Final encounters

Copy this folder into the Mods folder, remove its leading underscore and restart. The supplied patch matches vanilla; change the values before enabling it to try another encounter. It does not change skill-tree unlock requirements.

bosses.final_boss controls the single ground commander. wave selects its encounter (50 in vanilla), health_multiplier and speed_multiplier modify the normal boss statistics, visual_scale multiplies the normal boss size, and shield_ratio sets shield health relative to final HP. allow_mutations defaults to false so a random swarm/haste mutation cannot undermine its identity. Difficulty, co-op/PvP scaling and the base boss tiers still apply. The existing victory/endless threshold (general.infinite_after_wave) and wave-50 reinforcements are separate systems: changing wave alone does not move the victory screen or reinforcements.

The three entries in species_by_difficulty are species IDs from Data/ant_species.json. The default skins share Enemies/Castes/brain in models.json; authors may also override Enemies/brood_mind, Enemies/dusk_brood_mind and Enemies/night_brood_mind individually. Keep the alien rig's named pivots. Editable source: Assets/Models/Source/BroodMind.blend.

cloaked_waves.waves_by_difficulty lists absolute wave numbers, separately for Normal (1), Hard (2) and Nightmare (3). min_wave is a lower bound. random_by_difficulty gives any non-boss wave of a difficulty a chance (0-1) from from_wave on, on top of the listed ones: vanilla camouflages 15% of Hard's and 20% of Nightmare's waves from the 20th, when a player there has level-3 towers standing. Each draw is keyed on the run seed, difficulty and wave, so the other wave rolls and every client of a match agree. Boss waves remain ordinary/final bosses, never camouflaged. Flying waves can be selected. Health and quantity multipliers soften the sudden restriction in tower coverage; set either to 1 to keep the ordinary wave values. enabled: false disables this mechanic. detection_level defaults to 3 and uses each built tower's actual range, including its range bonuses. Another tower's detection does not grant low-tier weapons permission to target. The first-encounter tutorial uses this same value.

The visual block controls detected camouflage's refraction strength, edge brightness and HTML tint. Outside detector coverage there is no body, health bar, solid shadow or ray-traced reflection. Spectators receive the defended board's live detection state. A detected body uses its normal model and animation, including GLB mod replacements, with the camouflage material applied over it.

The epic adaptive_optics feature card permits all towers on that player's board to detect and attack camouflaged enemies within their own range until the run ends. It is shared by the co-op board, saved on Continue, and cleared on a new run. It never changes the permanent skill tree. Vanilla offers it from wave 25. To change its rarity/availability or remove it, edit cards.pool.feature_cards in a copy of vanilla_reference/balance.json: arrays replace the complete array, so preserve the other cards. The runtime effect is selected by its stable adaptive_optics ID.