Enemies

ASKEnemyBase

An enemy is a pawn with health, a weapon and a movement mode. Everything below is set on a Blueprint child of SKEnemyBase — you never subclass in C++ to make a new enemy type.

Enemies are pooled. They are hidden and reused rather than destroyed, which is what lets a stage throw hundreds of them at the player without hitching. The kit resets their state for you on reuse; the only thing to remember is covered under Object Pooling.

Shared pawn features

Enemies, bosses and the player all inherit from the same pawn base, so these apply to every one of them.

Components

Component	Purpose
Capsule	The collision shape and root. Sized in the Blueprint.
Mesh	The visible model, attached to the capsule.
Health	Hit points, invulnerability and the death event. See Health, Shields & Energy.
Weapon Front	The default weapon mount. See Weapons.

Contact damage

Property	Default	Purpose
Contact Damage	0	Damage dealt to an opposing pawn on collision. 0 means the enemy is harmless to touch.
Takes Contact Damage	On	Whether this pawn is hurt by contact in return. Turn it off for something that should ram the player without wearing itself down.
Applied Contact Knockback	0	How hard it shoves whatever it hits.
Received Knockback Scale	1	Multiplier on knockback received. 0 makes it immovable — right for a heavy tank or a boss.
Received Knockback Decay	8	How quickly a knockback impulse bleeds off. Higher settles sooner.

Hit and death feedback

All optional. Leave a slot empty and that piece of feedback simply doesn't play.

Property	Default	Purpose
Death Effect	—	Niagara system spawned on death. Automatically attached to the scrolling world, so the explosion travels with the ground instead of hanging in the air.
Death Sound	—	Played at the death location.
Hit Camera Shake	—	Shake on taking damage.
Death Camera Shake	—	Shake on dying. Identical shakes fired in the same instant are coalesced, so a wave dying together doesn't multiply into a screen-breaking jolt.
Hit Squash Scale	0.8, 1.2, 1	The scale the mesh springs to when hit, then recovers from. A quick squash reads as impact far better than a colour flash alone.
Squash Stiffness	250	Spring strength of the recovery. Higher snaps back faster.
Squash Damping	12	How much the spring is damped. Lower wobbles for longer.
Hit Flash Duration	0.05	Seconds per flash pulse. 0 disables flashing.
Hit Flash Count	3	Number of pulses per hit.
Hit Flash Intensity	10	Value written to the material parameter.
Hit Flash Param Name	HitFlash	The scalar parameter driven on the mesh's material. Your material needs a parameter of this name for flashing to show.

Enemy properties

Property	Default	Purpose
Score Value	0	Points awarded on death. 0 awards nothing.
Drop Table	—	What this enemy drops. See Pickups & Drops.
Despawn When Offscreen	On	Returns the enemy to the pool once it has genuinely left the view, so a missed enemy doesn't tick forever. It does not count as a kill — no score, no drops.
Path Follow	—	The movement component, covered next.
Formation Index	-1	Read-only at runtime. Which slot of a formation this enemy occupies, so per-member drops and fire delays can be applied.

Movement

USKPathFollowComponent

One component handles every enemy movement style. Pick a Movement Mode; only the properties relevant to that mode are shown in the details panel.

Mode	Behaviour
Stationary	Holds position. Correct for turrets and for anything riding the scrolling terrain, which is already being carried along by the world.
Patrol	Slides back and forth along an axis, around its spawn point.
Chase	Moves toward the player while they are within range.
Follow Path	Flies a route authored as a Path asset.
Sway	Drifts in a smooth oscillation around its home position — a gentle hover for something holding station.

Shared

Property	Default	Purpose
Move Speed	300	Base speed for whichever mode is active.
Speed Override	0	Set by a wave step or spawn point to retune this instance. 0 keeps the enemy's own speed.
Bank Angle	15	Degrees the mesh rolls into a turn. Purely visual, and the same motion the player ship uses.
Bank Lerp Speed	8	How quickly it eases into the roll. 0 is instant.

Per mode

Property	Mode	Purpose
Patrol Range	Patrol	How far it travels either side of its spawn point.
Patrol Axis	Patrol	Direction of travel. Defaults to (0,1,0) — side to side across the screen.
Chase Radius	Chase	How close the player must be before it gives chase.
Path Data	Follow Path	The route asset to fly.
Mirror Path	Follow Path	Flips the route horizontally, so one authored path serves both sides of the screen.
Sway Amplitude	Sway	How far it drifts on each axis. Defaults to no vertical drift and 120 units sideways.
Sway Frequency	Sway	Cycles per second.
Sway Ease Speed	Sway	How quickly the sway fades in when it starts.
Return Speed	Sway	Speed used when returning to the home position.

Blueprint hooks

Override these in your enemy Blueprint from the Functions → Override panel.

Event	Fires
On Pawn Damaged	Whenever damage lands, with the amount and the causer.
On Pawn Death	When the enemy dies, before it returns to the pool.
On Enemy Scored	When its score is awarded, with the points — for a floating score number or a combo counter.

Silent Kill removes an enemy without awarding score or spawning drops — the right call for scripted clean-up.

Off-screen protection

Enemies ignore damage while they are above the top or below the bottom of the view. Without this, a fast shot can kill an enemy before the player ever sees it: damage numbers pop at the screen edge and its pickups drift in from nowhere with nothing visibly having died.

Property	Default	Purpose
Ignore Damage Off Screen	On	On the health component. Turn it off for an enemy that should be killable before it arrives.
Off Screen Damage Margin	0	Extra world units past the edge before damage stops registering. Raise it to let shots connect just out of view.

Building an enemy

Where next