2026-09-15 14:52:12
Anonymous:
Clarify player journeys, historical estimate basis and conditional connection feasibility
hold the flood/campaign scope choices.md ..
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# Hold The Horde — Campaign Scope Choices
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This is a choice between two ways to carry the same SMALL campaign promises, not a choice between a short and a long game. Neither count demonstrates the owner’s 30/90/100–200-hour ambitions. Both keep four regions, discovery first, expressive connected builds second, meaningful ordinary hordes, two alien languages, short cooperative rescues, five people aboard, and the optional task of physically joining every playable room that remains in that option.
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The choice is whether four extra places earn enough discovery and recovery pleasure to justify their added work. The **40-room reference** separates more actions from their later interpretation. The **36-room concentration** keeps the same headline campaign in fewer, busier spaces. It saves layouts and graph nodes, but asks individual rooms to communicate more at once. Both are credible SMALL planning options.
## The two player journeys
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In the **40-room reference**, an ordinary expedition moves through places with separate jobs: R05 teaches voluntary motion and may later yield the navigation coupler through R07; R28 lets the player operate the regulator racks while R30 can supply a distinct before/after observation angle; R33’s fixed conversion can be compared with R34’s reversible converter; and the core approach gives the first and second clamps their own R37 and R38 recovery spaces. The later Moving Scan in R15 turns an ordinary route, horde and growing Storm Choir build into a bridge discovery at R28. The player comes home with parts, evidence or a person, then eventually returns to connect forty remembered places.
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In the **40-room reference**, imagine returning to the Cable Junction because its moving light may reveal a route. A horde pours from visible service runs while the lamp rolls along its rail. The player keeps the track clear, grows the Storm Choir build through ordinary fighting, releases its thunder into the converging crowd, then earns quiet enough to recognise the “stars” as receiver fittings. The player releases a bridge toward the Regulator Gallery. Returning alive keeps it open, so the next expedition crosses the route already earned instead of repeating the scan.
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In the **36-room concentration**, the expedition objectives and payoffs remain, but four of those spatial pauses disappear. The coupler is recovered in R05; the regulator is operated and observed inside R28; fixed and reversible transformation are both read in R34; and R36 holds the first clamp before the player reaches the second in R38. The scan, both setpieces, every build part, all five rescues and all eight investigation chains remain. The deepest construction joins thirty-six rooms. This option is therefore not “the same game for ten percent less”: it is a denser version whose retained discoveries compete for more attention in fewer hosts.
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There, the player pulls a regulator and sees its line change. A neighbouring **Reply Observation Niche** offers another protected angle for comparing the response. The essential test already works in the gallery; the niche adds reinterpretation by turning a familiar control-cell shape from an operating place into an observing place. Elsewhere, the Pace Calibration Bay teaches deliberate movement, while the separate Navigation Service Room makes recovering the ship’s coupler a later revisit. At the core, the first clamp has an East Clamp Refuge and the second a longer West Clamp Recovery Walk. Finishing one and withdrawing gives partial progress a physical place.
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The player comes home with a component, dated observation or rescued person that changes a later loadout, conversation or route. Deepest completion turns forty remembered places into one continuous walk back to the ship. The exact graph and ultimate consequence remain open.
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In the **36-room concentration**, the same scan, horde/build climax and findings survive, but the spatial pauses shrink. The coupler moves into the busy Pace Calibration Bay. A protected recess keeps the Regulator Gallery’s causal reply evidence, but no second room changes the first room’s meaning. Fixed and reversible transformations share the Synchronization Gallery. The first core clamp moves onto the Selector Hall wall; the second keeps the West recovery walk, but the refuge between them disappears. Completion must make all thirty-six places continuous, although no valid full layout has been demonstrated. The saving is fewer layouts and connections; the risk is visual competition and a tighter discovery rhythm.
| Scope unit or player consequence | 40-room reference | 36-room concentration | Honest production meaning |
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| Encounters; setpieces; enemy roles | 10; 2; 6 ordinary + 3 special | Same | Meaningful hordes and both climaxes remain; no population, source or staging work is silently removed. |
| Mechanism families; major placed mechanisms | 5; **14 proposed** | Same | P14 Moving Scan remains in R15 with its R28 receiver. Current Production Scope and Whole Game Outline still say 13; that is reference lag, not a cut. |
| Languages; investigation chains; evidence index | 2; 4 language + 4 story; 26 entries | Same | All comparisons, corrections and consequences remain; rehosting does not erase their writing or state cost. |
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| Deepest joining payoff | Connect all 40 placed rooms | Connect all 36 placed rooms | A smaller physical achievement and graph, but still the entire chosen station. Neither option selects what completion does or an ending. |
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| Further detailed-campaign documentation | Existing SMALL allowance: 350–590 role-hours | No defensible adjusted total yet | The allowance excludes the current first pass. Only part of its 90–150-hour room/objective/arrangement stream is reduced; the other streams and rehost reviews remain. |
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| Deepest joining payoff | Required: a valid all-40 network; not demonstrated | Required: a valid all-36 network; not demonstrated | A smaller physical achievement and graph, but still the entire chosen station. Neither option selects what completion does or an ending. |
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| Further detailed-campaign documentation | Historical SMALL allowance: 350–590 role-hours, based on 13 major mechanisms | No defensible adjusted total yet | P14 and revised scan/horde geometry have no measured estimate. The old range is a provisional reference, not confirmed coverage, current remaining hours or a ceiling. |
## Exact concentration ledger
**Removed as independent content.** Delete R07 Navigation Service Room, R30 Reply Observation Niche, R33 Imaging Exchange and R37 East Clamp Refuge. Remove module definition M21 Fixed Conversion Exchange. Absorb M03 Glazed Control Cell into an expanded M02 opening/control module, with R03 becoming M02’s second placement. These are four fewer room identities and two fewer reusable spatial grammars; they are not four deleted objectives or discoveries.
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**Moved, with a price.** Move R07’s navigation-coupler release to R05’s existing side service housing. The part and carrying choice survive, but the empty assembly-housing revisit does not. Move R30’s before/after capture angle into a protected recess in R28. The reply chain survives, but operating and observing from different rooms no longer teaches the distinction; R28 must now separate racks, P09 Grid pressure, P14’s receiver landing and the observation cue. Move R33’s fixed A→R exchanger into a separately labelled channel in R34 beside its reversible A↔B mode. The network can still be completed, but the clean room-to-room transformation comparison becomes a crowded same-room comparison. Move R37’s first clamp into R36’s east wall while R38 keeps the second. Both physical alternatives remain, but one full withdrawal refuge disappears and setpiece B becomes denser.
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**Moved, with a price.** Move R07’s navigation-coupler release to R05’s existing side service housing. The part and carrying choice survive, but the empty assembly-housing revisit does not. Move R30’s before/after capture angle into a protected recess in R28. The indispensable reply test already remains in R28; the move preserves that causal evidence but loses the further angle and the architectural reinterpretation of observing from another room. R28 must now separate racks, P09 Grid pressure, P14’s receiver landing and the observation cue. Move R33’s fixed A→R exchanger into a separately labelled channel in R34 beside its reversible A↔B mode. This retains the requirement that a complete 36-room network be possible, but neither the 36-room nor 40-room full graph has been demonstrated; the clean room-to-room transformation comparison becomes a crowded same-room comparison. Move R37’s first clamp into R36’s east wall while R38 keeps the second. Both physical alternatives remain, but one full withdrawal refuge disappears and setpiece B becomes denser.
**Retained.** Keep objectives 1–12; R14–R16’s builder-run chain; R21–R23’s visitor-transfer chain; the R28 reply procedure and R36 inlet reply; P14’s moving scan and bridge; all twelve equipment definitions; five people and fifteen primary scenes; ten encounter placements, two setpieces and all nine enemy roles; fourteen mechanisms; and the R36/R38–R40 surviving core assembly with two-clamp access. Keep the ordinary join vocabulary and the obligation that every remaining room can join a ship-rooted network. The recent Rescue Under Pressure crossing/death alternatives and Completing The Station outcomes are unselected proposals and are excluded from both counts.
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## What the cost numbers do and do not say
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The published 350–590 role-hours cover **future detailed-campaign documentation and campaign content only**: exhaustive variants for the current first-pass briefs, exact geometry and encounter combinations, clue consequences, cast branches, information details, and persistence/integration review. They do not include the first pass already on the wiki. They also exclude implementation, tools, assets, animation, audio, localisation production, recruitment, performance work, accessibility testing and player sessions.
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The published 350–590 role-hours are a **historical allowance for further detailed-campaign documentation**, written when its 55–95-hour encounter/mechanism row covered thirteen major mechanisms. It extends the existing first-pass briefs into detailed variants, consequences and integration review; it does not count the first pass already on the wiki.
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P14 was added later as a fourteenth proposed mechanism. Its rail, scan bay, bridge, receiver and revised shared horde/trigger geometry have no measured estimate. The old range is only a provisional comparison reference: it is **not** confirmed coverage for fourteen mechanisms or all rehost work, current remaining hours, or a ceiling. It excludes implementation, assets, recruitment, technical validation and player sessions, and says nothing about playable duration.
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A numeric 36-room total is unavailable without inventing throughput. Four of forty placements and two of twenty-four definitions disappear, but all objectives, arrangements, mechanisms, clues, people, builds and encounters remain. Even the 90–150-hour rooms/objectives/arrangements stream is not linear by room: moving content into R28, R34 and R36 adds congestion and cross-state review. The other 260–440 hours of the published allowance are not directly reduced by these deletions. No like-for-like completed detailed packages or recorded session timings exist from which to estimate the offset. Until three representative packages—a repeatable mechanism room, a two-language investigation with correction, and a short rescue/home arc—are written and independently checked, planning should retain the 350–590 envelope for either option rather than claim a false saving. The concentration still offers a legitimate directional reduction in unique layouts, placed-room briefs and graph nodes; its exact hours, future art savings and implementation savings are unknown.
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A numeric 36-room total is likewise unavailable. Four placements and two module definitions disappear, but all objectives, arrangements, mechanisms, clues, people, builds and encounters remain. The historical 90–150-hour rooms/objectives/arrangements stream is not linear by room; rehosting adds congestion and cross-state review. No like-for-like completed packages or recorded timings exist. Until representative mechanism-room, two-language-investigation and rescue/home packages are written and independently checked, use the old range only as an incomplete reference rather than claim current coverage or a proportional saving. The concentration legitimately reduces layouts, room briefs and graph nodes; exact hours and future production savings are unknown.
