DEVLOG | May 1, 2026

Aircraft hit zones and damage source

implementationresearch

This was a research-and-implementation day: less about ceremony, more about tightening the shape of the thing until it behaved a little more like itself. 24 commits landed or were available locally. There was also a decent amount of local conversation around the work, but the useful part is the trail it leaves: questions asked, decisions narrowed, and a few assumptions made explicit. The center of gravity was map, terrain, smoke, bullet.

What moved

research moved through document aircraft bullet hitbox treatment.

implementation moved through tune smoke puff visibility, make smoke puffs beadlike, match smoke puff lifecycle, add bullet impact feedback, add world damage source, coalesce duplicate inbound/outbound combat feedback per tick, recover aircraft bullet hit zones, and default ready room side on join.

What I learned

The combat model is becoming less abstract. Hits need to be legible, not just registered, and the visible feedback has to stay tied to the underlying state instead of becoming decorative noise.

Source trail

The research lane stays research, and the implementation lane stays implementation. This post is a narrative summary of local work, not a publication of raw originals.