Death cycle (d100 roll)

Heroes can die for real. When a hero’s flagship is destroyed, the mod fires a d100 roll to decide their fate. The roll is not a coin flip — it is a symmetric distribution around a “wounded” bucket, and it is tunable by the player.

What triggers the roll

Only flagship loss triggers the death cycle. Not:

• Loss of an escort ship (recorded but does not affect hero state — future: “attrition = N/M escorts”)
• Hero NPC missing from flagship (boarding / kidnap — future stage 2)
• Flagship faction change (capture — separate case, not a death event)

This is a deliberate MVP simplification. The clean flow is: flagship dies → hero loses command → roll for fate → cooldown → recovery.

The roll

When the mod’s MlogHeroesFleetLossWatcher fires with event.object == hero.$flagship, the mod rolls:

roll = random.range(0, 99)

if roll < $crit_fail_chance
    → KIA
elif roll < (100 - $crit_fail_chance)
    → wounded
else
    → unscathed

The distribution is symmetric around the wounded bucket. With default $crit_fail_chance = 20, the split is:

Roll	Outcome	Probability
0–19	KIA	20%
20–79	Wounded	60%
80–99	Unscathed	20%

Outcomes

KIA (Killed in Action)

• 20% chance at default settings.
• Hero is permanently gone. The instance moves to $kia_heroes archive with full stats: name, faction, final XP, final ★, kill count, last kill, cause of death, $kia_at = player.age.
• The lineage template enters vacancy: $vacant_until = player.age + $succession_cooldown_min (default 120 game-minutes).
• After the cooldown, HeroManager may pick this template again and spawn a new bearer — fresh XP, new face, new name from the pool. See Lineage succession for the full flow.
• Old bearer never returns. Dead is dead.

Wounded

• 60% chance at default settings.
• Hero survives but is out of action. The $admiral entity is destroyed on the mod side (they escape the burning wreck via game abstraction).
• Fleet is cleared: $flagship = null, $escorts = [].
• Hero enters a 120 game-minute cooldown. During cooldown, RP does not tick (see Recovery Points).
• After cooldown, the same bearer starts rebuilding from RP. XP / ★ / kill count preserved.

Unscathed

• 20% chance at default settings.
• Hero escapes the wreck intact. Flagship gone but the person is fine.
• Same state changes as wounded, but shorter cooldown: 30 game-minutes.
• Rationale: faction quickly issues a new command to a proven officer; less institutional shock.

Configurable difficulty

The KIA / Unscathed % is set by $crit_fail_chance in MlogHeroesInit actions. Valid range 0–50 (values above 50 flip the distribution).

$crit_fail_chance	Distribution	Feel
10	10% KIA / 80% wounded / 10% unscathed	”Cinematic” — deaths rare but memorable
20 (default)	20% / 60% / 20%	Balanced — regular attrition, occasional permanent losses
35	35% / 30% / 35%	“Grimdark” — heroes die often, high succession churn
50	50% / 0% / 50%	“Russian roulette” — every flagship loss is either final or clean escape

Once the Settings menu ships (planned), the dial will be surfaced in-game. Currently the parameter is edited in deploy/md/mlog_heroes.xml MlogHeroesInit init actions.

Why symmetric 20/60/20?

• Worst-case and best-case are equiprobable — the mod does not bias toward doom or salvation.
• Wounded is the modal outcome — most losses feel like a “grinding war of attrition”, not a moment of finality. This preserves narrative momentum.
• The parameter is a dial — a balance-tester can push toward cinematic or grimdark to taste. The design is not opinionated about which flavour is “correct”.

What the player sees

• Immediate on flagship destruction: a notification banner names the hero and the outcome (“KIA” / “Wounded” / “Escaped”).
• After a KIA: the hero disappears from the roster. Their entry moves to the KIA archive (planned UI — currently accessible only via debug).
• After a wounded / unscathed outcome: the hero remains in the roster with state = lost_flagship. The Track button is hidden. The detail page shows “Awaiting recovery” and a countdown to cooldown end.

The screenshot above is a real recovery in progress — Xenon Mil Unit rolled Wounded on flagship loss, is now in the 120-min cooldown, and their fleet slots read “rebuild pending” until Recovery Points refill.

Related mechanics

• Recovery Points — how the fleet rebuilds after wounded / unscathed outcomes
• Lineage succession — what happens after a KIA, when the successor may spawn, and how the archive works
• XP and star progression — memorial preservation across recovery (XP does not reset when a wounded hero rebuilds)