# Ranged attacks Three weapons, each with its own cooldown and no ammo. All three are the `attack` part of a turn, and they fire the tick they are sent: ```json {"tick": 40, "attack": {"name": "ranged", "target": [9, 4]}} {"tick": 41, "attack": {"name": "frostburst", "target": [12, 6]}} {"tick": 42, "attack": {"name": "repulsor"}} ``` | attack | damage | cooldown | what it does | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `ranged` | 12 | 6 | A shot at any angle, 2 tiles a tick, with no range limit. Bounces once off a flat wall; a corner or a second wall stops it. | | `frostburst` | 14 | 14 | An instant spell on a visible tile within 7. A 3×3 area slows opponents inside it, then explodes 6 ticks after the cast. | | `repulsor` | 5 | 12 | No aim: hits all eight tiles around you and shoves each opponent 3 tiles. Into a wall: a slam for 10 more and a 3-tick stun. | These are the shipped numbers. Read them from `hello.rules.attacks` rather than hard-coding them. ## Firing - **Fire on send.** Every attack fires in the tick it is sent, after movement: projectiles launch and fly their first segment, frostburst creates its area and starts its fuse, and repulsors shove. Nothing is telegraphed, so a target that stepped off the line that tick escapes and one that stood still is hit. - **Move and attack together.** An attack can follow a move or a dash in the same turn and fires from where you end up: `{"tick": 40, "move": "E", "attack": {"name": "ranged", "target": [9, 4]}}`. - **Chain weapons.** Sending one attack puts only that attack on cooldown, and attacks have no recovery, so a different weapon can fire on the very next tick. A turn carries at most one attack. - **Targets** can be any tile except the one you end your movement on. Frostburst targets must also be visible, non-wall tiles within range, judged from where you end up; otherwise the attack is rejected as `not_visible`, `blocked` or `out_of_range`. Names must be entries in `hello.rules.attacks`; others are `unknown_attack`. - **No friendly fire.** Weapons never damage, slow or shove their shooter or teammates. - **Defend by moving,** dashing (invulnerable for its tick: shots pass through, blasts and repulsors miss) or using cover. ## Standard shot: `ranged` ![A shot banked off a wall, and when shots land by distance](/docs/images/shots.svg) The cheapest, fastest-cycling weapon. A shot flies the straight line from your tile's centre through the target tile's centre, and on past it. Aim at distant tiles (up to ±1000) for precise angles. - **Speed 2, no range limit.** It ends on the first fighter it hits, at a corner, or at its second wall. - **One bounce.** On its first flat-wall contact (the map edge counts), it reflects from the centre of the last open tile and continues along the mirrored line on the next tick. A hit after the bounce is a ricochet: the `hit` event carries `"ricochet": true`. The bounce shows in a `projectile_bounce` event, in later projectile observations and in `danger`. - **The aim locks after movement,** before repulsors resolve. If a repulsor pushes you on the tick you fire, the shot launches from where you land but keeps its direction, even if you land on the aim tile. It still fires and starts its cooldown. The projectile's `target` shifts with its `origin` to express the same direction; the `attack` event keeps the tile you asked for. > [!TIP] > A shot `d` tiles away lands `ceil(d / 2) - 1` ticks after it is sent. Against an enemy that can't > leave its tile for longer than that (stunned, recovering from a dash, or just stepped with its dash > on cooldown), it can't miss. ## Frostburst: deny an area ![A frostburst's fuse, and the way out of it](/docs/images/frostburst.svg) An instant spell with no flight time. Cast on tick T, its area exists from that tick and explodes on T+6. - **The fuse.** The observations for T+1 to T+6 show `areas[].ticks_left` of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. A value of 1 means it explodes this tick, after movement. - **The blast.** Every tile in `areas[].tiles`, corners included, takes the full 14 damage. Walls and map edges are left out, and walls shield tiles behind them with the same line-of-sight test as shots. A dash avoids the blast. The area persists even if its caster dies. - **The slow.** From the tick after the cast until the blast, an opponent who starts a step inside the area pays `areas[].slow` (2) extra move cooldown: a step costs 4 ticks instead of 2. Leaving the square still costs the extra, since the tile you start on decides. Nothing lingers after the blast, dashes and attacks are unaffected, and where areas overlap the largest slow counts. **Why a 6-tick fuse:** it denies an area, so there must be an easy way out but no way through. A fighter in the centre needs two slowed steps, the first on T+1 and the second on T+5, and is out one tick before the blast: it can afford one wasted tick, but not two. Crossing the square takes about 10 ticks, so nobody gets through it before it goes off. > [!TIP] > Cast it on an enemy whose `dash_cooldown` is running: without a dash, its only way out is walking. ## Repulsor: punish anyone adjacent ![The repulsor's ring, a shove in the open and a slam into a wall](/docs/images/repulsor.svg) A point-blank burst with no aim. It covers the eight tiles around you (walls left out), measured from where you end your movement. Send it without a `target`; a `target`, if given, is ignored. Every opponent in the ring takes 5 damage and is shoved 3 tiles straight away from you (the direction from you to its tile), one tile at a time: | the shove meets | result | | --- | --- | | nothing | pushed the full 3 tiles | | a wall, or a wall corner a diagonal shove can't cut past | a **slam**: 10 more damage and `stunned` for 3 ticks (no moving, dashing or attacking) | | another fighter | a **collision**: 5 damage to both | - **Timing.** Repulsors resolve before shots launch and frostbursts are cast, so a fighter shoved this tick fires from where it lands. Movement resolves first, so stepping out of the ring on the tick it is sent escapes it. A dashing fighter is neither hit nor shoved. - **The zone** still hurts at the end of the tick, so a shove out of the zone costs the target too. - **Events:** `repulse` (the ring), `hit`, `knockback` (from, to), `wall_slam`, `collision` and `stunned`. > [!TIP] > Shove when the 3-tile push ends in a wall (`shove` in `bots/lib/bot.ts` simulates it), or into your > own frostburst about to explode. A slam stuns for 3 ticks: slam, then shoot. ## What you observe - **`danger`** lists every tile each visible opponent projectile and area will hit, and on which tick, including bounced shots. See the spec's Danger tiles, and [frame data](/docs/frame-data) for timing and counters. - **`projectiles[]`** include `attack`, `speed`, `origin`, `target`, `exact_pos` and `bounces_left`. - **`areas[]`** include `attack`, `owner`, `pos`, `damage`, `radius`, `slow`, `ticks_left` and `tiles`. Your own projectiles and areas are visible too. `area_spawn` announces the explosion tick and `area_explode` reports its footprint. - **Fighters** expose `slow_ticks_left`: the ticks until the frostburst area they stand in explodes, or 0. ## In the viewer Every weapon effect is drawn in its owner's colour, and shape tells the weapons apart: - **Shots** leave a single trail; bounces and hits throw sparks. - **Frostburst** shows the cast, then the footprint with a countdown, then a blast flash, with a ring around fighters slowed in the square. - **Repulsor** flashes the ring around the fighter with an expanding wave; a shove leaves skid marks. Each fighter's cooldowns (move, dash and the three weapons) are round icons in the arena's bottom corners and the side panel. ## Achievements Two event achievements reward these weapons: **Bank Shot** (a win over an approved house bot that includes a damaging ricochet) and **Wall Breaker** (a house win with a damaging repulsor wall slam). A bounced miss, or a repulsor hit without slam damage, doesn't count; both must happen in the qualifying win, within the event window. See [event eligibility](https://victrisarena.com/docs/events).