Effects Settings ¶

About This Documentation

These docs were generated with AI assistance and are continuously improved.

Control what collapses look and sound like. All of these keys live under the effects: section of config.yml (flat keys, not sub-sections), except the two top-level telegraph switches noted below. See the full key reference for the at-a-glance table.

Wobble vs. cracks¶

Strux has two independent collapse telegraphs. They are separate switches — run either, both, or neither.

# WOBBLE telegraph (top-level key, NOT under effects):
# critical blocks visibly rock before they fail. Purely visual, no physics.
pre-collapse-shake: false

effects:
  # CRACK telegraph: blocks show crack textures under load/damage.
  cracks-enabled: true

Cracks also heal on screen the moment the danger is gone: rescue a sagging block (for example, place a support pillar under it) and its crack texture is wiped right away, instead of lingering for a couple of seconds.

The bundled config ships pre-collapse-shake: false (the crack telegraph carries the warning, and the wobble overlay was distracting during raids). Note the code fallback for a missing key is true, but the shipped config sets it false.

Collapse timing¶

effects:
  # Delay before blocks fall after a PLAYER break (ticks; 20 = 1s).
  collapse-delay-ticks: 25

  # Delay before blocks fall after an EXPLOSION (punchier when shorter).
  explosion-collapse-delay-ticks: 4

  # Blocks animated falling per tick. Higher = smoother but more CPU.
  max-collapses-per-tick: 25

collapse-delay-ticks is your escape window — break a support and the roof falls this many ticks later. max-collapses-per-tick smooths the visual fall; it is separate from the physics cap (max-cascade-steps on the Physics page).

Screen shake¶

effects:
  screen-shake-enabled: true

  # Min collapsed blocks before the ground shakes (small collapses stay quiet).
  screen-shake-threshold: 8

  # How far the shake reaches (blocks).
  screen-shake-radius: 32.0

Raise the threshold so only huge collapses shake; lower it so even small ones do. (The code fallback for the threshold is 15; the bundled config ships 8.)

Dust¶

effects:
  dust-clouds-enabled: true

  # Dust amount. 0.5 = half, 2.0 = double.
  dust-multiplier: 1.5

  # Big spreading wave after a building finishes falling (demolition-style).
  dust-wave-enabled: true
  dust-wave-max-radius: 20.0

Turn the wave off or shrink dust-wave-max-radius if a slow client lags during big collapses. (Code fallbacks: dust-multiplier 1.0, dust-wave-max-radius 15.0 — the bundled config ships the louder 1.5 / 20.0.)

Stress particles¶

Colored particles warn about loaded blocks (visible in /engineer mode and on critical blocks). The overlay refreshes every visual-update-ticks ticks (a top-level key — see the Physics page).

effects:
  stress-caution-threshold: 0.50   # yellow at 50% stress
  stress-danger-threshold: 0.80    # orange at 80%
  stress-critical-threshold: 0.95  # red + flames at 95%
  stress-particle-size: 0.7

  # Ramp the ambient stress sound the closer a block is to failing
  # (soft creak → groan → sharp crack).
  escalating-stress-audio: true

Lower the thresholds to get warnings earlier; raise them for fewer, later warnings.

Cracking warnings¶

These are the cracking sounds before a collapse (distinct from the crack textures below).

effects:
  cracking-warnings-enabled: true

  # Ticks between cracking sounds (lower = more frequent). Minimum 1 — a
  # configured 0 is treated as 1 (it used to crash the collapse system).
  cracking-warning-interval: 3

  # Cap on simultaneous cracking sounds (stops spam in mass collapses).
  max-cracking-warnings-per-tick: 6

(Code fallback for the interval is 5; the bundled config ships the more frequent 3.)

Impact feedback¶

The little "bite" each arrow leaves. When a projectile hits a wall it adds a chip of damage. This shows that chip: a tiny puff of the block's particles and a soft hit tick, right where the arrow landed.

So ten arrows look like ten little bites — not one wall quietly soaking them all up. It is only a visual; the damage is exactly the same whether this is on or off.

effects:
  impact-feedback: true

Set it to false for no per-hit puff or tick. The wall still takes the same damage and still collapses the same way.

Cracks¶

The visual crack-texture overlay on stressed/damaged blocks.

effects:
  # Master switch for ALL crack textures (from damage AND stress).
  cracks-enabled: true

  # Min damage fraction before damage cracks show.
  min-visible-damage: 0.15

  # How far crack textures render (blocks).
  damage-view-distance: 32.0

  # Also crack blocks from structural STRESS, not just blast/impact damage.
  # A heavily-loaded wall cracks under its own load, and as it starts to fail
  # the cracks spread toward the break on their own.
  stress-cracks-enabled: true

  # Distress (worse of stress-fraction and damage) at which each stage appears.
  crack-hairline-threshold: 0.60   # faint cracks
  crack-cracked-threshold: 0.78    # clear cracks
  crack-crumbling-threshold: 0.90  # heavy cracks — last warning before collapse

Lower the thresholds to crack blocks sooner (more dramatic, but noisier on normal builds whose bases are always somewhat loaded).

Crack visuals are near-free on a static world. The server remembers which blocks are cracked and only re-checks them while nothing in that world changes — it does not re-scan every tracked block each second. The full re-check happens only when the world actually changes (a block is placed, broken, blasted, or collapses). There is nothing to configure for this; it is automatic.

Explosions¶

effects:
  # How far explosion damage messages reach (blocks).
  explosion-notify-radius: 64.0

  # Max falling debris pieces per explosion. Lower for slow clients.
  max-debris-per-explosion: 200

Actionbar warning¶

effects:
  # Stress at which placing a block flashes a CRITICAL STRESS warning
  # above the hotbar.
  critical-stress-warning-threshold: 0.90

Collapse notifications (chat)¶

Two friendly chat touches when buildings come down.

effects:
  # Tell the whole server when a big collapse happens.
  big-collapse-broadcast-enabled: true

  # Only collapses BIGGER than this many blocks are announced (small ones
  # stay quiet so chat isn't spammed).
  big-collapse-broadcast-threshold: 15

  # The first time a player collapses their own build, send a one-time tip
  # suggesting /engineer. Fires once per player, ever.
  first-collapse-hint-enabled: true

When a collapse is over the threshold, everyone sees a line like:

💥 Steve's structure collapsed! (23 blocks)

The name is the player whose break or placement triggered the collapse, and the number is how many blocks fell.

For a giant collapse that finishes over several ticks, the announced count is the first-tick size — the blocks that came down right away in that one action — not the eventual total. (The rest settle quietly over the next ticks.)

The first-collapse tip is private (only that player sees it) and the "already seen it" mark is saved on the player, so it survives restarts and never repeats.

Live stress summary¶

An always-on readout above the hotbar while a player looks at (or stands on) a tracked structure. It looks like:

World: ██░░░░ 34% avg | Peak: 78%

The bar and the avg number are the average stress across the world's tracked blocks; Peak is the single most-stressed block.

Note: the numbers are world-wide, not for the one structure you are aiming at — strux grades a whole world at once. The readout is labelled World: so it never lies about what it measures.

It is off by default so existing servers are not surprised by a new HUD element. If a ⚠ CRITICAL STRESS place-warning fires the same tick, the warning wins and the summary steps aside (both share the action bar through one arbiter, so they never flicker against each other).

effects:
  # Show the live stress summary in the action bar? Off by default.
  stress-summary-enabled: false
  # How often it refreshes, in ticks (20 = 1 second; 10 = twice a second).
  stress-summary-interval-ticks: 10
## Near-miss notification

Tells you "Close call — that block was barely holding." when a block you knocked
loose collapses while it was *just* over its limit. It only fires for an overloaded
collapse that was barely holding — not for a block that was hopelessly overloaded, and
not for a block that simply had nothing under it (a floating collapse). You get at most
one message per break or place, however many blocks fall.

```yaml
effects:
  near-miss-notification-enabled: true  # show the "Close call" message
  # How close to failing a block must have been to count, as a fraction of its
  # limit. 1.0 = exactly at the limit. A collapse just above this counts; one far
  # above does not (that block was never really holding).
  near-miss-threshold: 0.98

Rubble¶

Optional physical debris left behind by collapses. Off by default.

effects:
  rubble-enabled: false           # collapsed blocks leave physical rubble
  return-collapsed-blocks: false  # drop collapsed blocks as recoverable items
  rubble-ground-offset: 0         # vertical offset for where rubble settles

Undermining¶

Makes a dig-under-a-wall collapse look like undermining. Pure presentation — the same blocks fall either way; this only changes where the rubble lands. Only has any effect when rubble-enabled is on (rubble has to be spawning to be biased).

When a break-triggered collapse spawns rubble, the falling blocks drift sideways toward the hole you dug, so the tunnel partly fills back in and the wall reads as slumping into the gap instead of dropping straight down.

effects:
  undermine:
    backfill-rubble: true          # drift rubble toward the dug-out tunnel
    max-rubble-per-collapse: 200   # cap rubble entities per collapse (shares
                                   # the explosion debris budget by default)

backfill-rubble: false keeps the collapse but lets rubble fall straight down.
Lower max-rubble-per-collapse if a big undermine spawns too many falling blocks for slow clients.