# duel The rules of the Hedgerow Assizes, in one place: the ground plan of the walled garden, the frame data of the four commitments, the measure each one works at, the triangle that decides what a contact means, how far a post drives the property line, and the roster of neighbours with the fencing each one keeps. Every duel component reads its numbers from here, so the whole match is tuned in one file. Consumed by `Fencer`, `FencerAI`, `DuelMatch`, `DuelHud`, `DuelFx`, `garden` and the main scene's entrypoint. ## The measure Each action carries a band, not a range: `reach` is the furthest the blade crosses and `minReach` the nearest — inside that, the panel is smothered and the attack is *crowded out*. `advance` is the ground the commitment itself takes, so every attack steps in and a defender cannot simply walk backwards out of the sport. A commitment that reached nobody runs its recovery from a debt, and that debt is the whole punishment for committing at the wrong distance. | Action | windup | active | recover | reach | minReach | advance | whiff | parried | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | `thrust` | 0.22 | 0.10 | 0.42 | 2.55 | 1.55 | 0.35 | 0.35 | 0.45 | | `sweep` | 0.34 | 0.20 | 0.58 | 2.15 | 0.00 | 0.25 | 0.55 | 0.65 | | `lunge` | 0.30 | 0.16 | 0.95 | 3.05 | 1.75 | 1.30 † | 1.00 | 1.20 | | `parry` | 0.05 | 0.34 | 0.40 | — | — | — | 0.30 | — | † The lunge is marked `recoil`: whatever of its `advance` it managed to cover it gives back over its own recovery, travelling backwards and unable to answer anything while it does. It buys reach; it never buys position. ## The triangle `parry` turns a `thrust` and a `lunge` aside and earns a riposte; a `sweep` crashes through a held guard; a `thrust` arrives inside a `sweep`'s long wind-up. A riposte cannot be turned at all. **The guard answers from its first frame.** `resolveTouch` treats a `parry` in `windup` exactly as it treats one in `active`, because a guard that only worked once it had finished rising could be beaten by an attack thrown from further out than the wind-up is long — which made a correct read lose to a committed attack, the one outcome the triangle exists to prevent. ## What a post is worth A post is not a fixed step. Three properties of the ground decide how far the line moves, and between them they are what gives a bout its length: | | | | |---|---|---| | `POST_STEP` | 1.15 | fresh mown lawn in the middle of a garden | | `POST_ROOTED` | 0.60 | the last feet before a hedge are old rooted ground, and give up to this much of the step | | `POST_RECLAIM` | 0.35 | lawn you already conceded holds somebody else's posts; they come out before the line passes back | | `POST_CHURN` | 0.05 | each post already driven breaks the ground a little further, to `POST_CHURN_MAX` | `postDrive(line, dir, posts, driven)` is the whole rule. Rooted ground stops a garden being annexed by a short run of luck; conceded ground stops two even fencers walking the line back and forth all afternoon. Chosen against a simulation of the rule over 600 bouts a configuration, with the riposte rate and touch cadence taken from played logs: a median bout of about 20 touches, 80 % of bouts between 45 s and 120 s. ## The roster, and how each one fences `NEIGHBOURS` is the roster — index, `key`, `skill` and `style`. `STYLES` is the fencing attached to each key, and it is what makes three opponents rather than one opponent at three settings: | | `hold` | `think` | `patience` | `adapt` | `boundary` | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | `pettifer` | +0.55 | 1.45 | 2.4 | 0.6 | 0.0 | | `wickham` | 0.00 | 0.90 | 1.0 | 2.2 | 0.15 | | `ashcombe` | −0.35 | 0.75 | 0.6 | 1.1 | 1.0 | `hold` moves the measure held at rest; `think` the pause between commitments; `patience` how long an opponent who has offered nothing is indulged before the touch is simply fetched; `adapt` how heavily a repeated stroke steers the answer and how much faster the eye settles on one it has seen; `boundary` how far the defence of one's own ground stiffens the fencing as the line comes back toward one's own hedge. `w*` are the standing appetites for each commitment. `style(key)` falls back to `wickham`'s for an unknown name rather than erroring. ## Surface - `ACTIONS` — the table above. - `isAttack(name)`, `reachOf(name, isRiposte)`, `windupOf(name, isRiposte)`, `advanceSpeed(name)`, `whiffOf(name)`, `parriedOf(name)`. - `resolveTouch(attack, defAction, defPhase, isRiposte)` — `"touch"` | `"parried"` | `"nothing"`. - `measureFault(name, gap, isRiposte)` — `"short"` | `"crowded"` | `nil`. - `postDrive(line, dir, posts, driven)` — metres one touch moves the boundary. - `resetX(line, side)` / `clampX(x, line, side, foeX)` — where a fencer stands, and how far it may travel: bounded by the opponent, not by the line. - `winner(line)` — `"player"` | `"rival"` | `nil` for the boundary's position. - `NEIGHBOURS`, `neighbour(index)`, `neighbourIndexOf(key)`, `neighbourNearestSkill(skill)`, `STYLES`, `style(key)`. - `LAWN_HALF`, `LINE_LIMIT`, `POST_STEP`, `POST_ROOTED`, `POST_RECLAIM`, `POST_CHURN`, `POST_CHURN_MAX`, `RIPOSTE_POSTS`, `STANCE`, `WALK_SPEED`, `RETREAT_FACTOR`, `MIN_GAP`, `LEASH`, `RIPOSTE_WINDOW`, `RIPOSTE_QUICK`, `RIPOSTE_REACH`, `CLASH_PUSHBACK`, `HIT_STUN`, `SALUTE_TIME`, `TOUCH_PAUSE`, `SIDE`, `COLOR`.

# fencer_body What a combatant in the Hedgerow Assizes looks like. ```luau local Body = require("fencer_body") Body.build(owner, role, kit) -- rebuild this fencer's rig Body.pose(owner, action, phase, facing) -- pose it; safe every frame Body.isBuilt(owner) -- was this rig built by this module? Body.forget(owner) -- drop the memoised pose Body.kitOf(role) -- the kit standing on a role Body.kitLabel(name) -- what a turnout is called Body.KITS -- { "assize", "pettifer", "wickham", "ashcombe" } ``` ## Turnouts **The kit dresses the rival only.** The player is the player in every assize and wears the same whites against all three neighbours. | kit | turnout | the read | |---|---|---| | `assize` | claret | a dark block over pale legs | | `pettifer` | the bee veil | a horizontal brim where a head should be | | `wickham` | regimentals | the outline goes UP: shako, plume, cross-belt | | `ashcombe` | mourning | one unbroken dark column to the ground, no legs | Every turnout changes the **silhouette**, not only the palette, because at the size the broadcast camera draws them the outline is the whole of the information. `extra` in each kit is where that happens; it runs after the shared skeleton, and everything it spawns hangs off the rig so it despawns with it. `kit` is **sticky per role**. `Fencer` and `GardenDressing` both rebuild a body with no kit argument, and a rival who reverted to the house colours every rebuild would not be a neighbour. An unknown name falls back to the standing kit rather than erroring. ## Pose Every commitment is a pose of the panel plus the arm that carries it, and the panel's **angle is the tell**: broadside is a sweep gathering, edge-on is a thrust on its way, flat across the body is a guard. A new commitment is a new row in `POSE`, keyed by the same name `Duel.ACTIONS` uses. `pose` memoises the last action/phase/facing and returns immediately when nothing changed — a fencer holds one pose for whole tenths of a second, and re-writing eight transforms every frame for a body that has not moved is the most expensive thing this module could do. ## Rules this module keeps - Nothing it makes reaches `scene.json`: every entity is `setTemporary(true)` on the line after it spawns, and `build` despawns the old rig first. - `panel`, `arm` and `glove` are fixed names — every driver of this body poses those entities. - A rig carries a `_body_mark` child, so a driver can tell a rig this module built from one an older inline builder put up.

# DuelMatch The umpire nobody sees. One instance, on the `DuelDirector` entity. Asks `garden` for the walled garden and the boundary fence, spawns the rival, resolves every exchange between the two `Fencer`s through `duel.resolveTouch`, plants a post and drives the property line into the loser's garden on a touch, resets both fencers and runs the salute, and calls the match when the line reaches a hedge. The boundary is the health bar: `line` is the fence's leading post, and the fence is rebuilt from the player's hedge out to it whenever `line` changes, so the score is a physical object standing in the world. ## What a touch is worth How far a post drives the line is `duel.postDrive`, and it is a property of the ground rather than a constant: fresh lawn in the middle of a garden gives, the last feet before a hedge are rooted and stubborn, lawn already conceded holds somebody else's posts and has to be cleared before the line passes back over it, and every post driven breaks the ground a little further for the next one. `postsDriven` counts the posts this bout and `lastDrive` reports the metres the last one bought. Between them these are what give a bout a length rather than only a variance. ## Resolution An attack whose blade is live inside its measure is an exchange. Two live blades in the same tempo is a **clash**: neither scores and both pay for it, which is what stops the umpire's own resolution order from deciding the bout. An attack outside its measure is recorded as `SHORT` or `CROWDED` and never touches its man, so the fencer who threw it pays the whiff debt. A touch taken inside a riposte window plants `RIPOSTE_POSTS` posts rather than one, and `lastPosts` reports which it was. ## The event bus `fxEvent` names the moment and `fxSeq` moves on **every** write, including a repeat of the same event — so a reader polls `fxSeq` against the last one it saw rather than diffing fields for edges. Vocabulary: `salute`, `allez`, `short:player`, `short:rival`, `clash`, `parry:player`, `parry:rival`, `riposte:player`, `riposte:rival`, `touch:player`, `touch:rival`, `post`, `over:player`, `over:rival`. `":player"` means *the player did it*. `fxQueue` is the lossless read of the same vocabulary: every event since the last frame, in the order it happened. `DuelMatch` empties it at the top of its own update, and it runs before everything that reads it, so a reader gets the whole of this frame's list — including a `touch:player` and the `post` that follows it in the same frame, which a single slot cannot carry. ## The roster `neighbour` (1..3), `neighbourKey` (`"pettifer"` | `"wickham"` | `"ashcombe"`) and `skill` are one identity written three ways. Writing any of them settles the other two off `duel.NEIGHBOURS` and pushes the matching `style` onto the live rival's `FencerAI`, so a garden, a turnout and a verdict can all name the same person without any of them guessing. `DuelHud` keeps ownership of the prose. ## Fields `line`, `state` (`salute` | `fence` | `touch` | `over`), `lastTouch`, `winner`, `playerTouches`, `rivalTouches`, `skill` (the rival's quality — writing it retunes the live rival), `announce`, `lastPosts`, `postsDriven`, `lastDrive`, `matchClock` (seconds since this bout's first `allez`), `neighbour`, `neighbourKey`, `fxEvent` / `fxSeq` / `fxQueue`, and `lastExchange` / `lastExchangeSeq` / `exchanges` — the tuning record, naming who struck into what and what the triangle made of it, including attacks that fell short of their reach or were smothered inside it. ## Method `restart()` — a fresh assize, the line back to nought. Callable at any time, including from `state == "over"`, where the `restart` action also reaches it. Pairs with `DuelHud` on the same entity. Requires the `duel` and `garden` modules and `@builtin::modules.zinput`.