Horde
Usage guide of enemy.horde: horde types as data, ambient shamblers, growing waves, noise that attracts, infection, end rules, settings and defaults, service, events, verbs and hooks.
Zombie hordes (enemy.horde) #
What it is for #
Slow, numerous enemies driven by data on top of enemy.ai: zombie types (walker, runner, brute), ambient shamblers kept around the players and replaced as they fall, waves that grow (at night with world.daynight, on a timer without it, or on demand), attraction by noise (gunshots, explosions, running players, any event of the game), an optional infection on a bite, and the end of the game after a number of waves or at the death of the players. Zombie shooters, horde survival, a house to hold at night. Shared concepts of the family are in the Enemies in your game guide.
Turn it on #
gripforge_gamekit_install { project_id: "gkp_…", id: "enemy.horde" }
gripforge_gamekit_configure { project_id: "gkp_…", id: "enemy.horde",
config: { "ambient": 6, "waveMode": "auto", "waveBase": 8, "waveGrowth": 3 } }Needs enemy.ai, npc.core, spawn.entities, game.engine; installing the kit brings them along. Companions: world.daynight (waves at night) and combat.core (the infection deals its damage through it).
First example #
<!-- test: kits/game_engine/host/tests/parity.rs::rust_host_matches_the_typescript_traces (fixture enemy.horde.waves) --> A timer-driven horde with no ambient crowd: the first wave comes after 1 second with 3 members arriving over 1 second, each wave adds 1, and the game is won once 2 waves are cleared.
{ "config": { "ambient": 0, "waveMode": "timer", "waveFirst": 1, "waveEvery": 30, "waveBase": 3, "waveGrowth": 1,
"waveMax": 5, "waveSeconds": 1, "winAfterWaves": 2, "spawnMin": 6, "spawnMax": 9, "aggro": 2 } }Settings and defaults #
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
ambient, nightMultiplier | 6, 2 | Shamblers kept around the players by day (0: none), and the multiplier of the ambient count and of the waves at night. |
spawnEvery, spawnMin, spawnMax | 3, 18, 36 | Seconds between ambient spawns; a spawn appears at least spawnMin and at most spawnMax metres from the players. |
despawnBeyond, maxAlive | 80, 40 | An ambient shambler farther than this from every player is removed (0: never; wave members stay); most members alive at once. |
aggro, hearing, wander, leash, shambleSpeed | 12, 1, 8, 2.5, 0.7 | Distance at which a member notices a player and hunts; multiplier of every noise radius; how far a shambler wanders; a hunter farther than aggro x leash gives up; share of the walk speed while shambling. |
waveMode | auto | auto (night with world.daynight, else timer), night, timer (every waveEvery seconds) or manual (only wave() and the action). |
waveFirst, waveEvery | 60, 120 | Timer mode: seconds before the first wave and between two waves. |
waveBase, waveGrowth, waveMax, waveSeconds | 8, 3, 60, 20 | Members of the first wave, members added per wave, most members in one wave (before maxAlive), and the seconds over which a wave arrives. |
winAfterWaves, loseOnDeath | 0, true | The game is won once this many waves are cleared (0: endless); it is lost when every player is dead. |
finish, texts | true, Dawn / Overrun | Without game.endings, the kit ends the game itself on an end screen whose texts are winTitle, winText, loseTitle, loseText; with it, endings read horde.result. |
noiseEvents, footsteps | 4 rows, speed 5.5 | Bus events that make a noise where they happen (by default combat.fired, vehicle.exploded, fps.bomb_explode, stealth.noise; each row has topic, radius, loudness, kind); running players (faster than speed) make footstep noise (radius, loudness, every). |
infection | off | enabled (false), chance (0.2), seconds (30), damagePerSecond (1): a bite may infect the player, who then takes damage until cured. |
Types are documents of horde_types: id, name, enemy (an enemy.ai document: speed, health and attacks), weight (share in a wave and among the ambient), fromWave, aggro, hearing, infect, wander, tags. A document { "id": "new", "extends": "walker" } inherits an entry.
Services, events, variables #
- Service
enemy.horde:types(),members({ type?, wave? }),spawn(type, at?, { wave?, reason? }),wave(count?),waveState(),noise(at, radius, { loudness?, kind?, source? }),infect(entity, { source?, seconds? }),cure(entity),infected(entity),pressure(),result(),clear(). - Verbs and conditions:
horde_wave,horde_noise,horde_cure,horde_clear,horde_wave_reached,horde_infected. Component:horde { "type": "walker" }. - Events:
horde.spawned,horde.wave,horde.wave_cleared,horde.noise,horde.hunting,horde.lost_track,horde.killed,horde.infected,horde.cured,horde.won,horde.lost. It listens toenemy.killed,entity.despawned,combat.damaged,player.died,world.phase. - Variables:
horde.wave,horde.alive,horde.remaining,horde.night,horde.result(won, lost or empty),horde.infected,horde.infection.
Hooks and modding #
| Hook | Meaning |
|---|---|
horde.spawn | A member is about to appear; type is mutable; cancelled, nothing appears (an ambient spawn is tried again later). |
horde.wave | A wave is about to start with count members (night multiplier applied); count is mutable; cancelled, no wave. |
horde.noise | A noise is about to attract the shamblers within radius x their hearing; radius and loudness are mutable; cancelled, nobody hears it. |
horde.aggro | A shambler noticed a player and is about to hunt; cancelled, it keeps shambling and is asked again at its next brain tick. |
horde.infect | A bite or a script is about to infect a player; chance, seconds and damagePerSecond are mutable; cancelled, no infection from this hit. |
horde.end | The horde is about to end the game; result (won or lost) is mutable; cancelled, the game goes on. |
Every setting and the listed collections are moddable.
Limits #
Runs on the web player and the native player; Godot, Unity and Unreal have no native delivery of this kit. A member is a normal enemy.ai enemy: its speed, health and attacks come from the enemy.ai document named by the type.
Versions #
Kit 1.0.0; service enemy.horde 1.0.0. It relies on enemy.behaviors ^1 (from enemy.ai), npc.behavior ^1, npc.locomotion ^1, spawn.entities ^1 and game.engine ^1.