Units

Every Unit keeps a stable UUID for as long as it lives, takes up one cell slot, moves at most one cardinal cell per Tick, and performs at most one action.

Comparison

Unit	HP	Vision	Base price	Attack	Special role
Worker	2	3	5	-	Harvest and deposit
Vanguard	4	4	10	1 sweep damage	Adjacent area pressure
Ranger	2	5	12	1 shot damage	Eight-direction range 1-3 precision attack

MOVE, PICKUP_BEACON, DROP_BEACON, HEAL, SELF_DESTRUCT, and WAIT are available to every Unit. Everything else depends on the type.

These are base prices for population 0-19. The next Unit becomes more expensive from population 20 onward; see Production and dynamic prices.

Worker

Allowed actions:

• MOVE
• HARVEST
• DEPOSIT
• PICKUP_BEACON
• DROP_BEACON
• HEAL
• SELF_DESTRUCT
• WAIT

HARVEST needs an empty-cargo Worker standing on a RESOURCE cell. Natural points yield 1 resource, or 2 while the owner holds the Champion Beacon, and are then consumed. Cargo dropped by a dead Worker is recovered first: a normal Worker takes 1, while a Beacon Worker takes at most 2 without exceeding the pile's actual remainder.

If several eligible empty Workers harvest the same point in one Tick, only the Worker with the lowest UUID in raw-byte order succeeds. The point is consumed once. Every other contender receives HARVEST_FAILED with RESOURCE_DEPLETED; Beacon ownership does not change the tie-break.

Cargo capacity is really just however much the last successful harvest or recovery brought in: normally 1, and at most 2 with the Beacon. Losing the Beacon does not delete cargo a Worker is already carrying.

DEPOSIT needs the Worker to share a cell with its own Core, and that Core has to be normal and receptive — one that is migrating or recovering from a migration cannot take delivery. Core capacity is max(10, population × 5). A deposit moves only what fits and leaves any remainder on the Worker. A full Core returns CORE_RESOURCE_FULL; every failed deposit leaves the cargo alone. If the Worker dies for any reason, all cargo becomes a resource pile on its final cell.

Workers cannot attack at all.

Vanguard

Allowed actions:

• MOVE
• SWEEP with one cardinal direction
• PICKUP_BEACON
• DROP_BEACON
• HEAL
• SELF_DESTRUCT
• WAIT

SWEEP hits the adjacent cell in the direction you choose. Every enemy Unit standing there takes 1 damage, and so does an enemy Core. Send several Vanguards at the same cell and their damage adds up inside the shared combat snapshot.

A sweep needs no target UUID, and it will never hurt your own objects.

Ranger

Allowed actions:

• MOVE
• SHOOT with expected_cell and an optional target_id
• PICKUP_BEACON
• DROP_BEACON
• HEAL
• SELF_DESTRUCT
• WAIT

A cell shot is legal only when all of the following hold:

1. expected_cell and Ranger share a horizontal, vertical, or exact 45-degree diagonal line;
2. the distance along that line is 1, 2, or 3 — (3, 3) is range 3, while (2, 1) is not aligned;
3. no cell in between holds an obstacle.

Movement resolves first. If the cell contains hostiles, the server hits the one with the lowest HP, breaking ties by raw UUID order. If no hostile remains, the shot misses normally. Units and Cores never block Ranger fire, regardless of owner. There is no front-to-back ordering to exploit within a cell. For diagonal fire, only the intermediate diagonal cells are checked; obstacles beside the line do not block it.

For backward-compatible precision fire, include target_id; that mode hits only that object if it is still hostile and at expected_cell. The POST endpoint still accepts an unseen or even nonexistent UUID on purpose. At resolution, an empty cell, a missing or moved precision target, bad range, and a blocked line all collapse into the same private SHOT_MISSED event.

Self-destruct

Every Unit can send:

{"type": "SELF_DESTRUCT"}

It removes that Unit before movement, so the Core action later in the Tick uses the smaller population when pricing a spawn. The Unit performs no other action, gives no refund, deals no area damage, and awards no destruction participation. Worker cargo drops on the Unit's cell. A carried Beacon also drops there and cannot be picked up again until the next Tick. The owner receives UNIT_SELF_DESTRUCTED, and units_lost increases by one.

Healing

Every Unit can send:

{"type": "HEAL"}

The Unit gives up its complete action for this Tick. After combat, it must still be alive and share a cell with its own stationary Core. The action spends one Core resource per missing HP and can restore several HP at once, stopping at full HP or when resources run out. Unit heals resolve by raw Unit UUID before the Core action. A fatal hit removes the Unit before healing. A full-HP or currently unfunded heal is still a valid plan; if nothing changes before resolution, it fails without spending resources.

A Unit killed by combat is already gone and spends nothing.

Action schema examples

Worker harvest

{"type": "HARVEST"}

Any Unit self-destruct

{"type": "SELF_DESTRUCT"}

Any Unit heal

{"type": "HEAL"}

Vanguard sweep right

{"type": "SWEEP", "direction": "RIGHT"}

Ranger cell shot

{
  "type": "SHOOT",
  "expected_cell": [120, 85]
}

An action may carry only the fields listed for its own type. One unrelated field rejects the entire plan with UNEXPECTED_ACTION_FIELDS, even if its value is null, an empty string, or the zero UUID.