2026-09-22 20:14:36
Anonymous:
Shorten all enemy windups and standardize recovery per owner; remove ordinary melee tint telegraphs
hold the flood/combat and enemy roster.md ..
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# Hold The Horde — Combat And Enemy Roster
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## Current enemy attack timing — owner revision, 22 September 2026
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**Owner request, word for word:**
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> I see... let's fix that.
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> 1- let's reduce the windup time to 1/10 of the time for all enemies.
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> 2- let's remove the color telegraph. special attacks can have a telegraph, but a melee one? this makes no sense.
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> 3- make the time of recovery exactly 1 second for all enemy types, and remove the color change.
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>
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> The main reason why we sill want to have windup and recovery is to throttle attacks so a single touch won't instant kill the player. but the current timing makes it so that players can just avoid all attacks.
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**As built:** all five currently defined enemy roles have one tenth of their previous windup and exactly one second of recovery. Ordinary melee keeps its normal body colour while preparing and recovering; the bite animation remains. There is no red melee warning or dark recovery tint. Death still has its own appearance. Special attacks may retain telegraphs: the Caller's bracing flash remains.
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| Defined enemy role | Windup | Recovery |
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|---|---:|---:|
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| Weak zombie | 0.10 s | 1.00 s |
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| Tough zombie | 0.10 s | 1.00 s |
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| Flanker | 0.06 s | 1.00 s |
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| Presser | 0.09 s | 1.00 s |
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| Caller (special call) | 0.30 s | 1.00 s |
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The existing attack sequence remains: wind up, resolve one hit if the target is still valid and in reach, then recover before starting another attack. Contact does not apply damage every frame. A missed or blocked melee strike also uses the recovery period. The one-second recovery is a rest period after the attack, not a promise of exactly one hit per second: a later strike also needs its windup. Timing takes effect on the next simulation step at or after expiry. No change to damage, movement speed, health, Threat rates/caps, loot, safe-room protection or barriers accompanies this revision.
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These are current implementation rules and supersede earlier descriptions of long, visibly signalled ordinary melee windups below. The additional unimplemented roles, featured scenarios and effects below remain design proposals; this change does not add them to the game. [Threat](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Threat) owns the current dynamic-room progression.
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Verified in Unity: all 298 Core and 82 Unity tests passed. Focused checks cover the five shipped timing cards, delayed first contact damage, the complete one-second recovery before a second windup, the Caller's shortened brace, normal melee colours, preserved bite/death poses and the special bracing flash. These checks verify behavior, not whether the new timing is balanced or enjoyable; that remains for owner playtesting.
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## Earlier roster design and proposed encounters
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The astronaut enters the Balance Gallery to close one pressure cap and inspect a far-wall mark. Across a fixed structural rib, a **Bellback** plants its feet and draws dust into a bright forward cone. Two feeding mouths begin opening behind it. Slow **Pressers** pour onto the gallery floor while a Breath Bank frosts one lane and the balance chamber leans toward whichever plate carries more weight.
The player chooses where the crowd should gather. Sealing one mouth early makes the room safer but gives the build less density to exploit. Holding the centre lets automatic fire keep working and puts more bodies in an arc chain, but Bellback’s locked pressure wave may scatter the knot or throw the astronaut off the cap control. The player can step behind the rib, face a manual Barrier into the wave, interrupt the unfinished brace with a Nozzle, or defeat Bellback. Each answer is visible before commitment.
