Death, revive and the spectator¶

A player who dies loses their head. The head drops to the floor, a countdown starts, and the others have until the end of it to carry the head to a revive bay. If nobody does, the dead player becomes a free camera until the next run.

Two components own all of it:

BP_DeathComponent on the character: the death, the head, the countdown and the revive.
BP_SpectatorComponent on the player controller: the free camera.

Both are in Content/MPFriendslop/Blueprints/ActorComponents/.

What happens, in order¶

Moment	What the players see
Death	The body disappears and a `BP_PlayerHead` pops off the `head` bone with the dead face. The player lets go of what they held, and their inventory drops around the body. There is no ragdoll
Bleedout	The dead player looks through the head's camera, in black and white, with a large countdown. They can no longer move or turn the view, but the pause key still works. The others see a skull and the countdown in red above the head, through walls
Revive	Someone carries the head into a `BP_ReviveBay` and holds `E`. The player is rebuilt standing in front of the bay, with `Revive Health`
Bleedout ends	Head and body are destroyed. The dead player becomes a spectator
Next run	Spectators are brought back as normal players

The head is grabbed like loot, but it is not loot: it cannot be sold. When every player is down, the crew falls into the Last Loser Standing arena, or the run ends when there is none. See How a run works.

A player killed in the arena skips the countdown and becomes a spectator a moment later. See The Last Loser Standing arena.

A player who jumps into an open extraction hatch also becomes a spectator, and so does a player who joins while the end of run recap is open.

The death fields¶

On BP_DeathComponent, in Settings|Death. Change them on the component inside BP_FriendslopCharacter: that copy is the one that runs.

Field	What it does	Shipped on the character
`Head Class`	The actor spawned at the `head` bone. Make a child of `BP_PlayerHead` and point this at it	`BP_PlayerHead`
`Bleedout Seconds`	Length of the countdown, so also the time the others have to revive	`60`
`Death Screen Class`	The full screen widget shown to the dead player only	`WBP_DeathScreen`
`Decapitation Speed`	Upward speed given to the head when it spawns, in cm/s	`250`
`Revive Health`	Health given back when the player is rebuilt at a bay	`50`

WBP_DeathScreen is created by this component, not by the HUD. The skull marker above the head is WBP_DeadHead. Neither has settings: restyle them in the designer. How heavy and how bouncy the head feels is on its Mesh, in the Details panel of BP_PlayerHead.

To kill a player from your own trap or volume, call Kill on their BP_DeathComponent from server code. BP_DebugKillVolume does exactly that.

Dispatcher	When it fires	Fires on
`OnDecapitated`	The player died and the head spawned	server
`OnBleedoutExpired`	The countdown ended, or the run ended during it	server
`OnRevived`	The player was rebuilt at a bay	server

The spectator¶

The spectator is a free flying camera: W A S D to move, Space up, Ctrl down. There is no mode that follows a living player.

The camera is stopped by walls, floors and ceilings, so it stays inside the level. It passes through doors, players, enemies and loot. This is the engine's Spectator collision preset on BP_SpectatorPawn: it blocks WorldStatic only, so any wall you place as a static mesh keeps the spectator in.

BP_SpectatorComponent is on BP_FriendslopPlayerController, because a dead player has no character left to carry it.

Field	What it does	Shipped default
`Spectator Context`	Input mapping context added while spectating	`IMC_Spectator`
`Spectator Context Priority`	Its priority. Above `IMC_Default` (`0`) so the movement keys fly the camera	`1`
`Spectator Widget Class`	The overlay: `SPECTATING` and one hint line	`WBP_Spectator`
`Spectator Pawn Class`	The invisible pawn the player flies	`BP_SpectatorPawn`
`Camera Modifier Class`	The post process on the spectator's view	`BP_SpectatorCameraModifier`

The desaturated look is Spectator Post Process on BP_SpectatorCameraModifier. It is a full post process block: add grain, a vignette or a colour grade there, no graph needed.

OnSpectatorStateChanged gives Is Spectating. It fires on the server and on the owning player. The template's player controller uses it to hide the gameplay HUD. Bind it the same way to hide your own. WBP_Spectator comes with the component, not with the HUD.

On your own character¶

Add BP_DeathComponent to your pawn.
Implement BPI_VitalManagerInterface on the pawn and return a BP_VitalsSystem from GetVitalComponent. That is where the death comes from. See Health, damage and new vitals.
Give the pawn a skeletal mesh with a bone or socket named head. The name is fixed.
Put BP_SpectatorComponent on your player controller, and implement BPI_PlayerLifeState on your player state so the run knows who is down.
To have the end of the run and the start of the arena cut a bleedout short, forward NotifyRunEnded and NotifyArenaStarted from BPI_RunControl to EndBleedoutNow, as BP_FriendslopCharacter does.

Steps 4 and 5 are optional. Without them, that part simply does nothing. The full list of components is in How the player character works.

Next: Place a revive bay.

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