Daily Dev Update: Lasers, Spectators, and Smarter Bots - September 1, 2025

Period: September 1, 2025 Total Commits: 19

Hey all — quick rundown of what shipped today. We added a new Laser Beam tower, built a proper spectator mode, tightened up bot defense logic, and cleaned up a bunch of networking and UI edges. It’s getting there.

What’s New

• Laser Beam tower (directional box AOE)
  • Shoots straight lines in cardinal directions only (N/S/E/W)
  • Hits a 2x1 tile area (2 tiles range, 1 tile width) with continuous damage
  • 36 rotation frames for smooth tracking; attacks “snap” at cardinals so what you see is what you hit
  • Early balance: cost 150, damage 240 — numbers will move as we see more games
  • Plays well setting lanes for flamers and crossfires; think “lane denial” more than single-target delete

[screenshot: Laser Beam tower carving a lane at 1a6a6da]

• Spectator mode
  • Shows a clear SPECTATOR MODE indicator
  • No unit selection UI and no “(You)” label on teams
  • Skips the initial selection modal so you can get right to watching
  • HUD now adapts: 2x2 grid for 3–4 players, side‑by‑side for 2 players

[screenshot: spectator HUD with 2x2 layout at 9753e85]

• Keyboard controls for faster play
  • WASD to pan
  • Q to cycle minions, E to cycle towers
  • R to flip between Team A and Team B boards
  • Cuts down on UI clicks and makes quick swaps smoother

[screenshot: quick-select UI with highlight states at b5db63e]

• Match flow
  • The game now ends correctly when the last castle is destroyed. Clean finish, no lingering states.

What Got Fixed

• Bots: income and defense logic

  • Fixed bots always seeing 1.0/s income; they now load minion configs correctly and track income increases
  • Normalized addresses to lowercase so gold/income Map lookups stop failing
  • Stopped bots from placing at middle/back castles too early
    • Front castles get highest priority until they’re actually down
    • Middle/Back only get defense boosts once front is destroyed
    • Dead castles are skipped entirely when picking positions
  • Resolved a debug crash (“minionThreat is not defined”) by moving declarations outside conditionals

• Bot defense prioritization (smarter choices under pressure)

  • Prioritizes undefended castles, especially weak left sides
  • Accounts for current damage, defender count, incoming minion health (weighted by distance), and enemy spawns on the same lane
  • Adds X‑position ranges for middle (16–22) and back (24–30) so defenders anchor correctly

• Combat/VFX polish

  • Laser beam rotation now renders correctly and only fires at exact cardinals
  • Laser animation plays while the projectile is active; beam length tuned so it actually reaches targets
  • Flamethrower flame stays attached to its tower as it rotates

[screenshot: laser beam rotation and spawn offsets fixed at 380365f]

• UI/UX

  • Spectators don’t see the player-only UI and labels
  • Placement validation updates reliably when switching views with R

• Stability and cleanup

  • Trimmed noisy debug logs from the core sim while keeping useful bot logs

What’s Still Broken

• Laser numbers are first pass. Expect tweaks to cost, damage, and how it scales with buffs.
• Bot defense is better but still reactive; edge cases with simultaneous castle pressure can look indecisive.
• Spectator mode is functional but minimal — camera tools and player focus presets are on the list.
• There may be rare placement validation hiccups when swapping views quickly; we’re watching for repros.

Under the Hood

• Smarter bot planning

  • Goal-based saving/spending so bots don’t blow gold on low-impact towers
  • Pathfinding validation prevents accidental castle blockages
  • Tracks enemy spawn lanes to position defenses where it matters
  • Health scaling for minions moved to config: HEALTH_SCALING_PER_PLAYER_LEVEL = 1.2 for easier tuning

• Network and proxy work (alpha environment)

  • Added HTTPS with strict TLS settings and HTTP/2, plus clean redirects
  • Split the nginx proxy from the backend for independent control
  • Fixed CORS and wired proxies for RPC, autofund, wiki, and a proxied bot manager endpoint
  • Wiki server now binds correctly and routes through the proxy

• Dev workflow and ops

  • Background commands for bot manager and wiki with log helpers
  • Centralized pre‑funded test accounts (5 accounts, 10,000 ETH each) so configs are consistent across environments
  • Minor asset tweaks (zotif minion size; flamer damage) and FixedPoint utility additions

What’s Next

• Balance pass on the Laser Beam and broader “lane control” tools
• More spectator QoL: player focus, timeline scrub basics, and better camera presets
• Continued bot tuning around multi-lane pressure and mid/back handoff timing
• Performance profiling on large beam+flame scenarios
• More docs on the wiki and clearer HUD states during heavy action

Try It Out

If you want to poke at this build, head to https://alpha.towerstorm.com. It’s a work-in-progress, so things will wobble. Keyboard controls are on (WASD, Q/E, R), spectator mode is available, and bots are a decent sparring partner.

Wiki’s up at http://wiki.towerstorm.com with setup notes and tips. If you hit something weird, tell us what you were doing — the bot logs and your reports help a lot.