DEVLOG #8 · 9 SEP 2026 · MARCO HOL · BLITZ COMMAND
OPERATOR ORDER
SOLDIER
COMMANDO
SHOCKWAVE ROUND
BUG FIX
HUD
MARITIME TACTICS
Three changes in this dispatch. The operator roster has been reordered — the Soldier now stands at the front where a beginner needs someone they can actually use. The Shockwave Round Mythic evolution now damages what it hits, and no longer pretends to hurt the operator who fired it. And the Maritime Tactics indicator stops overlapping the BREACH panel on the Navy SEAL.
OPERATOR ROSTER
SOLDIER FIRST. COMMANDO EARNED.
When you open the operator selection screen for the first time, you face six operators. The one on the far left — the one most players will click — carries a sniper rifle, a ghost cloak, and a playstyle that punishes anyone who doesn't already understand the game. That was the Commando. That was wrong.
A sniper in the opening waves of a twin-stick shooter is a decision with consequences. Enemies come from every direction. The machine gun sprays. The flamethrower coats an arc. The rocket clears clusters. The sniper — in the right hands — dismantles a boss from across the map before it reaches the edge. In the wrong hands, it is a slow, single-target tool that runs dry before wave 5. A beginner surrounded by a wave 3 swarm, holding a bolt-action rifle and no idea what the Ghost Cloak does, has no path forward.
The Soldier leads now. Machine gun, mortar strike, suppressive fire. Forgiving enough to survive on instinct. Capable enough to carry a player through wave 50 if they understand it. The Commando is still here — four positions in, exactly where an operator of that complexity belongs.
#1 · STARTS UNLOCKED
SOLDIER
Fire Support · Machine Gun + Mortar Strike
Suppressive Fire slows enemies 20% on every hit and starts with a full magazine — meaning wave 1 is already under control before a single upgrade drops. The mortar places three shells at cursor range, which gives new players ranged area denial before they understand positioning. 125 HP, 0.95× speed. Survivable. Readable. The right starting point.
#2 · UNLOCKS WAVE 10
MARINE
Heavy Assault · Rocket Launcher + Adrenaline Rush
Blast Radius passive and full immunity to own explosions. High HP, lower speed. The rocket's splash clears clusters that the machine gun cannot suppress. A natural second operator for players who want more firepower and less finesse.
#3 · UNLOCKS WAVE 20
NAVY SEAL
Agile Operator · Shotgun + Breach
Two permanent dash charges, 40% faster reload, and a Breach that teleports three full dash lengths forward. The SEAL rewards players who have learned to move — and punishes those who haven't. High skill ceiling. 110 HP.
#4 · UNLOCKS WAVE 25
COMMANDO
Stealth Operative · Sniper + Ghost Cloak
Ghost Cloak makes the Commando invisible for 8 seconds — enemies lose tracking entirely. At level 40, Phantom Strike delivers instant kills or 4× damage on the first shot from cloak. At level 60, Death Mark tags a target so all incoming damage increases 80% for 6 seconds. At level 80, Apex Predator turns every cloak activation into an 8-second near-immunity window, with AI teammates cloaking alongside you. 90 HP. The lowest HP pool in the game. Every mistake is expensive.
#5 · UNLOCKS WAVE 30
JUNGLE GUERRILLA
Saboteur · Flamethrower + Proximity Mines
On The Move grants 25% bonus damage while moving and penalises players who stand still. Four deployable mines, 0.75× dash cooldown, 1.20× base speed. Highest mobility in the roster. Demands constant repositioning.
#6 · UNLOCKS WAVE 50
SERGEANT
Demolitions Expert · Grenade Launcher + IED Plant
Seven grenade charges at start, 40% faster reload, full immunity to own explosives. The IED is a remote-detonated bomb with a massive radius — placed at any time, triggered manually. Unlocks only after wave 50. The last operator for a reason.
The Commando remains exactly as powerful as he was. His unlock threshold stays at wave 25. His kit is untouched. But he is now where he belongs — a specialist option for operators who have already survived enough waves to understand what they are choosing. The Soldier is where a player begins. The Commando is where they return, once they know what to do with him.
| Position | Was | Now |
|---|
| #1 (default) | Commando — Stealth Operative | Soldier — Fire Support |
| #2 | Marine — Heavy Assault | Marine — Heavy Assault |
| #3 | Navy SEAL — Agile Operator | Navy SEAL — Agile Operator |
| #4 | Soldier — Fire Support | Commando — Stealth Operative |
| #5 | Jungle Guerrilla — Saboteur | Jungle Guerrilla — Saboteur |
| #6 | Sergeant — Demolitions Expert | Sergeant — Demolitions Expert |
The demo now starts with Soldier and Marine — both immediately accessible, both capable of carrying a new player through the five-boss demo arc without requiring knowledge the player doesn't have yet.
WEAPON SYSTEMS
THE SHOCKWAVE ROUND ACTUALLY WORKS NOW.
The Shockwave Round is the Mythic evolution of the Shotgun. Fire it and the weapon detonates an expanding concussive ring outward — 240 pixels of force that visually tears through every enemy in its path, knocking them backwards with a force of 280 pixels per second.
It also did zero damage. The enemies would fly across the arena. Their HP wouldn't move. Spectacular. Completely useless.
THE DAMAGE BUG
The original implementation fired an instant area check at the moment of detonation — anything within 220 pixels of the muzzle took damage. The visual ring expanded to 240 pixels over 1.5 seconds, but the damage check was gone before the ring reached most of the field. Enemies 150 pixels away were inside the visual ring but had already been evaluated as out of range at the moment the check ran. The result: zero damage on almost every target. Now the ring is the check. As the ring expands each frame, it evaluates every enemy whose position falls inside the expanding edge. Each enemy is hit exactly once — the moment the ring crosses their position — using a tracked set so the same target cannot be hit twice. The damage fires at the correct moment, not at the moment of launch.
THE WRONG SOUND
Every time the Shockwave Round fired, the game played player_hurt — the audio cue that triggers when an operator takes damage. Not the detonation sound. The hurt sound. The operator was audibly wounded by their own Mythic weapon, every single time. The root cause: the ring used a damage value of 0 in an initial push call, which still routed through the standard player damage path — triggering the hurt cue and the camera shake even with zero HP lost. The fix adds a fromPlayer flag to rings originating from the operator, skipping the player damage path entirely. The ring now only routes through the enemy damage path where it belongs.
Current behaviour after fix: The ring expands from the barrel. Every enemy the ring edge crosses takes knockback (280px/s) plus full Shockwave Round damage — once. Enemies already behind the ring are not re-evaluated. The player takes no damage. The player_hurt sound does not fire. The camera shake is reserved for the correct trigger. The Shockwave Round is now the Mythic it was supposed to be.
HUD SYSTEMS
HUD STACK RECALCULATED.
The Maritime Tactics indicator is the top-left HUD element that appears when playing as the Marine. It shows whether the smoke marker is active and whether enemies are currently revealed — the tactical read for a Marine working the smoke system.
Its vertical position was hardcoded. The indicator started at a fixed y-coordinate that assumed a specific HUD height above it. The Marine's HUD is not standard — it includes an HP panel, an XP bar, and the Adrenaline Rush special indicator, stacked in that order. The fixed coordinate placed the Maritime Tactics badge 21 pixels inside the Adrenaline Rush panel. Both elements were readable. Neither was clean.
DYNAMIC STACK CALCULATION
The Maritime Tactics indicator now measures the full HUD stack at render time. HP panel height is calculated from the current player state. XP bar height is added if the operator has an active build system (30px). Special HUD height is added if the operator has a configured special ability (48px). A fixed 6px margin is applied between each layer. The result is a vertical offset that is always correct — regardless of operator, regardless of which HUD elements are active above it. The indicator now sits cleanly below every element above it, with no overlap on any operator that displays it.
| Element | Was | Now |
|---|
| Maritime Tactics Y position | Hardcoded y = 150px | Dynamic: HP panel + XP bar + Special HUD + margins |
| Overlap with BREACH panel | 21px overlap (visible) | No overlap — 6px gap below last HUD element |
| Accuracy across operators | Only correct on some builds | Correct on all operators at all times |
COMMAND ASSESSMENT
Three changes. The operator roster is now in the order it should have been from the start — accessible first, specialist fourth. The Shockwave Round is no longer a visual effect with combat consequences reserved only for the operator who fires it. And the Marine's HUD renders correctly without overlap.
The demo runs at blitzlaststand.com/demo. Follow development on Discord. The Soldier is waiting.
— Marco Hol · M Designs · Blitz Command · 9 Sep 2026