Beacon Signature

Sent By	Tagger
Signature Type	Beacon

Standard Beacon

Standard beacons are used by the Deluxe, IRT-2X Drone, and Tag Master Blaster. They are used by the LTAR when playing a standard hosted game or when playing an enhanced hosted game that has them enabled. Phoenix LTX taggers cannot send beacons.

• Beacon Information (5 bits)
  • Team number (2 bits) one-based
  • Tag received (1 bit)
    • Indicates that the beacon was sent due to the tagger receiving a tag.
  • Tag strength (2 bits)
    • Must be 00 if "tag received" bit is zero.
    • 00 - 1 tag
    • 01 - 2 tag
    • 10 - 3 tag
    • 11 - 4 tag

Zone Beacon

The zone beacon is in the same format as a standard beacon. With the standard beacon if the tag received bit is set, one of the tag strength bits must also be set. With the zone beacon, the tag received bit must not be set but at least one of the zone type bits must be set.

• Beacon Information (5 bits)
  • Team number (2 bits) one-based, 00 for neutral
    • Only valid for supply zones.
  • Tag received (1 bit)
    • Must be 0.
  • Zone type (2 bits)
    • 00 - Invalid
    • 01 - Reserved
    • 10 - Contested zone
    • 11 - Supply zone

The standard interval that zone beacons are sent at is 500ms. However, they can be sent more or less often to increase or decrease the rate of their effect. For a supply zone set to refill tags, the standard interval will refill one tag every 15 seconds.

You can calculate how many seconds it will take to refill one tag for a given zone beacon interval using the following equation:

i = Beacon interval (in milliseconds)

t = Time between refills (in seconds)

t = 15 / ((1000 / i) - 1)

Supply zone beacons take between 57 and 59ms to be sent. If the beacons are sent without any delay between them, it will take a little less than a second to refill one tag.

Enhanced Beacon

Enhanced beacons are supported only by the LTAR. They are used by the LTAR when playing a Grab & Go game or when playing an enhanced hosted game that has them enabled.

• Beacon Information (9 bits)
  • Tag received (1 bit)
    • Indicates that the beacon was sent due to the tagger receiving a tag.
  • Shield active (1 bit)
  • Tags remaining (2 bits)
    • 00 - 0
    • 01 - 1-25%
    • 10 - 25-50%
    • 11 - 50-100%
  • 2:3 Packed team and player number (5 bits)