Timeline Entries (timeline_entry_type)

timeline_entry_type

The timeline array of a tribulation holds these entries. Each one writes a beat id in its type to select it; a data pack can only pick an existing beat and cannot add new ones.

timeline is a running cursor: when a tribulation starts the whole timeline is copied onto the entity undergoing it, and from then on each tick consumes the beat the cursor sits on, advancing one beat once it finishes. The cursor position is saved as well (mxt:branch can move it to any beat), while difficulty_scale and the two ending behaviours are not copied and are still read from the definition. The cursor walking off the end runs success_action, and a beat that fails runs fail_action. The beats are copies, so /reload cannot change a tribulation that is already running.

Every beat is asked once whether it can run now, before the whole run starts. An mxt:idle whose duration does not resolve, an mxt:wait_for whose timeout does not resolve or does not come out positive, and a mxt:branch whose target is out of range all get the whole start rejected outright, rather than failing halfway through.

{
  "timeline": [
    {"type": "mxt:action", "action": {"type": "mxt:spawn_lightning", "damage": 12}},
    {"type": "mxt:idle", "duration": 40},
    {"type": "mxt:wait_for", "condition": {"type": "mxt:exposed_to_sky"}},
    {"type": "mxt:branch", "condition": {"type": "mxt:health", "comparison": "<", "compare_to": 10}, "if_true": 3}
  ]
}

mxt:action

Runs one entity action and finishes on the same tick.

Field	Type	Default	Description
action	EntityAction	required	The action to run.

{"type": "mxt:action", "action": {"type": "mxt:spawn_lightning", "damage": 12}}

This is an instant beat: several neighbouring mxt:action beats all run in order within the same tick, so everything that happens in one tick does not have to be split across beats. action is any entity action, so any action can be a beat.

mxt:idle

Idles a number of ticks doing nothing.

Field	Type	Default	Description
duration	NumberProvider	required	The number of ticks to idle.

{"type": "mxt:idle", "duration": 40}

The wait length is converted as duration × difficulty_scale × max(0, 1 + aura_tribulation_modifier) and settled once when this beat begins, never recomputed afterwards: a random duration is rolled once, and the ambient aura changing mid-wait cannot stretch or shorten a wait that has already started.

mxt:wait_for

Evaluated once per tick, finishing only once the condition holds.

Field	Type	Default	Description
condition	EntityCondition	required	The condition being waited for.
timeout	NumberProvider	none	The number of ticks of a deadline wait.
on_timeout	Enum	fail	What happens when it runs out: finish moves straight on, fail fails the whole tribulation.

{"type": "mxt:wait_for", "condition": {"type": "mxt:exposed_to_sky"}, "timeout": 600, "on_timeout": "fail"}

timeout is a deadline rather than the length of this beat, so it is settled from timeout alone, without difficulty_scale and without looking at the ambient aura — difficulty should not decide how long a player has to meet the condition. With no timeout written, a condition that never holds parks the whole run on this beat (it neither advances nor fails), so the condition has to be reachable.

condition is an entity condition and accepts a list as an implicit AND, exactly like condition fields elsewhere; mxt:branch's condition is the same type.

mxt:branch

Moves the running cursor to another beat according to a condition, and finishes on the same tick.

Field	Type	Default	Description
condition	EntityCondition	required	The condition deciding which branch to take.
if_true	Integer	none	The index to jump to when the condition holds.
if_false	Integer	none	The index to jump to when the condition does not hold.

{"type": "mxt:branch", "condition": {"type": "mxt:health", "comparison": "<", "compare_to": 10}, "if_true": 3}

if_true / if_false are absolute indices, counted from the first beat of the timeline the run copied (0-based); jumping backwards is allowed, and nothing stops a "go back and take another round while the health is low" loop (the condition has to settle on its own). An out-of-range index is rejected at start, so a branch pointing at the wrong beat cannot surface only after the player has already paid the price of the breakthrough. A branch that is not written advances one beat as usual.

At most 1024 beats are consumed per tick: a loop that jumps back on itself and contains no wait logs a WARN and hands that beat back to the next tick instead of wedging the server thread. A real loop always waits at some beat (mxt:idle / mxt:wait_for), so a normal definition never reaches this limit.