Waves of minions (minion.waves) #

AI units that spawn in waves, walk a route toward the other end, fight what they meet, die and pay a reward. One kit serves a MOBA, a tower defense, an RTS skirmish or a siege, with a different config. Readable offline: gripforge docs minion-waves, or the MCP tool gripforge_docs (topic minion-waves).

What it is for #

Every step is a named state and an event, and every rule is a config key. The kit holds no wallet and draws nothing itself: it sends units down routes, runs their state machine and announces rewards; health, damage and attacks come from the combat kits, the model comes from a slot of your game.

Every state change is minion.state { minion, from, to, target }; each minion carries the component minion.ai { state, target, type, route, aggro, range }.

Turn it on #

gripforge_gamekit_install   { project_id: "gkp_…", id: "minion.waves" }
gripforge_gamekit_configure { project_id: "gkp_…", id: "minion.waves",
                              config: { "interval": 45, "targetPriority": ["structure"] } }

It requires combat.attacks, combat.health, combat.damage and game.engine. The full reference is gripforge kit api minion.waves.

Routes and teams #

• A kit that provides lanes.routes (moba.lanes does) gives the routes and the two teams.
• Otherwise the collection minion_routes holds { id, points: [[x, z]…] } (ground points from the first team's end to the second's) and teams names the two teams.
• A scene may carry its own routes in data.minion_routes. Entering the scene starts its waves over (firstWave after the entry); leaving it removes its minions.

The first team walks a route forward, the second backward, so opposite waves leave together and meet midway.

Settings and defaults #

Types #

The collection minion_types holds { id, name?, hp, damage, armor?, range, cooldown, speed, aggro, scale?, slot?, windup?, projectileSpeed?, color?, reward?: { gold?, xp? } }. Built in: melee, ranged, siege, super. A range above 3 m is a ranged attack (a projectile is drawn); armor divides damage by (100 + armor) / 100. The model of a type is the slot slotPrefix + id with the team as variant (minion_melee:blue); the slot declares the animation clips it needs (idle, run, attack1, death).

Recipes #

• Minions ignore heroes and only attack towers: targetPriority: ["structure"].
• A tower defense (creeps walk, never fight): engage: false, with one empty team.
• Bigger, slower waves: composition: [{ "type": "melee", "count": 6 }, { "type": "siege", "count": 2 }], interval: 45.
• Late-game pressure: scaling: { "mode": "wave", "every": 2, "hp": 0.1, "damage": 0.08, "armor": 3 }.
• A boss every fifth wave: a minion_types entry brute and { "type": "brute", "count": 1, "every": 5 }.

Hooks, mods, services #

{ "id": "thin_red_waves", "hook": "minion.spawn", "match": { "team": "red" }, "add": { "count": -2 } }

Which enemy a minion may hit is a service another kit provides, combat.targeting { canTarget?(attacker, target), radius?(id), category?(id) } (a tower that cannot be hit yet, a neutral camp, a wide building). Without it the category is read from tags (minion, hero / player, structure / tower, monster). A kit that provides world.navigation { next(key, from, to) } lets minions bend around walls when a chase takes them off their route.

Variables: minion.wave, minion.count, minion.debug.

Save #

The wave count and clock, every minion (type, team, route, progress, state, target, cooldown), the reinforcements and the target priority. After a load the minions walk and fight on and the next wave leaves on time; a minion whose type, route or team is gone (a mod removed it) is dropped.

Engines #

Web and native player run the same rules (waves, rows, scaling, the state machine, rewards, hooks, save). Health, damage, targeting, attacks, navigation, water and ground are called from the modules that serve them.