Combat Moves and Crippling Injuries
The combat move strip above the lower HUD lets you choose your next strike or shot without covering the battlefield. Z and the aim button show or hide the strip. Press a move and attack normally.
Basic moves
Basic variants require no unlocked ability when your weapon and condition allow aiming. Burst fire, hex attacks, weapons without aiming, and damaged eyes restrict the choice. Moves incompatible with your weapon or mode are hidden. Locked special moves do not appear; unlocked but temporarily unavailable moves stay dim, with the reason in their tooltip.
| Move | Hit penalty | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Normal attack with no selected move | 0 | Critical damage ×2 |
| Precise strike | 20 points | Torso hit; critical damage ×3 |
| Painful strike | 25 points | Vulnerable-zone hit; critical damage ×4 |
| Head strike | 50 points | Critical damage ×5 |
| Spoil aim | 40 points | Arm hit; brief accuracy reduction, injury on a critical hit |
| Slow down | 30 points | Leg hit; brief running slowdown, injury on a critical hit |
| Blind | 70 points | Eye hit from the front; brief blindness, eye injury on a critical hit |
Abilities can reduce these penalties. Read the percentage against your selected target: distance, cover, and evasion change the result. The tooltip does not invent a percentage without a selected target. It shows stamina, attack cooldown, aiming surcharge, enhancement cooldown, and hotkey; choosing a move spends no stamina and does not attack.
Only one move is selected: another button replaces it, and pressing the same button cancels it. In single mode, an accepted attack, including a miss, clears the selection; your next attack is ordinary until you choose a new move. Selection and cancellation are free. You do not select left and right limbs manually: if the primary limb is injured, the move targets the other, intact limb when possible.
Aiming increases the time between attacks: the base surcharge is one second, subject to existing bonuses and modifiers. The tooltip shows the full cooldown and aiming contribution. Changing weapons, the active hand or mode, moving to another map, and dying clear selection.
Brief effects and enhancements
The attack must hit and the target must not evade. Without a critical hit, basic moves apply:
- Slow down — 30% less run speed for 4 seconds; walking is unaffected.
- Spoil aim — 15 fewer accuracy points for 4 seconds.
- Blind — blindness for 1.5 seconds when attacking from the front.
A ready, enabled ability upgrades the move when you select it. Spoil aim and Slow down become an arm or leg injury without requiring a critical hit; blindness increases to 5 seconds. The button name and tooltip cost show the selected variant. If the ability is locked, disabled, cooling down, or you lack stamina for the enhancement, the basic variant remains available.
In single-attack mode, a move and its enhancement wait for the next suitable attack without an eight-second limit. Extra stamina is spent and the cooldown starts when the attack is accepted, including a miss. Selecting it again cancels the entire selection for free. The basic move also clears after the attack. Choose it again when the ability is ready for another enhancement. A basic variant selected during cooldown does not automatically become enhanced.
Disarm, Pin down, Whirlwind, and Overwatch require their own abilities. See the abilities guide for conditions and costs.
Eye attack angle
Blindness requires standing in front of the target relative to its facing. From another angle, the attack hits the head. The tooltip shows the current effective chance and explains this substitution; a moving target may turn before impact.
Consequences of injuries
A critical limb or eye hit causes an injury instead of an extra damage multiplier. Some creatures are protected against these injuries.
- Damaged eyes: vision drops to 20% of normal; moves that choose a hit zone are unavailable.
- Damaged arms: one damaged arm reduces accuracy with a two-handed weapon by 25 points.
- Damaged legs: each halves movement speed on both local and global maps; two reduce it to one quarter.
Injuries do not heal on their own. A splint kit treats arms and legs, and an eye kit treats damaged eyes; medics sell these kits, and you can use them on yourself or another character. Respawning clears injuries. Temporary blindness ends on its own; kits do not remove it.
Disarming
Disarm removes an eligible weapon from the main slot on a landed arm attack. A player’s weapon stays in their inventory; an NPC’s weapon drops on the ground. Weapons that cannot be dropped are not removed; a successfully disarmed target gains brief protection against repetition.
Repeating and queuing moves
The main button selects one accepted attack; pressing it again cancels selection, and another move replaces it. On the right, ∞ repeats one move in subsequent attacks; press ∞ again to stop. + appends one attack in click order, up to 99: head, head, slow down, head executes in that order. +N shows how many attacks with that move remain, and the tooltip shows the order. The main button and ∞ clear the queue. Repeating uses your existing attack cycle against the chosen target; selection itself does not attack.
An accepted attack consumes one entry even if it misses; rejection consumes none. Attacks become ordinary when the queue ends. A special move waits for its cooldown, stamina, and a working loaded weapon. A basic move works without its enhancement and, in repeat or queue mode, uses it again when ready. A single basic selection does not upgrade itself after a cooldown. Every attack pays its own full stamina and cooldowns; building the program is free. Pausing and changing targets preserve it; changing weapons, hands, attack mode, map, dying, ending the session, or switching characters clears it.