Missile Volleys at Bow Range

Since the locales / placement ship, the fight on the city apron stopped being melee-only cosplay. Missile troops are a real system now: range, occlusion, and a standoff that sticks.

Hold the line — do not charge it

Early missile AI treated “in contact” the same way melee did. At bow standoff (~11–14 m) that flipped melee_contact, Individual Charge kicked in, and archers jogged into hand-to-hand after one volley.

Missile squads now skip melee-contact AI. They always march to a ranged standoff goal (CombatMissile.attack_standoff_for), never take angled assault shortcuts, and wait until living archers are on their formation slots before the volley goes out.

Shots that can miss for a reason

CombatMissile is deterministic — no dice. A clear shot uses normal damage plus a rear-sector bonus; a shot with bodies in the corridor misses. Same-squad rear ranks do not block each other, so a deep formation can still rain arrows. Other units in the half-width corridor do.

Arrows are no longer debug candy. Shafts scale to soldier-arm length (~0.34 m), slender wood body, small iron tip, modest fletching via vertex colors so MultiMesh stays readable without cartoon stake silhouettes.

Hunters look like hunters

Attacker Low.glb is a single mesh with shields baked in. Missile barbarians were skipping gear equip entirely, so OTS volley cams read as a teardrop shield wall. They now pull a modular leather + bow loadout so the rear rank reads as hunters, not another infantry blob.

Also landed: winter banks

Season look locked winter to olive-B moist banks with snowy dry fields — softer moisture fade, powder mottling, and a dry albedo that stays white under overcast fill. Same terrace grid; different year-round read.

What to look for in a build

• Spawn hunters opposite a Roman wall and watch them stop at bow range.
• Freeze a volley mid-flight — shafts should read wood/iron, not neon debug sticks.
• Rear ranks should still fire while front ranks hold the corridor.