/idle guideAway Crew lets your own character keep adventuring while you are elsewhere. They fight, loot, recover, improve the gear you care about, and occasionally open a shop for passing players. Open /idle whenever you want to tune their instincts, inspect the haul, chat, or watch the world live.
This is the player-facing companion to design/idle.md, which holds the engineering contract. Here the focus is what you can do and what the cockpit is telling you.
/idle in chat, or open the in-game settings cog./idle: use the single Enable Away Crew action. Your characterreturns to the world from the last saved location.
/idle again. Starting a normal play session also reclaimsyour character automatically.
/idle: the same action becomes Disable Away Crew.Closing the cockpit does not disable the crew. Their adventure is server-side, so it continues until you explicitly stop it or return to play live.
The agent spawns in the world you last logged off in — outside, outside2, dungeon, wherever. If a sell cycle takes the agent home through an autodoor, the persisted biome updates so your next login lands you in the new place.
/idle cockpitEverything operational lives in one responsive cockpit. There are no detached status, action-log, or chat islands competing for attention. Ledger is the one intentional modal reading surface. The header answers the first three questions at a glance: who is out there, what are they doing, and are they safe?
The world graphics rest when the cockpit first opens. A lightweight UI-only animation-frame loop keeps controller input, chat, and interface updates alive without spending the full 3D render budget. On wider screens, a pixel field map still shows the trail and moves your crew marker with each update. Watch live wakes the world and collapses the cockpit to a small return rail; the same button becomes Back to cockpit and rests it again. Sound stays beside the return action, so a suddenly noisy fight never traps you with audio on. The rail also keeps Ledger [G] visible and says plainly that Watch is observational — your Away Crew still has the controls. Watch looks for a clear view around trees and walls, pulling the camera closer in tight dungeon halls instead of filming through stone.
Watch live wakes only after the server has attached this page to your real Away Crew. If that link is missing or lost, Watch disables itself and returns to the cockpit instead of following a random passer-by. If your crew falls in battle, their gravestone stays visible in the world while their saved recovery routine takes over; /idle never covers the cockpit with a Respawn button that an observer cannot use.
The always-visible header contains:
In a scrap, Catching breath, or Tempting fate. Internal action codes never leak into the cockpit.
drops. Ledger rests Watch while it is open and returns focus to its launcher when closed.
the live game's master volume.
is active.
Only the selected tab is visible, and only its body scrolls.
Routine is where you set instincts. Its five compact sections open only when you need them. Hunting choices are large field-order tiles instead of tiny settings rows, and every change saves automatically after a short pause. Routine waits for your saved choices before its controls wake up, so an early tap cannot replace a profile with blank defaults. Live status refreshes can update the trail and stats without undoing an edit or save already in progress. If a save misses, the cockpit says so without discarding the controls you just changed and retries automatically; a newer edit becomes the version that wins.
run from danger, sell a stuffed bag, and restock potions.
chase every hostile. If the current world has none of your picks, the crew can take an autodoor to an adjacent world that does.
a target level. Protected duplicates head to the bank; eligible gear can be improved when a scroll is available.
roaming bounds. Empty bounds mean the whole world.
name blank to follow an online party friend, then choose how close to stay.
Mirrors your character's inventory exactly — sectioned the same way as the in-game I panel. Section 1 is your starter section (free, 7×6 = 42 slots). Unlocked sections show their real slots; if another section is available, only that next expansion appears as a compact Unlock in the live game · {cost} ★ plaque, with the current cost filled in. The plaque also counts later expansions without rendering screens of fake disabled slots. Purchases still happen in the live game.
Hover, focus, click, or press controller A on an occupied slot to inspect its name, level, type, effective stats, description, and decay countdown. Item information is never available only to a mouse.
Stack counts show in the bottom-right (gold), upgrade levels in the top-left (cyan). A small green→amber→red stripe on the right edge of each upgraded slot tracks remaining time to the next decay tick.
Same sectioned layout. Section 1 is 5 columns × 10 rows by default (can be widened to 9 columns with a one-shot cash purchase). As in Bag, the cockpit renders real unlocked sections plus one compact Unlock in the live game · {cost} ★ next-expansion plaque; it never turns all later capacity into a long disabled grid.
The vault-gold strip at the top surfaces your separate banked gold balance (inflation taxes both pools at the same rate — design/balance.md).
When a stuffed bag contains gear you asked to keep, the crew walks to the banker and parks duplicate copies here instead of casually liquidating them.
Activity is a translated, time-stamped trail of what the crew just tried: spotting trouble, collecting loot, selling, banking, recovering, travelling, or tempting an upgrade. Events keep their numbers and names as structured values until your selected language renders the sentence. Earlier and Later make the full trail reachable without a mouse. Tiny combat shuffles are folded away so the story keeps kills, discoveries, travel, loot, and town errands instead of repeating “in range” chatter.
The ordinary game chat history and input are mounted directly inside this tab; there is no loose chat box or second private-message composer. Public chat, /msg, /w, /pet, /idle, and party conversation use the same identity and history as live play. Earlier and Later scroll the transcript.
pane the scroll. The short-phone header keeps your identity plus Watch/Enable/Ledger/Sound, compacts all five tabs into one row, and steps stat bars and nonessential utilities aside so the selected pane has real room. Wingmate's arrows, name, and radius remain full controller targets; Watch wraps into a compact return rail instead of covering the viewport.
plaque fit without a sideways scroll or fake locked slots.
stays in one column and the active tab body owns the scroll.
the world. The 1280 × 800 test view keeps the same cap.
At 800 px and wider, the paused side becomes a zero-WebGL scout scene: a pixel field map, your live crew marker, and a little reminder that the world may be dreaming while your boots are not. Below 800 px the cockpit owns the screen and the scout scene steps out of the way.
Mouse and keyboard use ordinary HTML controls. A controller uses Qwazy Land's synth cursor but triggers those exact same buttons and tab actions; there is no second controller-only copy of the cockpit.
Ledger. From Watch, R and I return to their cockpit surfaces; G rests Watch and opens the modal Ledger. R is not a combat-skill key while you are only observing, while Cmd+R/Ctrl+R still belongs to the browser for reloading.
range, or number control. While Ledger is open, D-pad stays inside it and reaches native creature/item cards.
Ledger; Menu closes Ledger before moving to Bag.
Routine; with Ledger open, B closes Ledger first. It never closes the route itself.
cockpit. Neither shortcut opens an invisible page behind the live world.
Pointer lock is never acquired on /idle, so switching between HTML5 input and the controller synth path stays calm and predictable.
Safety comes first. Low HP sends the crew to recover; sudden danger can make them break away. After that they handle a stuffed bag, a ready upgrade, or a missing potion supply before looking for the next fight or nearby treasure. When nothing urgent is calling, they roam inside the bounds you chose.
Fighting happens in short hunting stretches, followed by a treasure sweep so chests and ground drops do not quietly expire between battles.
When the bag is ≥ 50 % full (measured against your unlocked slots, not the full capacity), the agent walks through these gates in order:
merchant. Cross-world transit if needed.
upgrade list) into the vault, keeping the best copy of each kind in the bag. Cross-world transit if no banker is in the current world.
zero, sell the cheapest half of the protected duplicates at the merchant. This is the only path that ever liquidates a kept item, and it requires literal bankruptcy with no vault space.
When the agent has a kept-item below its target level AND an UPGRADE_SCROLL is in the bag, it walks to the Fatewright and rolls.
STARDUST boost the chance (cumulative, capped at 95 %).agent moves on.
the point). The kind goes on an 8 s cooldown so the agent doesn't immediately burn another scroll on the next copy.
The full upgrade + result FX broadcast plays just like a player-driven upgrade, so anyone watching nearby sees the flash and the result.
When HP is below the rest threshold and the inventory has zero HP potions, the agent transits to a merchant (cross-world supported) and buys 50 potions at the regular price. If gold is tight, it falls back to minor potions. If neither purchase works, it tries again after choosing its next move.
Every 40 minutes (default; configurable) the agent breaks off from farming, travels to town, and sets up shop. For 10 minutes your character stands at their merchant stand offering the loot they gathered at 2× the NPC quartermaster's buy-back price. Other players walking through town can buy from the stall the same way they'd buy from any player merchant.
When the 10 minutes are up, the agent packs up the unsold wares back into the bag and walks home through the autodoors. No teleport — strolling back is part of the idle character's charm.
If something attacks the agent while the stall is open, the agent breaks off to kill the threat, then resumes the stall with the remaining time intact. A defend gap doesn't extend the window.
The cockpit header shows Shop open · M:SS while the stall is running and Next shop · M:SS between cycles.
When the character dies, the crew waits for the free-respawn timer to expire and revives in place. The cockpit updates automatically. Turn off Get back up under Routine → Hunting style if you want the character to stay down.
The agent navigates through autodoors (the rectangular zones at the edges of every world). Transits happen automatically when:
The agent always walks back home (the world with the merchant) when its task is done.
The agent commits to a heading for at least ~1 s before re-evaluating, so the sprite doesn't flicker between facing directions. This applies to wander, kite back-off, and stuck-jiggle recoveries.
If the agent accidentally drifts into an autodoor zone (e.g. a stray wander step), it immediately wanders out before the zone-transition fires. /idle agents must never trigger a map change they didn't explicitly choose.
The Chat tab uses the in-game chat directly. Lines go out under your own character's name, are visible to everyone in the same world (or globally for system chat), and persist for 15 days.
/msg <name> <text> or /w <name> <text>.DMs to online recipients land instantly. Offline DMs are stored and delivered as part of the recipient's chatHistory on their next login. No DM is silently lost — the worst case is a 15-day delay.
DMs render in their own colour (purple) with directional arrows (Mira → for incoming, → Jayson for outgoing).
On every login and on every /idle observe attach, the server replays the last 50 visible chat lines (public + DMs sent and received). Lines older than 15 days expire automatically.
The replay is marked with a — recent history — separator so the visual seam between history and live is obvious.
Every party action works from /idle exactly as it does in-game, except for party_teleport (which moves you physically — your idle character is busy, so it stays in idle mode).
party_invite wire frame; the in-gameparty UI exposes the button.
yes/no buttons.
When you're idle:
players can attack, ally with, party with, or follow you.
in-world entity scans.
[I] badge appears next to your name above the sprite so othersknow you're not at the keyboard.
[idle] status badge appears on every party member panel.The header speaks in world language instead of machinery. Plotting mischief means the crew is choosing a move; On the trail and On the road mean travel; In a scrap, Getting clear, and Catching breath cover danger; Haggling, Vault run, Potion run, Tempting fate, and Running the stall explain the town errands. Taking a breather means Away Crew is disabled.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/idle | Toggle idle mode for your character. |
/msg <name> <text> | Private message a player. |
/w <name> <text> | Alias for /msg. |
/pet | Toggle your companion pet. |
idleAgent.js — the agent's state machine + decision logic.server.js _idleCtx — the agent's server-side API(sell / deposit / upgrade / buy / transit helpers).
public/index.html — the unified #idle-cockpit markup + responsive CSS.public/client.js — cockpit polling, five-tab runtime, HTML5/synth parity,and the paused UI-only input loop.
tests/idle-cockpit.js — non-default-world handoff, outdoor/dungeon camera,R/I/G, Ledger focus/controller lifecycle, 320/393 px narrow layouts, disable/reconnect teardown, geometry, and screenshot regression gate.
design/idle.md — the engineering spec for everything above.scripts/chat/_init-indexes.js — TTL index init for the chats Mongo collection (15 days).
The system has plenty more room to grow. Plausible additions:
shortcuts the agent re-equips on level-up / death respawn.
self-pauses during waking hours.
> 500 g", "never bother looting < 50 g".
at once, switch between their /idle views with a single click.
portraits + state badges + DM / invite buttons inline.
If any of these would change how you play, file a note and we'll schedule them.