2026-09-10 13:52:25
Anonymous:
Integrate reviewed horde-scale builds and expedition comparison
hold the flood/expedition proposal.md ..
@@ 4,9 4,9 @@
## The problem with coming back
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Every return home ends your temporary power. The owner chose that, and it gives each trip its own rise from vulnerable to dominant. Under the team's current proposal, a living return also leaves the station exactly as you left it: rooms you cleared stay clear, releases you resolved stay spent and nothing refills. That is what makes the station yours. The grille you shut, the cap you closed and the canister you dropped are all still there.
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Every return home ends your temporary power. The owner chose that, and it gives each trip its own rise from vulnerable to dominant. Under the team's current proposal, a living return preserves the current arrangement and population: defeated creatures stay defeated, releases you resolved stay spent and no source refills merely because you went home. Surviving creatures can still move. That is what makes the station yours. The grille you shut, the cap you closed and the canister you dropped are all still there.
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Together those rules create a problem for a careful player. The ship's dock never moves, so every trip starts from the same door. Within one life, the cleared ground between that door and anything still unresolved grows with each return. A death reshuffles the unjoined station and brings new crowds, but at the cost of position, known routes and unfinished work, so dying must not become the way to shorten a walk. By the third trip into a region you can walk out at starting strength across rooms you already emptied, and the first thing that can grow your build may be the climax itself.
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Together those rules create a problem for a careful player. The ship's dock never moves, so every trip starts from the same door. Within one life, pushing the same route deeper can leave more cleared ground between that door and the next unresolved frontier. A death reshuffles the unjoined station and brings new crowds, but at the cost of position, known routes and unfinished work, so dying must not become the way to shorten a walk. By the third trip into a region you can walk out at starting strength across rooms you already emptied, and the first thing that can grow your build may be the climax itself.
Both directions below keep the owner's every-return reset and death shifts, and the team's current rule that a living return changes and refills nothing. Changing those would be a different proposal.
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[Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules) and [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) own releases and upgrades; [Survival And Loadout](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Survival%20And%20Loadout) owns canisters and dropped objects; [Connecting The Station](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Connecting%20The%20Station) owns joins.
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**Cost.** No rule changes, but the station must show clearly which sources are occupied, sealed or spent. Shortcuts shorten some walks, but none removes cleared ground from the path, so a long life still means long walks.
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**Cost.** No rule changes, but the station must show clearly which sources are occupied, sealed or spent. Shortcuts can bypass cleared rooms and substantially shorten particular walks. The remaining question is whether their placement keeps each new frontier close enough during a long life.
### 2. Ride a carriage line — new rule
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- **Endpoints.** One station is aboard the ship, inside the airlock's inner door. The other is a forward station in a room you have reached on foot. Only one forward link exists at a time; linking another moves it.
- **Activation.** A forward station is found dead. You restore it with world-time work while its room is quiet or separated, then commit the link. The carriage runs in the service conduit along the rooms you walked to get there, never through space you have not walked.
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- **Riding out.** From the ship the ride is much shorter than the walk, and you breathe suit air throughout. You arrive at starting strength and look through the carriage's port before its door opens. The room is as it now is, not as you remember it: bodies you left alive may have moved, and nothing promises the platform is clear. If something waits in the ring, you can stay shut in and ride back, which ends the trip aboard.
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- **Riding out.** From the ship the ride is much shorter than the walk, and you breathe suit air throughout. You arrive at starting strength and look through the carriage's port before its door opens. The room is as it now is, not as you remember it: bodies you left alive may have moved, and nothing promises the platform is clear. If something waits in the ring, you can stay shut in and ride back, which ends the trip aboard. This sealed turn-back is allowed without opening the door or clearing the ring; the exposed boarding guard below applies only once the door has opened.
- **Riding home.** A forward station's start-up takes a few exposed seconds. It refuses while any creature stands inside its marked ring and stops if one enters, so pursuers must be cleared or shut out first. Room hazards, such as a vessel still drawing across a lane, do not stop it; you time them. Arriving at the ship station is arriving aboard: your temporary upgrades end.
- **Shifts.** A living return changes nothing. After a death the line survives only if persistent joins still hold every room between its endpoints together; otherwise it goes dark until you rebuild that route.
- **Survivors still walk (proposed limit).** A rescue works because the person opens their own door and crosses under their own power on a short route you prepared. A carriage would make any linked room a rescue route without that preparation, send someone away from you mid-transfer, and raise the unresolved question of a death during their crossing. The owner could choose otherwise; the rescue rules would then change.
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**What it buys.** Within a long life the walk stops growing, joined rooms pay off on every trip, and a short ride home lets a trip spend its air pushing into a climax instead of saving it for the walk back. Dying breaks unjoined lines, so death stays costly.
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**What it buys.** The line replaces walking as far as its one current forward station; later frontiers can still lie farther away. Joined rooms pay off on repeated trips, and a short ride home lets a trip spend its air pushing into a climax instead of saving it for the walk back. Dying breaks unjoined lines, so death stays costly.
**Cost.** A new fixture with link, carriage and interrupted-ride state, conduit presentation in every room a line follows, and station placement in every region. The rooms between endpoints stop being revisited, along with their oxygen pressure.
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| Authoring and state | Readable source states | Station placement, link and carriage state, conduits |
| Main risk | Long walks for careful players | Rooms become a lobby; oxygen pressure fades on linked ground |
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**Recommendation: ride a carriage line,** with direction 1's closing, reach and shortcuts kept as ordinary play. For a careful player on a long life, current rules make every return longer, and pushing into a climax means paying twice for the same walk. A line lets the station you connected shorten your trips and gives the owner's joining puzzle a felt benefit. Neither direction creates a new climb once a route's ordinary releases are spent: outing 3 below still fights at starting strength. This is a proposal for reaction; no owning rule changes yet.
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**Recommendation: ride a carriage line,** with direction 1's closing, reach and shortcuts kept as ordinary play. For a careful player on a long life, current rules make successive pushes along the same route longer, and pushing into a climax means paying twice for the same walk. A line lets the station you connected shorten your trips and gives the owner's joining puzzle a felt benefit. Neither direction creates a new climb once a route's ordinary releases are spent: outing 3 below still fights at starting strength. This is a proposal for reaction; no owning rule changes yet.
## Three outings
Your rig throughout is the four starter parts: Threat Sensor and Pulse Projector firing automatically, and Manual Trigger raising the Barrier Plate.
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The shield and disc launcher share power. Raising the shield can briefly delay the next disc, and a disc already launching can briefly prevent the shield from starting. The [build reference](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities) explains this tradeoff.
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### Outing 1 — the knocking ward
**Goal:** reach the woman behind the green-lit window. **Preparation:** the starter rig and one spare canister, leaving space for what the ward holds. On the way you photograph the label painted on her window.
