2026-09-19 17:44:48
Anonymous:
The Dock: the owner's first room card, and how it was built
hold the flood/rooms.md ..
@@ 24,7 24,7 @@
Anything outside this list is new code, which is fine; its size is stated before it is built.
-
- **Rooms:** any size; doors on any wall; a raised floor with stairs; a window with a scene behind it; a doorway with no room behind it shows as a sealed doorway.
+
- **Rooms:** any size; doors on any wall; a raised floor with stairs; a window with a scene behind it; a doorway with no room behind it shows as a sealed doorway; a side that is a force field onto open space instead of a wall; a sign on a wall that is only there to be seen (it can blink).
- **Actions:** press E for something instant; hold E for a job of any number of steps, each with its seconds; a step can be loud. A job can need: an item in the pack, power from a control board, another job done first, free pack squares. A job can: lock an opening for ever, give or take an item, put a photograph in the journal, pass or leave an oxygen tank for a survivor, make a trigger harmless.
- **Enemies:** three kinds (Presser: slow and strong; Flanker: fast and weak; Caller: stands and calls a hidden crowd). Bodies standing in the room, bodies hidden behind an opening, what lets them out (walking in, a loud job, a Caller's call, holding a job for some seconds), how many come per second, which job locks them in for ever. A crowd that is not locked is back at full strength on every new trip.
- **Also:** a survivor who waits in a room and walks to the ship when the way is safe; items lying in a room; which rooms join which, in one layout or several.
@@ 32,12 32,30 @@
## The station today
-
Empty. It has one room, which the game needs so that a trip can start at all. It is not a designed room and the first card may replace it.
+
One room: the Dock (the owner's first card, below). Its three doorways are sealed, because no room has been designed behind them yet.
-
- **Dock.** 4 by 12 metres. Your ship's door at one end (press E: go home). A sealed doorway at the other end. Nothing else: no enemies, no jobs, no items.
-
-
The player starts with the owner's two items, the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun. Ship storage is empty: the two spare tanks were there only for the old rescue.
+
The player starts with the owner's two items, the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun. Ship storage is empty.
## Room cards
-
*None yet.*
+
### Dock
+
+
**The owner's card, 2026-09-19, in his words:**
+
+
> - we are going to make it very large square room, with doorways on the center of the north, east, and west walls.
+
> - it's south wall should look like a force field blocking the way to empty space. this is where your spaceship came from.
+
> - the dock contains your spaceship. it should generally look like a space shuttle (we'll probably change it's look later). it should be large enough to make sense to be a spaceship for the character, but small enough to allow free exploration of the room. pressing E while locked on the ship is the same effect as currently using the so called "ship airlock".
+
> - On the north wall, to the right of the doorway, we are going to have a large neon sign with the text "Emergency Lockdown" blinking in red. This cannot be locked / interacted with.
+
+
**As built.** Where the card gives no number, the number is the implementer's choice and is marked so; change any of them by saying so.
+
+
- **Size:** 30 by 30 metres *(my choice for "very large")*. It is still the room every trip starts in, and the only room that never moves.
+
- **Doorways:** one in the middle of the north wall, one in the middle of the east wall, one in the middle of the west wall, each 2 metres wide. With no room behind them yet, they show as sealed doorways.
+
- **South side:** no wall. A force field instead: a faint sheet of blue light, as tall as a wall, between a glowing rail at the floor and a thin one overhead, with a post at each end. It is solid: nobody walks through it. Beyond it there is nothing but stars. It is never lowered for the camera, because it is see-through.
+
- **Your ship:** a small space shuttle, about 12 metres long and 8.4 metres across the wings, standing in the south middle of the room with its nose to the north and its tail 3 metres from the force field it came in through *(size and position are my choices)*. It is made of plain shapes for now. It is solid, and there is room to walk all the way round it.
+
- **Press E** while locked on the ship, from any side of it: go home. The trip ends, you keep all you carry, your health and air are refilled, the game saves. Exactly what the old "ship airlock" did.
+
- A trip starts with the astronaut standing beside the ship's hatch steps, on its left side.
+
- **Neon sign:** on the north wall, to the right of the doorway as seen from inside the room: a dark board about 10 metres wide with a frame of red tube and the words **Emergency Lockdown** in red letters a metre high. It blinks: 0.9 seconds lit, 0.45 seconds dim, and throws a red glow on the floor in front of it. It cannot be locked on or used. It hangs on the wall, so it drops out of sight with that wall when the view is turned to look from the north.
+
- **Nothing else:** no enemies, no jobs, no items.
+
+
**New building blocks this card added:** a side of a room can be a force field instead of a wall (a side like that has no door); a wall can carry a sign that is only there to be seen; a large thing can be locked on from anywhere around its body, not only near its middle.
