> **2026-09-17, owner's Service Gun card:** an automatic item fires "at nearest target": the nearest enemy it can see within its reach. This replaces the threat ranking of 2026-09-16 described on this page. See [The Pack](/Hold%20The%20Flood/The%20Pack).
-
*Combat rules. Owner decisions are recorded in the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief); crowd sizes, timings and effects are proposals to test later.*
+
*Combat rules. Owner decisions are recorded in the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief). The current Entrance trial is described first; the earlier source-based scenarios below remain proposals.*
+
+
## Entrance Sector combat — current implementation, 22 September 2026
+
+
The Entrance Sector uses one ordinary enemy roster and one Threat schedule across the Western Promenade, Waiting Area and Cafeteria. Moving between these rooms changes routes and available spawn floor, not the table, Threat time or shared population budget. Later zones are intended to have their own rosters, rules and increasing difficulty; their tables and cross-zone clock policy remain future work.
+
+
The first trial keeps three fixed ordinary dynamic roles: Crowd at 10 HP and 2.0 m/s, Heavy at 40 HP and 1.4 m/s, and Runner at 8 HP and 3.2 m/s. Successful hits deal 5%, 5% and 8% of full player health respectively. Crowd and Heavy wind up for 0.10 seconds; Runner for 0.06 seconds. All recover for 1.00 second. Existing reach, body radii and attack-start/commit allowances remain. [Combat And Enemy Roster](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20And%20Enemy%20Roster) owns the full cards and their distinct existing-model silhouettes, movement cycles and colours.
+
+
**A shot can open space.** A surviving ordinary dynamic body hit by the Service Gun can move along the shot direction, up to 0.30 m for Crowd, 0.05 m for Heavy and 0.45 m for Runner. The response is allowed once per body per 0.25 simulation seconds; intervening hits still deal damage. Walls, furniture, living bodies, the astronaut and forbidden boundaries constrain the displacement. It does not reset attack/recovery timers or create an automatic stun. Static and legacy enemies, Arc damage and other damage sources do not inherit it.
+
+
**Clustered ordinary hits share a short recovery window.** When unprotected, the strongest valid ordinary dynamic melee strike in a simulation step applies once. It starts 0.25 seconds of protection from further ordinary dynamic melee damage. Other strikes in that step or during protection finish and recover normally, without saving damage to apply later. A missed strike or one caught by a correctly faced active barrier grants no protection. Static/legacy melee and other hazards retain their existing handling; this is not general invulnerability. Ordinary windup and recovery keep the enemy's normal colour and bite pose. Special telegraphs, such as the Caller's bracing flash, remain.
+
+
**The schedule changes the encounter.** Threat advances in active dynamic unsafe areas, pauses in safe/static areas and resets on a new departure. There is one initial three-second spawn grace per departure. Each row supplies a nearby target, a maximum replenishment rate and new-spawn weights; existing bodies retain their birth stats and survive row changes. After nine minutes, the final three contrasting rows repeat without resetting Threat or increasing enemy stats. A lower target pauses admissions rather than erasing the crowd. The director does not increase stats or accelerate arrivals in response to a strong build.
+
+
Nearby means reachable within 30 m of navigable path in the player's active connected combat area, including around corners. The connected admission cap is 120 living dynamic enemies, including distant ones. Ordinary spawns need reachable, clear, unseen floor, at least 8 m from both player representations and within the 30 m path boundary. Failed opportunities are discarded; there is no visible farthest-point fallback. Sufficiently remote, unseen, unengaged ordinary enemies can retire after 15 consecutive active Threat seconds. Retirement removes the body without a corpse or combat-kill credit. [Threat](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Threat) owns the exact schedule, visibility, connected-area, retirement and save rules.
+
+
These are initial trial values. Evaluate whether roles are recognizable, shooting creates usable space, movement offers routes and phase changes become perceptible across all three room shapes. The stationary two-starting-pistol run is a diagnostic, not a requirement to overwhelm the player at two to three minutes. Bosses belong in specific rooms; this ordinary schedule does not spawn bosses. Reward rules are not rebalanced by this revision.
+
+
## Earlier source-based combat proposals
+
+
The following crossings, finite source populations, pressure bands, major setpieces and growth examples preserve earlier design work. They do not describe how the current Entrance spawns enemies or ends a fight. Current implementation rules above and on [Threat](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Threat) take precedence. Their reward proposals are retained here without modification by the Entrance enemy work.
## What a fight is
-
Crossing this station means crossing crowds. Ordinary weapons fire automatically, and by default each one picks the nearest visible valid target among the most urgent threats: a Caller mid-call before anything already coming for you, and those before bodies still standing (owner decision, 2026-09-16). So the player's combat is about **where to be**: which route to take, how close to let the crowd come, which line through it to walk, which automatic effects are connected, and when to press a manual special.
+
Crossing this station means crossing crowds. Ordinary weapons fire automatically, and each picks the nearest visible valid target within its reach (owner Service Gun decision, 2026-09-17). So the player's combat is about **where to be**: which route to take, how close to let the crowd come, which line through it to walk, which automatic effects are connected, and when to press a manual special.
A rig may carry more than one ordinary weapon output. What limits it is power, heat, rig space and carrying capacity; [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) owns those limits and how outputs connect.
@@ 192,7 212,7 @@
## Open questions
-
- Target overrides and aim assistance beyond the threat ranking decided on 2026-09-16 (nearest within urgency: Caller mid-call, then anything coming, then standing).
+
- Any future target overrides or aim assistance beyond the current nearest-visible-valid-target rule; the earlier urgency ranking was superseded on 2026-09-17.
- Damage, health, warning timings and displacement.
- Exact crowd sizes, performance and effect density on screen.
- Renewal placement for other station arrangements after permanent doors, joins and source seals change their routes; the two worked route states and the moving scan do not cover every arrangement.
