Status report 2026.06.14: combat and audio overhaul

Eight finalized weapon archetypes, reworked death and impact VFX, a full battle audio pass, and a new read-only Subsystems tab in the Workshop.

Added

Finalized the 8 weapon archetypes: added Heavy Machine Gun, Plasma, and Melee; dropped the old AR and SMG types.
Re-equipped all three house mechs onto the new archetypes, retiring the old thematic weapon names.

Reworked the death explosion: soft fire and rising smoke instead of the old geometric burst.
Reworked projectile impacts with softer, more readable hit flashes.
New muzzle flash on every weapon fire.
Per-archetype projectile geometry and trails: railgun helix, rocket smoke, plasma glow, so you can tell weapons apart in flight.
Splash explosion VFX so rocket AoE is actually visible on impact.
OVERCHARGE now telegraphs with a wind-up convergence that detonates into an outward blast.
Added a rising smoke layer to the Nuke fireball.

A distinct fire SFX for each of the 8 weapon archetypes (including plasma and melee).
A unique fire cue for each of the 4 mech abilities.
Two-phase OVERCHARGE audio: charge-up, then detonation.
Distinct incoming-strike warnings for Airstrike vs. Nuke.
SFX for crate drops, crate pickups, and shield hits.
Storm zone-tick audio.
Battle music playlist: kicks off when battle starts, stops at the end, and now picks tracks at random.
An audio calm pass to tame the wall of noise during a busy multi-mech firefight.

New read-only Subsystems inventory tab in the Workshop, with filter, search, and sort controls.
“Equip…” deep-link that jumps from the Subsystems tab straight into the Loadout panel.
New Radar and Module support subsystems.

Power cores now set how much total energy a mech has to distribute across its systems.

Mid-battle joiners now correctly receive the arena layout and spawns when joining during the PREPARING phase.
Battle music now plays when joining a battle already in progress, not just from the intro.
Fixed mouse-wheel zoom not working over part of the arena.