Guts and Glow: Voxel Damage & Broadside AI

• Visual Wreckage Target: Real space combat demands that damage feels like a massive capital warship being gutted, not a debug mesh disappearing. We aligned our visual target with our damage art guidelines—outer armor plates peel away to expose three distinct depth layers: armor thickness, structural frame/deck rhythm, and a blackened, soot-covered interior void.
• Tuned Beam Carving: Instead of vaporizing hull sections instantly (which broke the ship recognizable silhouette), we tuned laser weapons to carve progressive scars, adding heat staining and melting effects before breaching.
• Orbiting Broadside AI: Hostile warships now compute dynamic intercept courses, maneuvering to keep the player tracked within their broadside firing arcs.

Orbit broadside combat initialization: the player immediately engages a maneuvering adversary.

Translucent debug voxel overlay showing structural boundaries and laser trace sweeps.

Tuned laser carving at tick 245. Beams scar and melt the hull, creating dynamic thermal edges.

Orbiting AI executing a strafing run, leaving a progressive trail of vaporized voxels, sparks, and heat bloom.

AI pilot establishing its orbit vector, calculating relative axes to maintain weapon alignment.

Deep hull breach showing structural ribs and deck plating beneath outer armor.

Front-breach interior showing procedural dark caps, pipes, and cables created by the generator.

Wreckage slice overview: structural ribs and decks merge to form a physicalized debris scar with AO shading.

• Gutted Hull vs. Debug Deletion: Simply deleting triangles on hit makes warships look hollow and artificial. Retaining a three-layer damage structure—where structural bulkheads, corridors, and decks remain recognizable underneath torn outer plating—preserves the immense scale and heft of these capital ships.
• Visual Verification Guard: Git pre-push hooks verify builds and LFS assets, blocking modifications to render code unless accompanied by matching screenshot evidence.