Projectiles & Beams

ASKProjectileBase

Projectiles carry their own damage, speed and lifetime. A weapon level decides how many go out and in what shape; the projectile Blueprint decides what each one does when it arrives. That split is deliberate — it means one projectile can be reused across a dozen weapons.

Every projectile is pooled. They are recycled rather than destroyed, so a bullet-heavy stage does no allocation once it is running.

Core properties

Property	Default	Purpose
Damage	10	Applied to the first opposing pawn it overlaps.
Speed	1200	Travel speed in units per second.
Lifespan	3	Seconds before it expires and returns to the pool. This is the hard cap on every shot.
Sphere Radius	15	The collision size. Generous radii feel better than visually exact ones — players read near misses as hits.
Applied Knockback	0	How hard the hit shoves its target.
Faction	Neutral	Set automatically by the firing weapon. Shots ignore their own faction entirely; Neutral hits everyone.
Move Direction	1,0,0	Direction of travel, set by the weapon on firing.
Despawn When Offscreen	On	Recycles shots that have left the view along their travel axis.
Offscreen Margin	150	How far past the edge before that happens.

Components

Component	Purpose
Sphere	Collision and root. Lives on the SKProjectile object channel, which ignores everything by default so bullets never test against each other or scenery.
Mesh	The visible shot. No collision of its own.
Trail FX	A Niagara trail that follows the shot. Restarted correctly on every reuse.

Impact and expiry feedback

A shot that hits and a shot that times out are different events with separate feedback slots. All are optional.

Property	Fires
Impact Effect	Niagara, on contact — including contact with an already-dead target, which still absorbs the shot.
Impact Sound	Sound, on contact.
Impact Camera Shake	Shake, on contact.
Expire Effect	Niagara, when Lifespan runs out — a fizzle rather than a hit.
Expire Sound	Sound, on expiry.
Expire Camera Shake	Shake, on expiry.

Impact and expiry effects are attached to the scrolling world automatically, so they travel with the ground rather than hanging in mid-air as the level moves past.

Blueprint hooks

Event	Fires
On Projectile Hit	On damaging a live target, with the actor and hit result.
On Projectile Expired	When Lifespan runs out.

Homing missiles

ASKProjectileMissile

A projectile that acquires a target and steers toward it, accelerating as it goes. Use it as a weapon level's Projectile Class like any other.

Property	Default	Purpose
Homing Responsiveness	5	How hard it steers. Higher locks on tightly; lower gives a lazy, arcing pursuit. 0 disables steering entirely.
Homing Delay	0.25	Seconds of dumb flight before it ignites. The missile coasts at its launch speed, which reads as the moment it drops clear of the ship.
Max Speed	1800	Speed it builds to once ignited. 0 keeps it at its launch speed.
Acceleration	2500	How fast it climbs to Max Speed.
Retarget Interval	0	Seconds between re-picking a target. 0 keeps the first lock for life.
Seek Radius	0	How far it looks for a target. 0 searches without limit.
Orient To Velocity	On	Points the mesh where it is going.

Bombs

ASKBombProjectile

An arcing projectile that lands at the player's position and explodes in an area. Because it commits to a position at launch, it is a telegraphed threat the player can walk out of — the classic mortar attack.

Property	Default	Purpose
Flight Time	1.5	Seconds from launch to impact. This is the reaction window.
Arc Height	500	Peak height of the lob.
Explosion Radius	250	Area of effect on landing.
Damage Falloff	On	Full damage at the centre, tapering to nothing at the edge. Off deals full damage across the whole radius.
Explosion Effect / Sound / Camera Shake	—	Feedback on detonation.

The landing marker

The telegraph is what makes a bomb fair. A marker mesh is placed at the target point for the whole flight so the player can read the threat and move.

Property	Default	Purpose
Landing Marker	—	The marker mesh. Leave it unset for an untelegraphed bomb.
Marker Z Offset	20	Height above the ground, to avoid z-fighting with terrain.
Animate Marker	On	Grows and pulses as impact approaches.
Marker Start Scale	0.35	Size at launch, growing to full by impact.
Marker Pulse Amount	0.15	Depth of the pulse.
Marker Pulse Speed	4	Pulses per second.
Marker Flash Param	Flash	Scalar parameter driven on the marker's material for a final warning flash.

Laser beams

ASKLaserBeam

A beam is not a projectile — it is one continuous swept trace that damages everything along its length. Set a weapon level's Beam Class and that level becomes a beam weapon; projectile, burst and spread settings are then ignored.

Property	Default	Purpose
Damage Per Second	60	Damage per second of continuous contact. This is where beam damage lives — not on the weapon.
Damage Interval	0.1	Seconds between damage ticks. Each tick applies the damage banked since the last one, so totals are identical at 60 or 144 FPS. 0 damages every frame.
Max Length	2000	How far the beam reaches.
Growth Speed	2000	How fast it extends to full length.
Retract On Deactivate	On	Pulls back when released instead of vanishing.
Stop At First Hit	On	The beam is blocked by the first target. Turn it off to pierce everything in line.
Trace Radius	20	Thickness of the swept trace.
Laser Sound	—	Played while active. Beams use this rather than the weapon level's fire sound.

Driving the visuals

Property	Default	Purpose
Beam End Param Name	LaserEnd	The Niagara user parameter the beam writes its end point to. Your beam system needs a vector parameter of this name.
Beam End In World Space	On	Whether that end point is written in world or local space — match whichever your Niagara system expects.
Colour Param Name	Colour	Colour parameter driven on the beam system.

Building a projectile

Where next