2026-09-10 12:18:40
Anonymous:
Align expedition equipment choices and short safe rescue with current rules
hold the flood/the game.md ..
@@ 14,21 14,21 @@
**You want something.** On an earlier trip you passed a window you could not reach. Behind it: a ward with its pressure light still green, a number painted by human hands, and someone knocking. You have thought about it since. Today you are going.
-
**You pack, and it costs you.** Air, equipment and space for what you find come out of one carrying capacity. A second canister lets you push deeper, but costs you either the spare part you meant to try or the room to carry anything home. Take the part instead and you are betting on a shorter, cleverer route. Neither is the right answer. Today you take the part.
+
**You pack, and it costs you.** Air, equipment and space for what you find come out of one carrying capacity. A spare canister lets you push deeper, but costs you either the spare part you meant to try or the room to carry anything home. Take the part instead and you are betting on a shorter, cleverer route. Neither is the right answer. Today you take a small manual switch you want to try, leaving less room for spare air.
-
**Getting anywhere means getting through.** The concourse between you and the ward is inhabited, and crossing it is the ordinary work of the game, not an interruption of it. Bodies wake in ones and twos, then in a slow crowd across the broad lane; faster things take the side routes; something heavy shoulders through and makes you change your line. Your projector fires on its own throughout — you are choosing ground, not aiming. At the thickest point you take the dense line deliberately, because your rig eats dense lines, and when it breaks the silence is enormous and you have earned a temporary boost that lasts this sortie and no longer.
+
**Getting anywhere means getting through.** The concourse between you and the ward is inhabited, and crossing it is the ordinary work of the game, not an interruption of it. Bodies wake in ones and twos, then in a slow crowd across the broad lane; faster things take the side routes; something heavy shoulders through and makes you change your line. Your projector fires on its own throughout — you are choosing ground, not aiming. At the thickest point you take the dense line deliberately, because your rig eats dense lines. When the ward's announced release is cleared, the silence is enormous. You choose Echoing Arc: your electrical discharge can now jump to more nearby bodies. That temporary change lasts until you return aboard.
-
**The lull is where you look.** In that quiet you find a service main running the length of the spine, dead at a pulled fitting — and the missing fitting is the one in your rig, splitting your projector's output to recharge your barrier. You have been carrying the answer for two hours.
+
**The lull is where you look.** In that quiet you find a service main running the length of the spine, dead at a pulled fitting — and the missing fitting is the splitter in your rig. It currently lets one sensor signal reach both your automatic gun and your protective barrier. You have been carrying the answer all along.
The discovery is **that your fighting equipment and the station machinery use the same kinds of parts.** A familiar object suddenly has much greater possibilities.
-
**Borrowing it changes the fight.** Pull the splitter and your projector keeps firing automatically. Your barrier has one charged pulse left, activated manually; with its recharge connection in the wall, you must make that pulse count.
+
**Borrowing it changes the fight.** In the sheltered recess, you remove the splitter and fit the small manual switch you carried. The paused journal lets you reconnect the sensor directly to the projector and the new switch to the barrier. Your gun still fires automatically, but protection now depends on choosing the right moment yourself. You have traded automatic coverage for a route into the station.
**You seat it, and the station answers.** The main goes live and keeps going: contactors slam down the corridor one after another, further than you can see. Lights come up a hundred metres into a dark you had assumed was a wall. Doors that have not cycled in years begin to cycle. It is beautiful for a few seconds — until you understand what the lights are showing you. The far end of that corridor is not empty. It is *full*, and it is coming.
-
**Keeping the route open demands a fight.** You need the main live to reach the ward; kill it and the doors seal again. So you hold ground you would never have chosen while the crowd closes from a direction you only just learned existed. You spend your one manual barrier early, on the wrong wave, because you panicked. This is going badly.
+
**Keeping the route open demands a fight.** You need the main live to reach the ward; kill it and the doors seal again. So you hold ground you would never have chosen while the crowd closes from a direction you only just learned existed. You trigger the barrier too early, against the first ranks, because you panicked. Its brief protection ends while more bodies are still coming. This is going badly.
-
**Your rig turns over.** Every hit stopped by that barrier pulse fed a capacitor you installed three trips ago. The crowd was dense enough to fill it before the barrier failed. You see the charge reach its limit, turn toward the packed lane and press the discharge. The corridor goes white. The arc jumps body to body down its whole lit length, because they were kind enough to arrive in a dense line, and for a few seconds you own the whole corridor.
+
**Your rig turns over.** An impact collector attached to the barrier has banked energy from separate incoming strikes in a capacitor. The meter is full. You turn toward the packed lane and press the stored discharge: blue-white arcs spread through the front ranks, including the extra jumps you chose earlier. A line of bodies buckles and a gap opens where you had been trapped. There is another pulse in the store. When the emitter is ready again, you can spend it to widen that opening or save it for the fast pack circling behind. The proposed visual goal is a violent reversal from being surrounded to forcing a path through the tide; its reach and damage still need design and later testing.
The crowd gives the build its payoff: the pressure that nearly trapped you becomes energy for a spectacular clear. You chose the parts and the moment to release them.
@@ 36,11 36,11 @@
At the far end of the span, the light catches a socket with the same shape as the one beside you. You could power the next stretch from there. Your notes now point toward a place you can reach and a machine you know how to try. Something much larger has noticed you, too.
-
**One more decision.** Air low, crowd cresting, main live, the way to the ward now visible across an exposed walkway. Cross and try for the person, or pull the fitting, let it go dark, and walk home with what you know.
+
**One more decision.** Air low, main live, the way to the ward now visible across an exposed walkway. Spend your remaining air clearing the immediate danger and preparing the short crossing, or pull the fitting, let the route go dark, and walk home with what you know.
-
You cross. She comes out through her own door under her own power while you hold the single junction between her and the ship, and the airlock closes behind you both with minutes of air to spare.
+
You stay. Once the ward's release is cleared, you personally walk the short crossing and confirm that it is quiet. The woman comes out through her own door and follows that prepared route under her own power. You bring her aboard with the air warning still lit. The pressure was in making the route possible before you ran out of air; the transfer itself is short and quiet.
-
**Home.** The airlock closes and the noise stops. Because you walked back alive, the station is exactly as you left it: the ground you cleared is still clear, the route still runs, the main you woke is still lit. Your temporary boost is gone. There is a woman sitting on your floor who has not spoken to anyone in a year, and a plan for tomorrow.
+
**Home.** The airlock closes and the noise stops. Because you walked back alive, the station keeps its arrangement and the ground you cleared stays clear. The main is still lit because you left your splitter installed there; that part is not in your pack. Your temporary boost is gone. There is a woman sitting on your floor who has not spoken to anyone in a year, and a plan for tomorrow.
## The player's experience
@@ 49,11 49,11 @@
| Packing | Air, a useful part or empty carrying space | Anticipation and commitment to a plan | One loadout is always best |
| Crossing the concourse | Follow the dense line the build wants or avoid encirclement | Competence and growing power | Crowds become a repetitive toll |
| Recognising the fitting | Try a familiar part in an unfamiliar machine | The surprise of discovering a new use | The connection is too obscure to notice |
-
| Borrowing the splitter | Open a route with only one barrier pulse left | A choice with an immediate cost | The equipment change is hard to perceive |
+
| Borrowing the splitter | Open a route while taking manual control of protection | A choice with an immediate cost | The equipment change is hard to perceive |
| Waking the spine | Face the larger crowd released with the new route | Awe turning into dread | The reveal feels disconnected from the player's action |
| Charging and releasing | Hold a dangerous line, then choose the moment | Expression, mastery and overwhelming power | Effects obscure whether the build achieved anything |
| Seeing the span | Recognise something worth investigating next | Astonishment and curiosity | Threats and visual clutter hide the discovery |
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| Completing the rescue | Commit the remaining air to a short crossing | Tension followed by relief and attachment | The crossing becomes a long escort chore |
+
| Preparing and completing the rescue | Commit remaining air to making and checking a short safe route | Tension, then relief and attachment during the quiet transfer | Preparation becomes repeated busywork or the crossing becomes a long escort |
| Returning home | Bring a person and a new plan into a familiar place | Safety, belonging and anticipation | Home feels like a menu with no human response |
The journal pauses enemies, oxygen and the rest of the world whenever it is opened, including during combat. Players can inspect a clue or consider an upgrade without losing survival time. Closing it returns them to the danger they paused.
@@ 64,7 64,9 @@
Death returns the astronaut and carried equipment and loot to the ship. Unconnected areas shift; selected permanent changes and room connections endure. Your notes remain useful for recognising familiar places, even when their neighbours change. A shift can interrupt a route you were pursuing and reveal a new possibility. Eventually, learning to connect the whole station becomes one of its deepest puzzles.
-
Temporary combat upgrades reset whenever an expedition ends aboard, alive or revived. Permanent parts remain available. Each trip begins a fresh climb toward spectacular power, using the equipment and knowledge brought home from earlier journeys. Home provides a chance to try a different combination before the next climb.
+
Temporary combat upgrades reset whenever an expedition ends aboard, alive or revived. Physical parts carried home remain available; parts left installed in the station remain there. Power must be earned again in occupied spaces, so a return through cleared corridors can begin quietly. Home gives you a chance to choose another combination and a new frontier.
+
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The current growth proposal awards a temporary choice for clearing an announced horde release or completing a physical seal that ends its access. An alternative under consideration gives regular upgrades during fighting and larger transformations at milestones. Both reset aboard. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) explains the current proposal and its costs.
