How-To: Tune Reach and Standoff

Goal: control how far an attack may stretch, where it stops relative to the target, and what happens when the target is out of range.

Prerequisites
A working warp, as built in Quick Start. The model behind these numbers is in Concept: How Reach Is Derived.

1. Set the reach band

Scale Band is a multiplier of whatever the montage's warp window was authored to travel, not a distance in centimetres. The default (0.30, 1.30) lets an attack compress to 30 percent of its authored travel and stretch to 130 percent.

Only the upper bound clamps. The lower bound is diagnostic: a target nearer than it is still warped to exactly, because travelling the authored distance toward a closer target would sail straight past it. The outcome simply reports CompressedTooClose so a combo selector can prefer a shorter attack next time.

You wantSet
A tighter, more honest attackLower the upper bound toward 1.0
A forgiving gap-closerRaise the upper bound to 1.6 or beyond
To know when an attack is being squashedRaise the lower bound and watch for CompressedTooClose
A hard cap in centimetres regardless of animationTick b Use Explicit Reach Override and set Min Reach / Max Reach
Verify
Run Crimson.MotionWarping.Debug 1 and attack. The amber ring is the upper bound. A target outside it produces an orange path that stops on the ring, with a red segment labelled short by N cm.

2. Set the standoff

The character stops short of the target by both capsule radii plus Contact Offset. Because the radii are read at runtime, one profile serves a rat and a boss with no per-enemy data - a 200cm-wide boss is approached from further out automatically.

SettingEffect
Contact OffsetAdded on top of both radii. Positive stops further out - a spear wants more than a dagger
b Use Target Capsule RadiusUntick to ignore the target's size and stand off by your own radius plus the offset only
Arrival ToleranceA remaining gap smaller than this counts as already arrived: no translation, rotation only
Verify
With debug drawing on, the pale blue ring around the target is the standoff, and your landing point should sit on it. Ending up inside the enemy means the offset is too negative.

3. Choose what happens when the target is too far

Too Far PolicyBehaviour
Clamp To Max Reach (default)Warp as far as the band allows and fall short. The attack whiffs readably
Play UnwarpedPlay the montage exactly as authored - the animation's own distance, direction and facing. The attack does not steer toward the target at all
Block ActivationPlant nothing and report Blocked, so the ability can end and something else be chosen
Report OnlyWarp the whole way with no clamp, exactly like stock Motion Warping, and just report it
The default lets attacks whiff
Clamp To Max Reach activates the ability anyway and simply falls short, which is why the outcome is worth reading. A graph that ignores On Resolved's Result will produce real misses at long range - branch on ClampedTooFar if you would rather substitute a gap-closer.
Verify
Attack a target far outside the amber ring. Clamp To Max Reach stops on the ring; Play Unwarped runs the animation along its own path without turning toward the target; Block Activation fires On Failed and plants nothing.

See also

  • Concept: How Reach Is Derived
  • How-To: Override Values Per Attack
  • How-To: Diagnose a Warp