SIX STAR

The information model of heat

What they shipped

Under the six stars sits a row of small red icons, each a separate fact the police hold: a silhouette (physical description), a clothes hanger (your outfit), a camera (CCTV footage), plus your vehicle and who you are with. A hollow star means a crime is known but the perpetrator is not. Buying a baseball cap in a convenience store removed the description icon and left the clothing icon standing. Burning the getaway car removed the vehicle icon and the pursuit dropped it. Heat is regional and persists — the map shows where you are hot, and cops linger at the scene.

The abstraction

Two orthogonal axes that games have historically collapsed into one bar. Severity (how bad was it) drives how hard they hunt. Identification (what do they know) drives whether they can find you. Every fact has an independent acquisition path, an independent decay clock, and an independent counter-move. That is what turns a chase from a speed test into a puzzle.

The Roblox build

Server-authoritative, one record per (userId, region). Never let the client assert what it looks like or what it is wearing — that is the exploit surface.

-- ServerScriptService/Heat/Record.luau
-- Severity and identification are separate axes. Most games fuse them; don't.
export type Fact = "Face" | "Outfit" | "Vehicle" | "Camera" | "Partner"

export type Record = {
    region  : string,              -- "boardwalk" | "docks" | ...
    severity: number,              -- 0..6  how hard they hunt
    facts   : { [Fact]: number },  -- fact -> unix time it goes stale
}

-- Each fact rots on its own clock. Witnesses forget faces; CCTV doesn't.
local TTL = { Face = 900, Outfit = 600, Vehicle = 1800, Camera = 5400, Partner = 1200 }

-- Hollow star: they are responding, they have nothing. The whole stealth game
-- is "keep the fact table empty", not "outrun the car".
function Record.isHollow(r: Record): boolean
    for _, expiry in r.facts do
        if expiry > os.time() then return false end
    end
    return r.severity > 0
end

The disguise half is a server-side appearance signature. Split it so a hat defeats one key and a full change of clothes defeats the other — that asymmetry is the mechanic:

-- Two independent keys => two independently defeatable facts.
local function signature(d: HumanoidDescription): (number, number)
    local outfit = 0
    for _, slot in { "Shirt", "Pants", "GraphicTShirt" } do
        outfit = bit32.bxor(outfit * 31, d[slot])
    end
    local face = 0
    for _, slot in { "HatAccessory", "FaceAccessory", "HairAccessory" } do
        for id in (d[slot] or ""):gmatch("%d+") do
            face = bit32.bxor(face * 31, tonumber(id))
        end
    end
    return face, outfit
end

Tiered larceny

What they shipped

Vehicles are stratified by security. Old vans yield to a slim jim; high-end cars need a digital key cloner that must be acquired, and some tools only unlock later in the story. A handheld scanner shows a car's security tier, its resale value, and what it costs to register as your own. Stolen cars can carry trackers — some of which ping law enforcement if you drive below a certain speed. You can sell to a fence, or pay to keep it, subject to garage space.

The abstraction

A single verb re-expressed as a four-term expression: information (scan) → capability (do I own the tool) → risk (tracker, time-to-crack, noise) → disposition (fence for cash or register for utility). Note what this buys them for free: a progression curve, an economy sink, a reason to explore, and emergent difficulty during a chase — when the cops are behind you, you take the unlocked sedan, not the perfect one.

The Roblox build

This one is nearly free on Roblox and is the highest ROI port in this document. It needs no new animation, no new art, and no physics work — it is a table and a timer.

-- Attributes on the vehicle model; no bespoke code per car.
-- tier 0 unlocked · 1 slim-jim · 2 hotwire · 3 key-clone · 4 fleet/immobiliser
local TOOLS = {
    SlimJim   = { maxTier = 1, secs = 3.0, noise = 0.1 },
    Hotwire   = { maxTier = 2, secs = 6.5, noise = 0.4 },
    KeyCloner = { maxTier = 3, secs = 9.0, noise = 0.0 },
}

local function attempt(plr, car, toolName)
    local tool = TOOLS[toolName]
    local tier = car:GetAttribute("SecurityTier")
    if not tool or tier > tool.maxTier then return false, "NEEDS_BETTER_TOOL" end

    -- Time is the cost. A chase makes 9 seconds unaffordable, which is
    -- the entire point: scarcity of time re-prices every car on the street.
    if not Progress.hold(plr, tool.secs, car) then return false, "INTERRUPTED" end

    Witnesses.broadcast(car.Position, tool.noise)   -- feeds System 01
    if car:GetAttribute("Tracker") then Tracker.arm(plr, car) end
    return true
end

The scanner is a client-side UI over server-truth attributes — value, tier, tracker-present, registration cost. Ship it as an equippable so the tool itself is a progression gate. Rockstar confirmed on the record that it unlocks through the story and reports both the fence price and the registration price side by side — i.e. the tool's job is to make the disposition choice legible at the moment of theft, not afterwards. Carjacking an occupied moving car still exists and skips the lock tier entirely; the tracker and the heat still apply. Keep that lane open — it is the panic option, and a chase needs one.

The body as a ledger

What they shipped

Previewers photographed a stat page tracking exactly those nine values for both leads. Eating gives a substantial health buff; overeating puts weight on. Gyms accept both characters at once for a "two-for-one" on stat management. Running occasionally surfaces a cardio prompt marked with the same heart and lightning icons Red Dead Redemption 2 used for health and stamina cores. Multi-day benders, oversleeping and being on the run all show up on the character's face and body. This is San Andreas' 2004 attribute bars, rebuilt with twenty years of simulation craft behind them.

The abstraction

A slow-clock state that (a) records past behaviour, (b) is visible on the avatar without any UI, and (c) feeds back into the fast-clock systems — sprint duration, melee damage, recovery rate. The genius is (b): it is a progress bar that other players can read across the room. Every hour invested is legible to strangers, permanently, without a leaderboard.

The Roblox build

Tick on a slow loop, persist to DataStore, project onto the rig. Two integrator variables (muscle, fat) driven by inputs, then mapped to body scale:

-- 60s tick. Slow clock: this is a diary, not a resource meter.
local function step(s, dt)
    local surplus = s.calories - s.burn                 -- eating vs. moving
    s.fat    = math.clamp(s.fat    + surplus * 2.1e-5 * dt, 0, 1)
    local trained = s.gymMinutes > 0 and s.protein > 0.4
    s.muscle = math.clamp(s.muscle + (trained and 1.4e-4 or -2e-5) * dt, 0, 1)
    s.rested = math.clamp(s.sleepDebt > 0 and s.rested - 3e-5*dt or 1, 0, 1)
end

-- Legible without UI: strangers read your history off your silhouette.
local function project(hum: Humanoid, s)
    hum.BodyDepthScale.Value = 1 + s.fat * 0.28 + s.muscle * 0.10
    hum.BodyWidthScale.Value = 1 + s.fat * 0.22 + s.muscle * 0.18
    hum.WalkSpeed            = 16 * (1 - s.fat*0.18) * (0.85 + s.rested*0.15)
end

The two-body problem

What they shipped

Jason and Lucia are a playable pair with different, equal skill sets — he is ex-military, she is a fighter. You can hot-swap at any moment, in a mission or in the open world, whether they are in the same car or on opposite sides of the map. Time spent together in any shared activity — pool, mini golf, kayaking, shopping, or robbing a bank — feeds the relationship positively. When you play as one, the other lives on and texts you; ignoring the texts degrades the bond slightly. The entire romance layer is explicitly opt-out.

The abstraction

A second body under the player's control creates a tactical resource (split the pursuit, cover fire, one drives while the other shoots) and an emotional resource (a variable that only rises with time spent, and gently falls with neglect). And critically: the design is opt-out, so the players who find it embarrassing never touch it and never resent it.

The Roblox build

Here you do not need to solve the problem — the platform already did. GTA VI is simulating a second player because it has to. You have a second player. Port the bond variable, not the character-switching:

-- Bond is earned by co-presence in ANY activity, not by a dedicated verb.
-- Rockstar's list: pool, mini golf, kayaking, shopping, robbing a bank.
local RATE = { idle = 0.0, travel = 0.6, activity = 1.0, job = 1.6 }

local function tickBond(a: Player, b: Player, dt: number)
    local hrp = b.Character and b.Character.PrimaryPart
    if not hrp or a:DistanceFromCharacter(hrp.Position) > 60 then return end
    local pair = Pair.key(a.UserId, b.UserId)         -- ordered, stable
    Bond[pair] = math.min(Bond[pair] + RATE[Context.of(a,b)] * dt, CAP)
end

-- The async half: when one is offline, the other can still reach them.
-- Answering costs nothing; ignoring costs a little. That asymmetry is the design.
function Bond.offlinePing(from: Player, toUserId: number, text: string)
    Outbox:enqueue(toUserId, { from = from.UserId, text = text, at = os.time() })
    Decay:schedule(Pair.key(from.UserId, toUserId), UNANSWERED_PENALTY, 24*3600)
end

Coercion without kills

What they shipped

In the demo, Jason aimed a gun at a group of aggressors and did not fire. They reassessed and ran. The crime was still reported and police still responded — but they were responding to a non-violent incident, so the wanted level stayed low. Separately, walking down the street with a rifle out changes how the whole world behaves around you. Threat is modelled as its own input with its own outputs, not as a failed attack.

The Q&A added the rung below that one. Walk past a pedestrian, have them turn and say something, and the contextual prompt offers diffuse or provoke. And the focus trigger is explicitly no longer an aim button: "hitting that left trigger doesn't automatically mean you pull out a gun and shoot someone, or pull out a gun and aim — it means there is a bigger range of options." The ladder now runs diffuse → ignore → provoke → brandish → aim → fire, and only the last rung is the one Roblox cannot ship.

The abstraction

A middle rung on the escalation ladder that most games skip entirely. It converts the question from "can I win this fight" to "what is the cheapest way through this room" — and cheapness is measured in the currency of System 01. This is, quietly, the best mechanic in the whole preview cycle.

The Roblox build

Give NPCs a two-term appraisal — can I get hurt and do I have an out — and let the outcome write a differently-weighted entry to the heat ledger.

-- The escalation ladder, priced. Each rung writes a different heat row.
local RUNG = {
    Diffuse   = { severity = 0, facts = {},          temperament =  1 },
    Presence  = { severity = 0, facts = { "Face" } },
    Brandish  = { severity = 1, facts = { "Face", "Outfit" } },
    Aim       = { severity = 2, facts = { "Face", "Outfit" } },
    Discharge = { severity = 4, facts = { "Face", "Outfit", "Camera" } },
}

local function appraise(npc, threat)
    local exposure = threat.aimedAtMe and 1 or 0.3
    local out      = Nav.hasEscape(npc, threat.from) and 1 or 0.2
    local nerve    = npc:GetAttribute("Nerve")          -- 0..1, per-archetype
    if exposure * out > nerve then return "Comply" end
    return Nav.hasCover(npc) and "Cover" or "Fight"
end

The reactive crowd

What they shipped

An entire development team in Los Angeles dedicated solely to pedestrian behaviour. Over a decade of field research in Miami. Fifty commissioned artists so no two pieces of street art repeat. Crowds that react to a drawn weapon, comment on your appearance, and phone in crimes police did not witness. And a focus interaction — hold to target a person or a dog, get a contextual menu (scold, pet, study) — which is the mechanism that turns a crowd from scenery into surface area.

The Q&A sharpened this. Rockstar staffs a team whose entire job is writing NPC dialogue, and the reported effect is the absence of the thing every open world does — you never hear the same conversation twice walking down one street. NPCs react differently to Jason than to Lucia. And eavesdropping is a verb: stop and listen to a conversation and the participants have something to say about that.

The abstraction

Two separable things, and only one of them is expensive. Density and variety cost money and memory. Perception, opinion and a reporting channel cost almost nothing — and they are what actually produces the feeling of a world that notices you. Most Roblox experiences spend their budget on the first and ship none of the second.

The Roblox build

Do not run a per-NPC brain. Run a coarse "who can see what" pass in parallel Luau, and let everything else be an animation on top of that signal.

-- Witnesses/Perception.luau — inside an Actor, task.desynchronize()'d.
-- Budget: one cone test per witness per 250ms, sliced across frames.
local function canSee(eye: CFrame, at: Vector3, cosFov: number, range: number)
    local to = at - eye.Position
    local d  = to.Magnitude
    if d > range then return false end
    if eye.LookVector:Dot(to / d) < cosFov then return false end
    return workspace:Raycast(eye.Position, to, OCCLUDERS) == nil
end

-- A witness does not chase. It writes one row and forgets you.
-- Cheap, and it is the only thing the player can feel.
local function onIncident(w, subject, kind)
    if not canSee(w.eye, subject.pos, w.cosFov, w.range) then return end
    local delay = w.timid and 8 or 2                -- time to get the phone out
    Heat.report(subject.userId, kind, Facts.forDistance(w, subject), delay)
end

Density is a separate, purely budgetary problem: instanced meshes, aggressive LOD, a shared animation clock per archetype, and StreamingEnabled tuned so the crowd radius is smaller than the visual radius. Distant "pedestrians" do not need to be Humanoids and should not be.

The legible HUD

What they shipped

A minimal HUD: six stars, a row of small icons for what the police know, a weapon wheel, an item wheel, and separate bank and wallet balances. Previewers singled it out unprompted — when the pair burned their car, the car icon vanished from the HUD and the pursuit visibly dropped it. Cause and effect, communicated in one icon, at 90 mph, with no text.

The abstraction

The counterplay in System 01 only exists if the player can see which fact they just defeated. An invisible state machine is not a mechanic; it is a bug report. This is the step teams skip, and skipping it is what makes deep systems feel like randomness.

The Roblox build

• One icon per fact, and it disappears the instant the fact does. The disappearance is the reward. Animate it — a 200ms flash and fade is worth more than the underlying feature.
• Hollow vs. filled is the most important distinction on the screen. Hollow means "they're coming but they don't know it's you," which is a completely different emotional state from being hunted, and it needs a completely different silhouette.
• Mobile first. The icon row must read on a 6" screen held in landscape with two thumbs covering the bottom corners. Test at 360×640 before you test at 1080p.
• No numbers. GTA VI shows no percentages anywhere in this system. Neither should you.

The temperament ledger

What they shipped

A system Rockstar first showed as "temperament" and now calls the criminal profile. It is an evolution of Red Dead Redemption 2's honor meter, and it is explicitly not connected to the wanted system — a bad criminal profile does not put police on you. What it scores is how you behave inside a situation, not whether the situation was legal.

The stated test is avoidability: acting in self-defence is one thing; escalating a situation you could have walked away from is another. Inputs run all the way down to the trivial — putting litter in a bin rather than on the pavement, feeding an animal. A small positive icon acknowledges a gain. And Rockstar has explicitly closed the RDR2 exploit where you could greet and pet your way back to sainthood after a massacre.

The abstraction

Two independent reputations. One models what an institution knows (System 01: acquirable, defeatable, expiring). The other models what a population believes — slow, ambient, hard to launder, changing the tone of the world rather than its threat level. Fusing them is the classic mistake: a single karma bar that both summons guards and changes dialogue ends up doing neither convincingly, because the counterplay for one ruins the other.

The Roblox build

Score the gap between the force available and the force used, gated on whether an exit existed. That one expression is most of the system.

-- Temperament.luau — slow, ambient, laundering-resistant.
-- Never touches pursuit. It changes what the world SAYS, not what it DOES.
local function score(ev): number
    if ev.threatenedFirst then return 0 end          -- self-defence is free
    if not ev.hadAnExit then return -0.2 * ev.force end  -- cornered, discounted
    return -1.0 * (ev.force - ev.forceNeeded)         -- avoidable escalation
end

-- Anti-cheese: RDR2 let you pet a dog back to sainthood.
-- Rate-cap the trivia, and never let it fully repair harm.
local TRIVIA_CAP_PER_HOUR = 0.05

function Temperament.apply(plr, ev)
    local d = score(ev)
    if d > 0 then d = math.min(d, Budget.remaining(plr, TRIVIA_CAP_PER_HOUR)) end
    local t = math.clamp(Profile[plr].temperament + d, Harm.floor(plr), 1)
    Profile[plr].temperament = t
    Dialogue.setRegister(plr, t)        -- the ONLY consumer, by design
end

The getaway goes multi-modal

What they shipped

Streets are deliberately narrower than in any previous GTA and traffic is far denser. Nelson's stated consequence is that the series' reflex answer to a chase no longer reliably works.

Nelson himself got side-swiped while demoing it. Rockstar expects an adaptation period for returning players — which is a remarkable thing for a studio to say out loud about its own core verb.

The abstraction

Congestion as a design tool. Density is not set dressing — it is a debuff on the dominant strategy, applied environmentally rather than by nerfing anything. Remove the reliable escape and the pursuit becomes a routing problem across movement modes with different profiles: the car is fast but legible and blockable; the scooter threads traffic but leaves you exposed; on foot you are slow, but you go where no vehicle follows and you are much harder to describe.

The Roblox build

Read this one twice — it is the best news in these transcripts for a Roblox team. The pursuit game just moved off the axis Roblox is worst at (vehicle handling feel, where Rockstar hired race drivers) and onto axes Roblox is genuinely fine at: foot navigation, verticality, alley networks, small scooters with trivial physics, and crowds to disappear into.

• Author the alley graph deliberately. The back-alley escape only exists if somebody drew it. Treat pedestrian-only connectivity as a first-class map layer with its own review pass — it is the layer that makes the whole system work and it is invisible in screenshots.
• Traffic density as a per-region tunable, not a global. Congestion is how you author difficulty per district without placing a single enemy.
• Scooters are the sweet spot. Simple physics, low mass, no handling model to lose at, and they thread gridlock that stops a car — the highest fun-per-engineering-hour vehicle you can ship, and the one Rockstar just endorsed.
• Tie movement mode to the fact table. On foot in a crowd, the Face fact should decay faster; in a car the Vehicle fact dominates. Movement mode is an identity strategy, and that link is what fuses Systems 01 and 09 into a single decision.

Dress code as access

What they shipped

Three things that only connect once you see them together. Clothing stores are distributed across the map with region-exclusive stock, explicitly to push exploration. Interiors are broadly enterable and, per the Q&A, "more than ever before you can rob any business you want." And access to premium venues is gated on presentation — the analogy offered for how a locked venue would read in-world was turning up to an exclusive club in sweatpants and being refused at the door.

Meanwhile that same wardrobe is the counterplay to the Outfit fact in System 01, and a convenience-store baseball cap is the counterplay to the Face fact. One slot, three jobs.

The abstraction

Identity (what witnesses can describe), access (which doors open), and expression (what you chose to look like). Games normally give clothing only the third job, which is exactly why cosmetics feel weightless — and why players who buy them stop caring about them.

The Roblox build

-- One wardrobe, three consumers, one signature.
Access.check(door, plr)      -- access:     does this venue admit this outfit?
Heat.signature(plr)          -- identity:   what can a witness describe?
Dialogue.register(plr)       -- expression: how does the street greet you?

-- Dress code as a TAG test, never an allowlist of asset ids —
-- so a UGC item uploaded tomorrow works at the door with no patch.
local function admits(venue, desc): boolean
    local tags = Catalog.tagsOf(desc)     -- "formal" | "beachwear" | "obscures-face"
    return tags[venue.requires] == true and not tags[venue.forbids]
end