Squads, Difficulty, Benchwarmers & Unlocks#

This page covers the meta-progression layer of Tape to Tape: which squads you can start a run with and what makes each one different, the benchwarmers and their quests, the bench bonus, the Golden Helmet, the difficulty tiers (with every tuning value), the unlock system, and the special game modes (Timer vs. Max-goal, Dominator/Eliminator).

1. Squads#

A squad (State.RunSquadScriptableObject) is the run archetype you pick before a campaign. Each squad sets:

• a starting TeamData (roster, goalie, bench size, hidden relics),
• its own Angus variant (angusPlayer, also used by Mark Bench's quest), plus optional extra Anguses,
• squad relics (m_RelicsData), which you always start with. Every squad relic in the current data has IsUnlockedByDefault = 1,
• m_MaxBenchwarmersOnBench, the number of benchwarmers you can bring in at run start,
• the supported game rules (m_SupportedGameModes: 0 = Timer, 1 = Maxgoal),
• the maps (act configs) and the campaign opponent pool,
• reward-pool exclusions (relic/talent/ability lists and category bitflags),
• an unlock condition.

Squad names and descriptions come from the localization keys squads/<id>/name and squads/<id>/desc.

Source: State.RunSquadScriptableObject (fields, IsUnlocked, HasUnlockedDifficulty, HasUnlockedGameMode, get_LocalizedSquadName = "squads/"+id+"/name"), State.SquadIds, Data.TeamData.

1.1 Squad overview#

There are 19 playable squads in the data.

Almost every starting team also carries the hidden Bench Bonus relic (isHidden = 1, see §2.3). The exceptions are Oldschool, Dominator and Double Decker, whose teams have no relic. Bum and Gauntlet use their own variants of it.

The localization also contains squads that are not in the playable data: Monk, Talented (norelics), Prisoner (sinbin), Balanced, Defense Max, NES, Soccer, Small Team, and a squads/tmp "???: Upcoming squad / Coming with the full release" placeholder. State.SquadIds also defines constants for monk, norelics and sinbin. These squads are unreleased.

1.2 Starting rosters#

Starting TeamData assets only fill a few roster slots (slot order: 0 = LW, 1 = RW, 2 = C, 3 = LD, 4 = RD, 5+ = bench). Empty slots are filled at run start through the Skater Selection / benchwarmer screen, or the free-agent intro for squads with m_UsesFreeAgentIntro = 1 (inferred from the UI strings "Choose your Starters" and "All active positions must be filled"). Stats below are the base shotPower / speed / shotAccuracy / checking values of the squad's own ForwardData assets.

All squads use a "Bobby Butcher" goalie variant, except Double Decker, which uses "Goalie Lines Meta".

1.3 Squad gimmicks (data-driven)#

• Oldschool: maps = VanillaLevelsConfig Act 1 / VanillaLevelsConfig / VanillaLevelsConfig (the classic maps), bench size 0 and 0 benchwarmers. Excluded relic category Injury (65536) and talent category Injury (32768). Also excluded: Participation Trophy, Double Bench Bonus, Comfy Cushion, Bench Bonus, Benchwarmer Boost, Organ Donor, Royal Rest, Short-Handed, Short Contract, Bench Juice, Double-Decker talent and Butt Bench.
• General Manager: GM maps (Level 1/2/3 Config GM), bench size 7, no benchwarmers, Short Contract excluded. Angus has the Contract talent.
• Gauntlet: Gauntlet maps (GauntletLevel1/2/3Config) and 2 benchwarmers. The UI requires a full lineup plus a minimum number of bench players (benchwarmers/gauntlet_roster_invalid/message). Its weaker bench bonus is described in §2.3.
• Double Decker: two full 5-skater lines that you switch manually. The starting team holds Kirby, Angus O'Liner, Kovalski, Mark Bench, Johnny Faceless, Cassoulet, Brewster, Stumple, Boring Dude and Angus FreshShaggy. The squad has one extra Angus (m_ExtraAnguses = Angus FreshShaggy, SP 51 / SPD 35 / ACC 55 / CHK 24, Yo-Yo) and allows 5 benchwarmers. It excludes every bench-bonus item (Participation Trophy, Double Bench Bonus, Comfy Cushion, Bench Bonus, Benchwarmer Boost, Organ Donor, Royal Rest, Short Contract, Bench Juice, Double-Decker talent, Butt Bench). Bench quests are disabled for this squad: BenchQuestSystem.get_IsDisabled returns true when CampaignUtil.IsPlayingSquad("lines").
• All Angus: m_CustomSwapPool replaces the normal benchwarmer pool with 17 Angus variants. These pool variants have their own stats and signature talents:

• Referee: uses RefereeCampaignOpponents instead of DefaultCampaignOpponents. It excludes Convenient Bag, Fury Stick, Triple Twig, Twig Tax, Tomahawk (talent and ability), Stickpocket and other stick-throwing items.
• Dominator (eliminator): Max-goal only, with the Lucky Puck queue (§5.2). It excludes relic category Referee (2097152) and the Briefcase relic.
• Speedrun: Max-goal only. Per its description, you must win before the end of the first period or you lose the game.
• SNES: excludes the Dash ability. It draws an NHL'94-style star marker under the active skater (m_SkaterMarkerPrefab tooltip).
• Modern (tchel): excludes Random Abilities, Random Ability and Polymorphic Ability.
• Speedy: excludes Armor.
• Slapshot: excludes Sweet Spot (the one-timer crit relic).
• Solo: excludes Participation Trophy and Short Contract.
• Bum: excludes the Double Bench Bonus relic.
• Elite reward relic category: eliteRewardRelicCategory is 2048 for All Angus, Defense, Dominator, Gauntlet, SNES, Speedrun, Stats, Modern and Violence, and 0 for the rest. 2048 is not a named RelicCategory member, so its effect is unknown.

1.4 Squad unlock conditions#

IsUnlocked returns true when:

1. the debug unlock-all flag (Unlocks.UnlockSystem static) is set, or
2. the squad id is in ProfileData.unlockedSquads, or
3. the squad id is in SquadIds.ALWAYS_UNLOCKED = {vanilla, oldschool, defense}.

Every other squad is unlocked by its condition asset. The in-game text is built from the condition's own description key and values. Several hard-coded squads/<id>/unlock strings are stale: for example, Trio's says "Win with 6 different squads", but the data requires 1. The table below uses the data values.

Each squad unlock also fires an achievement (UNLOCK_V2_SQUAD_<ID>; SNES uses UNLOCK_V2_SQUAD_16_BIT).

Source: Unlocks.*Condition assets (requiredCount, minimumDifficulty, requiredSquad, requiredGoals, requiredVisits, requiredWins), KnockoutCountCondition::get_CurrentProgress (stat id 0x49 = MostKnockoutsInOneRun), State.SquadIds::.cctor.

2. Benchwarmers, bench quests & bench bonus#

2.1 Benchwarmers#

Benchwarmers are special skaters defined in Rogue.BenchConfig. At run start you may move up to MaxBenchwarmersOnBench of them onto your team, set per squad (§1.1). Each benchwarmer has a quest. Completing it gives the benchwarmer a permanent reward, applied at the start of every later run: either a new power-up (AddNew) or an upgrade of a power-up they already have (UpgradeExisting).

Quest rules:

• Quest progress is not tracked on Training. BenchQuestSystem.get_IsDifficultyTooLow returns currentRunDifficulty < 1; the field holding the run's difficulty is inferred.
• Quests are disabled in the Double Decker squad.
• A quest reward is skipped if the current squad excludes it (IsRewardExcludedBySquad).
• Completing a quest shows a "Quest Complete" toast with the text "X will receive/upgrade Y at the start of each run". Mark Bench's quest can fail ("X failed their quest").

Source: Rogue.BenchConfig (data), Rogue.BenchQuests.*Quest constants (RequiredTalents = 8, RequiredAbilityUses = 100, RequiredKnockouts = 200, RequiredCritPercent = 100, RequiredGoals = 20, RequiredInjuryTypes = 4, RequiredEnragedGoals = 10), BenchQuestSystem::get_IsDifficultyTooLow, ::get_IsDisabled, Rogue.Powerups.BenchQuestPowerups.* (quest-tracker talents with QuestProgress and QuestRequirement), loc powerups/*_quest/*.

2.2 Bench powers (unused)#

Rogue.BenchPowers.Repository.BenchPowerRepository lists 12 bench powers, and every SkaterData has a benchPower field. No skater asset has a bench power assigned (0 of 775 ForwardData), and none of the benchpowers/* localization keys exist. The feature looks unfinished or cut. The values in data:

2.3 Bench Bonus#

Bench Bonus is a hidden relic present on most starting teams. Glossary: "A permanent attribute boost for a skater who sat on the bench for the entire match."

At the end of each game, BenchBonusController.AddBenchBonus adds these values to each benched skater who did not play. Each value is multiplied by GetBenchBonusMultiplier(forward), the result is rounded to an int (rounding call inferred), and it accumulates per skater in the relic state (ForwardOvrBonuses and the other dictionaries). The Comfy Cushion relic can also give a random talent through the same controller (AddRandomTalent).

Multiplier, starting at 1.0, verified from BenchBonusController::GetBenchBonusMultiplier:

The multipliers stack multiplicatively. Matching each check to its relic or talent is inferred from the generic HasRelic/HasTalent calls and the matching descriptions.

Related items: Participation Trophy (+5 OVR after each win to skaters who did not play), Bench Juice (Benchwarmer talent: +OVR if benched last game), Benchwarmer Boost (benchwarmers +15 OVR), Organ Donor (2 benchwarmers lose all attributes and talents, which are spread to teammates).

Source: Rogue.BenchBonus (fields overallBonus, speedBonus, checkingBonus, shotPowerBonus, shotAccuracyBonus), Rogue.BenchBonusController (AddBenchBonus, GetBenchBonusMultiplier), Rogue.DoubleBenchTalent (levelOneBonusPercent = 50, levelTwoBonusPercent = 100).

2.4 Golden Helmet#

Glossary: "Awarded to the team's top goal scorer. On a tie, the helmet is given to the skater who scored first."

• Holder selection (GoldenHelmetManager.CompareCandidates), in order of priority: 1. most cumulative goals this run; 2. the earlier match of the last goal; 3. the earlier goal order within that match; 4. the current holder keeps it; 5. the lower roster index.
• Number of holders = 1, or 2 if the team owns a specific relic (GetDesiredHolderCount returns 1 + HasRelic(X)). X is inferred to be Golden Duo / "Spare Bucket" ("2nd best scorer also gets Golden Helmet"). The Golden Throne talent equips an extra golden helmet.
• CPU teams also get a holder (DeriveCPUTeamHolder). The Golden Frog relic frogs opposing holders.
• The helmet (Skaters.Equipment "GoldenHelmet") has no stat effect on its own. It can be knocked off: 2% chance on a knockout, and 1% on a bodycheck with power ≥ 8. Its value comes from relics that reward the holder:

These relics have RelicCategory.GoldenHelmet (8388608) in their category flags.

Source: Rogue.GoldenHelmet.GoldenHelmetManager, Rogue.GoldenHelmet*Relic assets, Skaters.Equipment GoldenHelmet (dropOnKoChance = 0.02, dropOnBodyCheckedChance = 0.01, dropOnBodyCheckedPowerThreshold = 8).

3. Difficulty#

3.1 Tiers#

DifficultyManager.m_AllDifficulties holds 4 tiers. The default is Pro.

Data.DifficultySettings maps easy to Training, medium to Pro, hard to Veteran and nightmare to Nightmare.

3.2 How difficulties unlock#

RunSquadScriptableObject.HasUnlockedDifficulty(d) works as follows:

• false if tier d does not exist;
• true if the unlock-all flag is set, or if d < 3 (Training, Pro and Veteran are always available);
• otherwise (Nightmare): ProfileData.GetHighestDifficultyCompleted() + 1 >= d.

The parameterless overload of GetHighestDifficultyCompleted takes the maximum over all squads (-1 if nothing is completed), unless allDifficultiesUnlocked is set. Nightmare therefore unlocks once any squad has won a run on Veteran, even though the call is made on a specific squad. The UI string "Unlocked difficulty {0} for {1}" names a squad, but the gate itself is global.

HighestCompletedDifficulty (per squad) = GetHighestDifficultyCompleted(squad.id). It feeds squad-completion unlock conditions such as "Win with N squads on Pro".

Game rules are gated by HasUnlockedGameMode(rule), which simply checks m_SupportedGameModes.Contains(rule).

Source: State.RunSquadScriptableObject::HasUnlockedDifficulty, ::get_HighestCompletedDifficulty, ProfileData::GetHighestDifficultyCompleted (both overloads), Tape2Tape.Hockey.UI.ChooseMetaMenu::RefreshAvailableDifficultiesAndGameModes.

3.3 Difficulty parameters#

Each tier is a Data.DifficultyLevel asset, and DifficultyManager reads values from the current one.

• ...Player values apply to the team with human players and ...CPU to the other team (verified in DifficultyManager::GetDeltaSpeed, which checks the team's player count).
• DeltaAccuracy/Speed/Checking are attribute offsets added to that team's skaters (inferred: the call sites are inlined).
• Goalie save bonuses are presumably percentage points of save chance (inferred).

Key differences:

• Training: the human team gets +35 Accuracy, +20 Speed and +30 Checking. CPU skaters get -5 Accuracy, -20 Speed and -20 Checking. Your goalie gets +12 save chance, the CPU goalie -10. Your team auto-bodychecks.
• Pro: +10 Accuracy and +20 Checking for the player, -10 Accuracy and -10 Speed for the CPU. CPU goalie +6, yours +8.
• Veteran: player +15 Checking only. CPU -10 Accuracy, -5 Speed. CPU goalie +9, yours +6. The smarter AI behaviours are switched on (dangle abort and suppression, threat-aware steering, emergency passes) and bodychecks no longer miss.
• Nightmare: no stat offsets on either side. CPU goalie +12 (+5 extra against one-timers), yours +3. Adds goalie quick-pass reads, early shot/pass decisions, finish-hit commitment and incoming-pass receiver targeting. Knight bosses hunt with up to 4 chargers.

Full table (all fields of Data.DifficultyLevel):

Source: Data.DifficultyLevel assets training, pro, veteran, nightmare (resources.assets), DifficultyManager (m_AllDifficulties, m_DefaultDifficulty = pro, static getters).

4. Unlocks#

Unlocks.UnlocksRepository lists 72 unlockable rewards: 24 relics, 2 boss relics, 10 talents, 1 chaos talent, 2 goalie talents, 8 abilities, 19 free agents and 6 benchwarmers. Each unlock asset has:

• a reward (the PowerUp or ForwardData it unlocks),
• an unlockRequirement (the {0} in its text), plus extra fields for a few unlocks (statThreshold, deficitThreshold, requiredCount, cultistsTeamData),
• a timing (UnlockTiming) that says when the check runs,
• an achievement key.

Unlocked free agents join the General Manager's free-agent pool ("Unlock to add to GM's Free Agent pool"). Unlocked relics, talents and abilities join the campaign reward pools. Nothing is unlocked on Training (difficulty description).

UnlockTiming values: EndOfMatch = 0, EndOfAct = 1, EndOfRunWon = 2, EndOfAnyRun = 3, Immediate = 4, WorldMap = 5, SquadUnlock = 6.

The condition text below is the English localization (unlocks/<key>) with the data values filled in. The internal unlock-asset names often differ from the reward's display name; for example, SeeingRedUnlock unlocks Deviled Egg.

Source: Unlocks.UnlocksRepository, Unlocks.*Unlock assets (all in resources.assets), Unlocks.UnlockTiming, loc unlocks/*.

4.1 Relics#

4.2 Boss relics#

4.3 Talents#

4.4 Chaos talent#

4.5 Goalie talents#

4.6 Abilities#

4.7 Free agents (General Manager pool)#

4.8 Benchwarmers#

Squad unlocks are covered in §1.4 and benchwarmer quests in §2.1. Starting squad relics have their own per-squad unlock hook (ProfileData.UnlockExtraRelicForSquad, SquadRelicData.UnlockCondition), but every squad relic in the current data is unlocked by default.

5. Game modes & rules#

5.1 Timer vs. Max-goal (GameRule)#

Each squad lists the rules it supports (§1.1), and the squad menu only offers those. Dominator and Speedrun are Max-goal only. Every other squad supports both.

A Mercy end condition (State.EndConditions.Mercy: mercyDiff, isElite, useGoalThreshold, goalToScore) can also end a game early. Its exact thresholds are set at runtime and were not traced.

Rule-specific content exists in the reward pools: RelicCategory.Timer (16384) and MaxGoal (32768), and TalentCategory.Timer (4096) and MaxGoal (8192). Examples are Buzzer Beater, the Electrolyte relics and Whistle of Time on the Timer side. These categories are presumably filtered by the active rule (inferred).

The separate GameMode enum (Normal = 0, Practice = 1, Shootout = 2) describes the match context, not the squad rule.

5.2 Dominator Squad: Lucky Puck queue (Rogue.Eliminator)#

The Dominator Squad (internal id eliminator) plays 4-on-4. Every goal is worth the value of the current Lucky Puck, and the upcoming pucks are shown in a 4-slot queue UI (EliminatorPuckQueueUI.SLOT_COUNT = 4). Glossary: "pucks rotate through different point values: high, low, even negative. The queue shows the values coming up."

Puck bag: the queue draws from a shuffled 20-puck bag (EliminatorPuckQueue.BagTemplate, read from the static array initializer in the metadata). A new shuffled bag is prepared in advance (_nextBag). ValidateBag requires that the first puck of a bag is not negative.

Score adjustment (EliminatorGoalFlow::ApplyScoreAdjustment), on top of the normal +1 for the goal:

• Positive puck of value v: the scorer's team's goals change by v - 1, so its total gain is v.
• Negative puck of value v: the code adds v to the goal count of the scorer's team's otherTeam, clamped at 0.

Scores never go below 0. After each goal the queue advances (AdvanceQueue) and the puck visual and colour change. The game ends when a team reaches the Max-goal target (HasAnyTeamReachedGoalToScore), or on a Mercy condition (WillEndConditionEndGame).

Which team effectively loses goals in play depends on how the scoring skater and team are resolved for that event, which is not verified. Treat the exact meaning of negative pucks as (unverified).

Other Dominator details: it excludes Referee-category relics and the Briefcase. EliminatorAdBandDriver and EliminatorAdBandConfig drive the arena ad boards that display the puck info.

Source: Rogue.Eliminator.EliminatorPuckType, EliminatorPuckQueue (.cctor, GetGoalValue, ValidateBag), EliminatorGoalFlow (Awake only activates when IsPlayingSquad("eliminator"), ApplyScoreAdjustment, HasAnyTeamReachedGoalToScore).

5.3 Other squad-driven rules#

• Speedrun: per its description, you must win before the end of the first period or lose the game. It starts with Indecisive and Remarkable Rock; the Coach event has special handling for it (CoachEvent.GetSpeedrunStarterRelics).
• Gauntlet: "Face every team in a single run", using the Gauntlet map configs.
• Referee: 6-on-5 through Whistle Blower, against RefereeCampaignOpponents.
• Solo: player-locked to Angus.
• Modern: offsides and manual pokechecks (the Linesman rule).
• SNES: very low turning speed and no Dash.
• Oldschool: no injuries and no bench, on the classic maps.

The exact in-match implementation of these rules sits in their squad relics and controllers, which are documented on the relic pages.