NPC Lifecycle & Ground Loot

How wildlife and hostile NPCs die, leave loot in the world, despawn carcasses, and respawn from anchors.

See also: Complete Combat System, Death & Respawn (players).

1. Death flow

When an NPC’s HP reaches 0:

flowchart TD dead[NPC HP = 0] --> loot[Roll loot_table] loot --> piles[Spawn GroundDrop piles near corpse] dead --> carcass[Spawn carcass harvest node if table defines it] dead --> schedule[Queue respawn if respawn.enabled] piles --> ffa[Killer-only window then free-for-all] carcass --> butcher[Timed harvest → meat / hide / etc.] carcass --> ttl[Carcass TTL removes unharvested node] schedule --> wait[Wait delay + optional block_while_corpse] wait --> respawn[Spawn new instance at anchor]

Players pick up piles with the normal interact / pickup path. Butcher harvest uses the resource-node harvest channel (same as other timed nodes).

2. Respawn (per NPC definition)

Authored on the NPC (respawn block) and optionally overridden on a wildlife spawn anchor.

Field	Meaning
`enabled`	When false, that def never auto-respawns (bosses, unique encounters, town civilians)
`delay_ticks`	Wait after death (30 Hz ticks) before a new instance may spawn
`max_instances_per_anchor`	Cap on alive instances tied to that anchor
`block_while_corpse`	When true, delay respawn until the carcass is gone (harvested or TTL)

Location: default is the same wildlife spawn anchor (scatter in radius_m). Home position for leash / return is established at spawn.

Population counting uses alive instances only — a death frees a slot; respawn fills up to the cap.

3. Ground drops

Death loot from loot_table.drops becomes GroundDrop entities in the world (not auto-granted to the killer’s inventory).

Rule	Behavior
Placement	Scatter disk ~0.5–1.5 m around death position
Ownership	Killer-only for a short window, then free-for-all
Default FFA delay	~30 s (`ffa_delay_ticks` ≈ 900 @ 30 Hz)
Despawn	Non-permanent piles expire; `permanent: true` entries persist
Snapshot	Included in region world snapshot / AOI views

Pickup validates range and ownership timer. Anyone may take a pile after FFA opens.

4. Carcass / butcher

Separate from ground piles:

A carcass resource node appears when the loot table defines carcass harvest outputs (meat, pelt, hide, …).
Harvest is a timed channel; products go to the harvester’s inventory.
TTL removes unharvested carcasses so the world does not fill with permanent corpses.
When block_while_corpse is set, respawn waits for carcass removal.

5. Content map

Asset	Role
`assets/npcs/*.yaml` → `respawn`	Per-def respawn policy
`assets/loot/*.yaml`	Drop tables + carcass harvest rows
`assets/world/segments/*.yaml` → `wildlife_spawns`	Anchors, counts, optional respawn overrides
Content-admin NPCs / Loot / Map	Designer editing surfaces

6. Player corpses

Player death uses the same ground carrier ideas (corpse container + FFA) under Death & Respawn. Wildlife lifecycle above is the NPC/hunting path.