- 01Read heat and distance
- 02Choose burst duration
- 03Pause or overheat
- 04Reengage after cooling
Heat and firing rhythm
Firing adds heat and pausing cools it. The limit causes downtime or consumes a heat sink, making burst length a decision.
The player's decision
Overheat to finish this target or pause to retain firepower for the next wave?
Original scenario
Original setup: a slow target precedes a fast one. Holding fire clears the first sooner but may lock the weapon for the second.
Start with this prototype
Build three deterministic target waves. Show heat, cooling trend and lockout. Clear all waves to win; missing a target loses. Compare continuous and burst fire without random ammo drops.
Change one variable
Vary lockout duration alone; check whether pausing has an explainable benefit.
What to observe in a playtest
Does release cool correctly? Check the threshold shot, restart during overheating and focus recovery.
Take the full design card
Includes rules, scope, tuning questions and sources for further planning. It does not create a project automatically.
Original analysis · version 1
Common pitfall
A misleading heat gauge or a huge cooldown step after focus loss undermines timing decisions.
Observations and sources
Cases refer to public documentation. Developers and community wikis are credited separately; document review is not a claim of hands-on testing.
- Deep Rock Galactic
The minigun heats and jams, with smoke and sound warnings; exact values are version-dependent.
- Helldivers 2
The Sickle cools while idle; burning out its heat sink requires replacement, adding a consumable cost.
Brief for the studio
Opens the AI studio with the brief below in the input. You can edit it. Nothing starts automatically.
Build three deterministic target waves. Show heat, cooling trend and lockout. Clear all waves to win; missing a target loses. Compare continuous and burst fire without random ammo drops.
Covers are original AI-generated style illustrations. Game names reference publicly visible design choices and remain the property of their owners. This atlas does not supply screenshots or assets from those games. Prompts and combinations are original drafts for new games.