Pickups & Drops

ASKPickupBase · USKPickupDefinition · USKDropTableData

Pickups are built from three assets working together. One pooled pickup actor provides the behaviour, a definition turns it into a specific variant, and a drop table decides what an enemy leaves behind when it dies.

The payoff is that you need one pickup Blueprint for your whole game. Gold, silver, health, ammo and weapon drops are all the same actor wearing a different definition.

Pickup types

Type	Effect on collection
Score	Adds Score Value to the run score.
Currency	Adds Currency Value to the run's currency total.
Health	Heals Health Value.
Shield	Restores Shield Value shield points.
Ammo	Refills Ammo Value on ammo-costed weapons.
Invulnerability	Grants immunity for Invulnerability Duration seconds.
Weapon	Grants Weapon Data to the mount named by Mount Target.
Power-Up	Raises the banked weapon level by one, for the whole run.
Secret Level	Fires a Blueprint event only — you decide what it does.
Data Disk	Fires a Blueprint event only. Intended for collectibles and unlocks.

The pickup actor

A Blueprint child of SKPickupBase. These are its own inline values, used when no definition is applied.

Property	Default	Purpose
Pickup Type	Score	Which effect above it applies.
Definition	—	A variant asset that overrides everything below, plus the mesh and material.
Pickup Lifetime	10	Seconds before an uncollected pickup expires. 0 means it waits forever.
Scroll Speed	400	How fast it drifts with the world, so a drop travels down with the terrain instead of hanging in the air.
Scroll Direction	-1,0,0	Which way that drift goes.
Spin Rate	0	Degrees per second the mesh spins, for visual life. The collision capsule doesn't spin.
Spin Axis	0,0,1	Axis it spins around.
Scatter Decay	6	How quickly a scattered pickup skids to rest.
Spawn Effect	—	Niagara played where it appears.
Collected Effect / Sound	—	Feedback on pickup.

Blueprint hooks

Event	Fires
On Pickup Collected	On any collection, with the collecting pawn.
On Pickup Expired	When Pickup Lifetime runs out uncollected.
On Secret Level Triggered	For the Secret Level type — wire your own behaviour here.
On Data Disk Collected	For the Data Disk type.

Definitions

USKPickupDefinition

A definition is a variant. It carries a mesh, a material and a full set of values, and applying one turns the generic pickup actor into that specific thing. Bronze, silver and gold coins are three definitions and one Blueprint.

Property	Purpose
Mesh	Replaces the pickup's mesh.
Material	Replaces its material — enough on its own to recolour a shared mesh into a tier.
Pickup Type	What it does when collected.
Score / Currency / Lives / Health / Shield / Ammo / Invulnerability values	The payload for the matching type.
Weapon Data	For Weapon pickups — the weapon to grant.
Mount Target	Which mount receives it: Front, the side pair, or Rear.
Collected Effect / Sound	Per-variant feedback, so gold can sound different from bronze.

Drop tables

USKDropTableData

A drop table is a list of entries plus a mode. Assign one to an enemy's Drop Table and it rolls on death.

Modes

Mode	Behaviour
Independent	Every entry rolls its own Drop Chance. Several can drop together, or none at all.
Pick One	One weighted roll picks exactly one entry. Drop Chance becomes a weight rather than a probability, and No Drop Weight is the chance of nothing at all.

Entries

Property	Default	Purpose
Pickup Class	—	The pickup actor to spawn.
Definition	—	The variant applied to it. Null uses the pickup class's own values.
Drop Chance	1	Probability in Independent mode; relative weight in Pick One.
Min Count / Max Count	1 / 1	How many to spawn, picked at random within the range. A spray of five coins is one entry.
Scatter Speed	0	Outward launch speed, so a batch sprays apart instead of stacking in one spot. 0 drops in place.
Min / Max Formation Index	-1 / -1	Restricts the entry to certain members of a formation, so only the leader carries the prize. -1 means no restriction.

Emergency drops

Two safety nets on the game mode, entirely separate from drop tables. Both roll once per enemy death, so no enemy needs a health or ammo row in its table and no Pick One table has its odds distorted.

Property	Purpose
Emergency Health Threshold	Fraction of max health at or below which kills can drop health. 0 disables the whole feature.
Emergency Ammo Threshold	Fraction of max ammo at or below which kills can drop ammo. Checks every mount carrying an ammo-costed weapon, and the emptiest one decides.
Chance	Probability per kill once below the threshold.
Cooldown	Minimum seconds between drops.
Pickup Class / Definition / Scatter Speed	What gets dropped, and how it lands.

The magnet

USKPickupMagnetComponent

Add this to the player pawn and pickups are drawn in when they come close. It is pure feel — nothing else depends on it — but it removes the chore of nudging the ship onto every coin.

Property	Default	Purpose
Radius	400	How close a pickup must be before it is pulled.
Acceleration	6000	How quickly a caught pickup speeds up. The ramp from rest is what makes the grab feel like a tug rather than a snap.
Max Speed	1600	Cruise speed cap.
Catch Up Time	0.6	Guarantees arrival within this many seconds, however fast the ship is moving. Without it, pickups can trail a moving ship forever.
Homing	10	How tightly it steers at the ship. Higher locks on; lower gives a curved approach.

Setting up drops

Where next