Combat Components, Duck Shot Bridge, Projectiles, and Loadouts

Vehicle MC already has a clear combat-side shape, even if some of the content files are still light or scaffolded.

This is the layer to understand when you want:

• armed vehicles
• subsystem damage
• Duck Shot integration
• collision damage policy
• future-ready turret, projectile, and loadout structure

combat.yml

combat.yml is the main runtime policy file for combat behavior.

combat:
  enabled: false
  targeting:
    lookDistance: 64.0
  damage:
    globalDamageScalar: 1.0
    dualWriteToVehicleHp: true
    destroyVehicleOnZeroHp: true
  inbound:
    genericProjectileIngressEnabled: true
    genericExplosionIngressEnabled: true

This file decides:

• whether combat is on
• how far targeting checks should reach
• how damage is scaled
• whether combat damage also writes to the normal vehicle HP layer
• whether generic projectile and explosion ingress is allowed

Damage policy and budgets

The same file also controls:

• cooldowns
• persistence behavior
• background suspend rules while occupied
• per-tick budgets for projectiles, explosions, block breaks, and regen

These settings matter because they define how aggressive the combat layer can be on a live server.

duckshot_bridge.yml

This is the direct contract between Duck Shot and Vehicle MC.

duckshotBridge:
  enabled: true
  filters:
    allowWeapons: [item]
    denyWeapons:
      - FX_SMOKE_GRENADE
  duckshotToVehiclemc:
    readProjectiles: true
    readExplosions: true
    readPlantedAndLoose: true
  vehiclemcToDuckshot:
    enabled: true
    routeExplosiveWeapons: true

This file controls:

• which Duck Shot weapons are allowed or denied
• whether projectiles and explosions are read
• whether loose or planted explosives are included
• whether Vehicle MC explosive behavior is routed back toward Duck Shot

If combined vehicle-plus-weapon behavior feels wrong, this is the first file to inspect.

components.yml

components.yml is the subsystem-damage layer.

Example:

components:
  defaults:
    hp:
      engine: 100.0
      transmission: 80.0
      wheels: 60.0
      rotor: 70.0
      wings: 70.0
      fuel_tank: 60.0

This is what lets you treat a vehicle as more than one health bar.

Use this layer when you want:

• engines to feel fragile or sturdy
• wheels or tracks to be tactical weak points
• rotor and wing damage to matter on air vehicles
• fuel tanks or ammo racks to be risky targets

collisions.yml

This file handles combat-style collision damage policy.

Important groups include:

• tick interval
• pair cooldowns
• vehicle-to-vehicle toggles
• vehicle-to-world toggles
• mass classes
• minimum relative speed
• damage scaling

This is how you decide whether collisions are:

• mostly cosmetic
• a mild punishment
• a major tactical damage source

destruction.yml

destruction.yml is the world-damage safety layer.

It currently covers:

• whether destruction is enabled
• block-break budget per tick
• regen budget per tick
• persistence and restore behavior

That makes it the right place to decide whether the server should support destructive combat at all, and how carefully it should be restored.

weapons.yml, projectiles.yml, turrets.yml, and vehicle_loadouts.yml

These files are currently present as scaffold or light-preset files rather than dense finished content libraries.

That is still useful to know publicly:

• the plugin already has a clear long-term place for weapon presets
• projectile presets have a dedicated home
• turret groups have a dedicated home
• vehicle loadout presets have a dedicated home

Right now, the public takeaway is that the structure exists even where your own server may still need to author the actual content.

Honest deployment advice

If you are not running armed vehicles yet:

• leave combat off
• keep the bridge simple
• do not over-author projectile or turret presets prematurely

If you are running armed vehicles:

1. enable combat deliberately
2. test the Duck Shot bridge with a very small allowlist or denylist policy
3. keep subsystem HP readable
4. watch the damage and per-tick budgets
5. only then expand into bigger loadout or turret libraries

Related pages

• weapon Presets, Turret Groups, and Loadout Staging
• damage Routing, Collision Damage, and Destruction Safety
• vehicle Bases, Controllers, Stats, Seats, and Hitboxes
• fuel Tanks, Spawnpoints, Hoses, and Station Behavior
• duck Shot Bridge, UI, and Operator Workflows