Auto-battlers have a problem. The combat plays itself, which is the point, but the player ends up watching numbers without input. The fix in most games is to add a button. Pause, swap gear, unpause.
Signal Decay takes a different angle. Instead of giving you a button to press during combat, it gives you a system to author the rules combat runs by. Combat Protocols.
Think OSRS combat options crossed with MMO macros. The character fights. You wrote the rulebook.
What a Protocol Is
A Protocol is a list of conditional rules evaluated each combat tick. The rules look like this in plain English:
- If HP below 40%, eat the highest-tier food in inventory.
- If enemy resistance to Signal above 60%, switch to ranged stance.
- If Speed buff inactive and Speed potion in inventory, drink Speed potion.
- If enemy is Tier 9+ boss, never use basic ammo.
- If incoming damage per tick above threshold, retreat.
Each rule has a condition and an action. The Protocol evaluates top to bottom every tick. First match wins. Fall through the list, default behavior takes over.
This is closer to a packet filter than a scripting language. Deterministic. Readable. Debuggable.
Why Two Systems
Signal Decay ships two automation systems on purpose, kept separate:
- Combat Protocols. The authoring layer. Player-written rules. No XP attached.
- Protocol Buffs combat skill. A combat skill that levels through use, feeding passive buffs. XP earned in combat.
The skill is not the rules you write. The rules you write are not the skill. Players mix them.
Why split them? Because rolling the two together would force a single progression curve. Players who like authoring rules but do not want to grind a skill get a flat experience. Players who want passive combat power without writing logic get gated behind authoring complexity.
Two systems, two audiences, one fight.
What Protocols Can See
The condition vocabulary covers the live combat state:
- Self. HP, mana-equivalent, active buffs, active debuffs, equipped loadout, inventory contents, food count, ammo count.
- Enemy. HP, resistance profile, tier, boss flag, damage type, distance to next phase.
- Combat math. Damage taken last tick, damage dealt last tick, hit streak, miss streak.
- External. Time elapsed, fragments earned, drops queued.
The vocabulary is intentionally narrow. Protocols are not a general programming environment. They are combat rules.
What Protocols Can Do
The action vocabulary is similarly bounded:
- Switch stance. Melee, Ranged, Signal Magic.
- Switch weapon or ammo. From inventory, by tier or by tag.
- Cast a spell. From the Signal book, paying rune cost.
- Consume. Food, potion, gem buff.
- Retreat. Exit the engagement.
- Set a flag. A local boolean other rules can read.
Six actions. Each one has knobs.
The Authoring UI
Protocols are not text files. They are visual rule lists with a condition picker and an action picker.
A new player can write a working Protocol in two minutes. The default starter Protocol covers the basics: eat at 40% HP, switch to a stronger ammo when available, retreat if a fight is unwinnable.
Power users can stack twenty rules with priority ordering, flag-based state machines, and tier-aware fallbacks. The same UI scales from "press eat" to "fight a Tier 10 boss with phase-aware loadout swapping."
Protocol Buffs, the Skill
Separate from authoring. The Protocol Buffs combat skill levels through combat use. XP gained per tick spent under Protocol control. Higher Protocol skill unlocks:
- Passive buffs. Flat stat bonuses while a Protocol is active.
- Rule slot count. More rules per Protocol at higher levels.
- Condition vocabulary. Advanced conditions unlock at level breakpoints.
- Action timing. Faster action resolution at higher levels.
The skill caps at 99, like every other skill in Signal Decay. Time-to-99 lands in the ~346 hour band that the rest of the lifeskills hit.
Designing Around Boss Fights
The interesting Protocol design happens at boss fights. Bosses in Signal Decay are multi-phase, fragment-gated, and drop exclusive legendaries with passive procs.
A boss Protocol might look like:
- Phase 1: melee, basic food, default ammo.
- Phase transition trigger: boss HP at 60%.
- Phase 2: switch to ranged, swap ammo to elemental, drink Speed potion.
- Phase transition trigger: boss HP at 25%.
- Phase 3: signal magic, cast specific spell rotation, eat the highest-tier food on every threshold.
The same character with the same gear loses to the same boss without that Protocol. The fight is the rules.
What This Replaces
Most idle games handle combat depth by adding more buttons or more menus. Pause-and-swap. Tactical mode. Loadout presets you swap manually.
Combat Protocols collapse all of that into one authoring surface. The player makes the choices once, the engine executes them every fight.
It is faster than manual play because the engine reacts in one tick. It is more controllable than autopilot because the rules are yours.
Roadmap
The Protocol system has room to grow:
- Protocol library. Share Protocols between players. Import a community-tuned boss script.
- Protocol vs Protocol. PvP framing where two authored Protocols fight without player input.
- Protocol Mastery Pool. Per-skill XP pool spent on permanent passives, the Melvor Mastery analog. Layered on top of the existing skill.
The system is small now. The shape supports a lot.
