems decide the state of play between the shots: lasting effects that burn, poison, speed you up or turn you into something else; the table of who is hostile to whom; and everything lying on the floor to be picked up, including what a body drops when it dies.

One system for every lasting effect

Burning, poison, a speed boost, rage, being held in place and shrinking all look different on screen, but to the simulation they are the same thing: a status. A status is a short record on a body: which effect, how strong, and how many ticks are left. The engine names no effects of its own; it runs whatever statuses a game registers.

The life of a status

A status that hurts bites through the damage door like any other hit, at a strength stated per second. Some can be put out: stepping into a liquid the status names douses it, which is how a burning body can save itself in water. A body immune to the effect never carries it at all. "Permanent" means for the rest of this life: dying clears every status a body carries.

When several statuses change the same thing, they combine by fixed rules. Strengths multiply, so double damage and half damage together make plain damage; on-or-off effects such as "melee only" are on if any status says so; and for everything else a single status has the say, picked by a fixed rule so the answer never depends on chance.

Statuses that change what a body is

The most far-reaching kind of status names a different body type. For as long as it runs, the wearer is that body: its size, the colour of its blood, the sound of its steps, its weak spots, how it comes apart and what its corpse looks like all move together, from one registration. Turning a player into a creature, for example, is one status naming one body type, not a long list of separate changes.

Everything a status changes is worked out again every tick, so when the status ends the whole transformation unwinds by itself. A weapon a status hands over is taken back the same way, even if the body dies. A hold that stops a body in place can either keep it hanging in the air, like a stasis field, or let it drop, like paralysis; the engine ships both behaviours and names neither.

Factions: who is hostile to whom

Every kind of character belongs to some factions, or to none. Between factions a game writes stances, and a stance has a direction: one side can be hostile to another without the other returning it. A pair nobody wrote is neutral, and so is a body with no factions at all.

Two bodies sharing a faction are never hostile, and a friendly stance beats a hostile one. That rule has a useful consequence: giving a body one more faction can only ever make it less aggressive, never more. A level can change stances during play, so a switch might turn two groups against each other.

Separate from stances is the grudge: what a body remembers about whoever last hit it. An enemy shot by a stray round from its own side may turn on the shooter, or not. A game can switch grudges off entirely, forbid them inside a faction, or forbid them in one direction only, all without touching who attacks whom on sight.

Pickups on the floor

Six kinds of thing lie around to be collected: health, armour, ammo, weapons, keys and powerups. Every item falls until it comes to rest, and one resting on a lift rides along with it. A taken item can come back after a delay, like a pickup on a pedestal, or be gone for good; a dropped one can fade after a while.

Collectors are asked in a fixed order, and one item goes to one collector per tick, so two bodies reaching for the same health pack on the same tick always settle it the same way. Enemies can collect too, if their kind is allowed to, and an enemy that detours to pick something up asks the same rules a pickup applies, so it never walks to an item it would then refuse. Something you drop cannot be picked straight back up: you have to step clear of it once.

Armour follows its own rules: a better class replaces the one you wear, a worse one is salvaged into points for yours, and a small shard tops up whatever you have. Ammo can be collected before you own the gun that fires it, and owning grenades is what puts the grenade in your hands.

Powerups, the pack and drops

A powerup grants statuses, and walking back over one tops its timer up rather than doubling it. It can also raise the health ceiling for good. A body can carry powerups in its pack to use later; matching items stack, keys go on a separate ring, and weapons never go in the pack.

When an enemy, the player or a breakable prop is destroyed, its drop table is rolled. Each line of the table drops an item, or something the body was holding, such as its gun; a line can be certain or a chance, and it can carry a condition, such as dropping a reward only if the killer lacks a particular gun.

1. DeathThe killing blow lands
2. RollThe drop table is read, line by line
3. Fan outItems spread from the body in a fixed pattern
4. SettleEach falls until it rests
5. ShownThe adapter draws them where they landed

A dropped gun keeps its live state, magazine and heat included, and takes a fair share of the ammo with it.

1

system for every lasting effect

6

kinds of pickup

3

ways to accept a pickup that does not all fit

As of 2026-10-22.

Related sheets

• DamageWhere every bite of a lasting effect is settled.
• Weapons and projectilesDropping a gun, and weapons an effect hands over.
• How enemies decideHow factions and grudges choose an enemy's target.
• UI, HUD and in-world screensWhere statuses and pickups are shown.