Squads, Team Protection, and Group Drop Flow

Squads in Plane Deploy are not only a convenience feature. They are the team logic layer for group insertion.

What squads are supposed to do

The current squad system is designed to:

• let players create and manage squads in game
• pull a group into a shared drop
• add light spread so members are not stacked into one point
• block friendly fire between squad members
• remove protection when members die or the squad ends

Core squad config

The current top-level squad block includes:

squads:
  enabled: true
  maxSize: 4
  inviteExpireSeconds: 30
  requireInPlaneWorld: true
  requireState: IN_PLANE

Those settings are what keep squads anchored to the actual plane flow instead of becoming a generic social party system.

Group deploy rules

The deploy sub-block is where squad behavior becomes drop behavior:

deploy:
  mode: ALL_IN_PLANE
  onlyLeaderCanTrigger: true
  spread:
    radiusBlocks: 2.5
    randomJitterBlocks: 0.25

The practical meaning is:

• all valid members in plane can be pulled into the drop
• only the leader should trigger the coordinated drop
• members get slight horizontal spread around the chosen point

Friendly-fire protection

The current team-protection block is built to stop squad members damaging one another during the active squad lifecycle.

It supports:

• enabled or disabled friendly-fire blocking
• warning messages when damage is blocked
• a message cooldown
• removal from the squad on death

That makes squads usable as a real team layer for a round-based mode.

Public squad announcements

The separate squadAnnouncements block is for public intel and spectacle:

• channel selection
• radius
• message format
• optional leader name
• sounds and particles

Use this when group drops should become part of the wider round information flow.

Live command surface

The current /squad command supports:

/squad
/squad help
/squad create
/squad invite <player>
/squad accept [leader]
/squad decline [leader]
/squad list
/squad leave
/squad disband
/squad kick <player>
/squad leader <player>

Good defaults for most servers

The current defaults are already close to a good round-based mode:

• squads enabled
• leader-only coordinated trigger
• group deploy mode set to ALL_IN_PLANE
• squad preserved after deploy
• friendly fire blocked
• remove-on-death enabled

That setup makes squads feel like temporary combat teams instead of one-off transport parties.

When squads do not pull everyone

If a group drop only brings one or two members, check these first:

• are all expected members in the same world
• are they still in the required player state
• is the leader the one hitting the door
• is the squad already disbanded or partially broken by deaths

Those checks solve most "squads are broken" reports without touching code.