2026-09-22 13:41:33
Anonymous:
Add owner Boots of Dodgin reward and Space dodge
hold the flood/the pack.md ..
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# Hold The Flood — The Pack
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*Owner decisions, 2026-09-17: (1) the inventory is a Backpack Hero style grid with shaped items; (2) the pack can be opened whenever no enemy is around, and it opens when a new item is gained; (3) the bag should have plenty of ways to grow; (4) keep it simple: every item is written like the owner's example card below; (5) the detector's range is 15 metres; (6) adjacency has a range, 1 by default, and some items have range 2. Everything else on this page is a proposal. Where this page and older wiki text disagree, this page wins. A first version was built on 2026-09-17 when the owner said "build it"; the section "What is built" says exactly what.*
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*Owner decisions, 2026-09-17: (1) the inventory is a Backpack Hero style grid with shaped items; (2) the pack can be opened whenever no enemy is around, and it opens when a new item is gained; (3) the bag should have plenty of ways to grow; (4) keep it simple: every item is written like the owner's example card below; (5) the detector's range is 15 metres; (6) adjacency has a range, 1 by default, and some items have range 2. The later dated owner decisions below also apply; other design suggestions remain proposals. Where this page and older wiki text disagree, this page wins. A first version was built on 2026-09-17 when the owner said "build it"; the section "What is built" says exactly what.*
## The owner's example, which is the template for every item
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1. **The pack is a grid of squares.** Every carried thing is a shape on it. You place each one by hand and can turn it.
2. **Every square works.** There is no separate "switched on" area and no limit on how many items run at once, other than the room in the bag.
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3. **An item gets activated in one of three ways:** by itself on a timer, by a neighbour, or by the player's button.
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3. **Activation follows the item card:** by itself on a timer, by a neighbour, by the player's button, or by a specific key. Boots of Dodgin use Space only; a click or neighbour does not activate them.
4. **When an item is activated it does its one thing,** then cools down. An item that is cooling down ignores being activated. That is the whole system.
5. **Adjacency has a range** *(decided)*. The default is 1: only squares that share an edge with the item count, so corners do not. Some items have range 2, which reaches one step further and so goes around the corner: it catches the diagonal squares and the square beyond a neighbour. Range counts steps from square to square, whatever lies in between. For a 1x1 item X:
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## The items, in the owner's format
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The first three cards are the owner's. The rest are my conversions of the existing parts, to be corrected.
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The detector, tank, Service Gun and Boots of Dodgin cards are the owner's. The rest are my conversions of the existing parts, to be corrected.
- **Simple FoF detector** *(owner's card)*: 1x1. Self-activates 1 per second. When active: if an enemy unit exists within 15 metres, all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 1 second. Adjacency range 1.
- **Oxygen Tank** *(owner's card, 2026-09-17)*: 3x1. Good for 5 minutes. While it lies in the pack it feeds the suit by itself; there is nothing to click. With several tanks the emptiest goes first, so a full one stays full for whoever needs it. A tank on the floor feeds nobody.
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- **Measured in the Western Promenade** (scripted, standing still in the middle): with one gun the room now takes 47 seconds instead of 53, because a single gun no longer wastes shots on an enemy that is already dying; with two guns it also takes 47, because that room's length is set by how fast the enemies arrive, not by how fast they fall. The second gun shows its worth when more come than one gun can drop (one gun manages about three a second).
- **Pulse Projector:** 1x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: fires one shot at the nearest enemy it can see. Cooldown 0.6 seconds.
- **Trigger button:** 1x1. Activated by the player's button, click or Space. When active: all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 0.2 seconds.
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- The Trigger button is now paired with the Arc Emitter in the Waiting Area chest; see the Arc Emitter note below.
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- Previously supplied alongside the Arc Emitter in the Waiting Area chest. That reward was replaced by Boots of Dodgin on 2026-09-22; previously collected buttons still work with click or Space.
- **Barrier Plate:** 1x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: raises a shield in the direction the astronaut faces for 1.2 seconds. Cooldown 1.5 seconds.
- **Relay** *(the Fork Relay)*: 1x1. Activated by a neighbour. When active: all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 0.2 seconds. It passes an activation along, so a detector can reach items it does not touch. It is still the part the Cargo Turn service board needs.
- **Arc Emitter:** 2x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: lightning jumps from the nearest enemy through up to six bodies standing close together. Cooldown 3 seconds.
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- **Current place to find it, selected 2026-09-21:** the cleared [Waiting Area](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Rooms) chest supplies one Arc Emitter and one Trigger button. The owner selected the pair to try a new mechanic. Place them next to each other in the pack; click or Space activates the emitter through the button. An item that does not fit stays at the chest for later collection. Previously awarded tanks or detectors remain property; already opened chests do not gain a second reward set. The item cards are unchanged.
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- **Previous reward, 2026-09-21:** the Waiting Area chest supplied one Arc Emitter and one Trigger button. The owner replaced that pair with Boots of Dodgin on 2026-09-22. Previously awarded items remain property, including anything left in an already opened chest. The Arc and its neighbour/button mechanics remain available; an unopened Waiting Area chest now supplies the boots.
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- **Boots of Dodgin** *(owner's card, 2026-09-22)*: one 2x1 item representing a pair of boots. +10% walking speed while in the pack. Press Space: spend 5 seconds of oxygen for +200% movement speed for 0.5 second. This triples the boosted walking speed: **3.3× base speed with one pair**. Cooldown 3 seconds. Cannot activate while already dodging from any item.
- **Isolation bridge:** 1x4 bar. Does nothing in the pack. It is cargo, and it is awkward on purpose.
- **Scrap and other loot:** 1x1 up to odd shapes of five or six squares. Does nothing in the pack. Loot is where the awkward shapes live.
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## Boots of Dodgin — owner decision and current implementation, 2026-09-22
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**The owner's request, word for word:**
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> I see. well, it works, but I want us to do something else: place in that chest a pair of "Boots of Dodgin" (it's actually one item). a 2x1 item, with the following properties: +10% to walking speed. when pressing Space: spend 5 seconds of oxygen to dodge: gain +200% movement speed for 0.5 second. 3 seconds cooldown. cannot be used while already dodging from another item)
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Asked whether +200% triples the already boosted walk speed or adds to base speed, he answered:
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> Triple boosted walking speed: 3.3× base
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**As built:** the cleared Waiting Area chest supplies one pair as one 2x1 item, replacing both the Arc Emitter and its Trigger button. With base walking speed 4 metres per second, one packed pair gives 4.4 while walking and 13.2 during the dodge. Space requires a fresh press; holding it does not repeat. A failed attempt spends no oxygen and starts no cooldown. The item card and fight display show the action, oxygen cost and timing. The name remains exactly **Boots of Dodgin**.
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**Implementer's handling defaults:** the passive bonus applies only while the item is placed in the pack. The dodge follows the usual movement keys relative to the camera; it does not force a direction. Pressing Space while standing still still spends the oxygen and starts the window, so movement may begin during it. The three-second cooldown starts when the dodge starts. The five-second cost uses the existing displayed oxygen rate, taking air from the emptiest packed tanks first and then the suit; less than five seconds combined refuses the attempt. Exactly five seconds is enough to activate, but emptying all air still follows the ordinary oxygen/death rules. There is no added invulnerability, shield, collision bypass or separate animation. Walls, benches and enemy bodies retain their normal blocking rules. Paused screens freeze the dodge and cooldown. Save/load preserves both, including a cooldown on boots that were put down. Returning ends the active dodge. If more pairs are collected on later trips, each adds 10 percentage points to walking speed and has its own cooldown; one shared dodge window prevents overlapping activations from any item. These multiple-copy and handling choices are defaults, not additional owner decisions.
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Existing Trigger buttons still respond to click or Space. With both a Trigger button and boots in the pack, one Space press tries both; a mouse click uses only the Trigger button. Boots do not require an adjacent item. Existing opened chest contents are preserved; an unopened chest or a newly earned empty chest on a later trip supplies the boots once.
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**Art:** the icon reuses [Lorc's Boots](https://game-icons.net/1x1/lorc/boots.html), a human-made CC BY 3.0 asset, fitted to a 2x1 canvas. Source, artist, licence and fitting changes are credited beside the game icons. No generated art or purchase.
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**Verification:** all 250 tests passed (204 Core + 46 Unity). Added checks cover oxygen boundaries and atomic refusal, shared dodge exclusion, cooldowns and saves, pauses, frame timing, actual controller distance and wall collision, Space versus click, existing Trigger buttons, chest pickup/full packs and old reward property. A live chest check collected one pair and used 11 of 16 pack squares with a tank and two guns. In the live movement check, Space spent five seconds of oxygen, used 3.3× speed, travelled 7.04 metres over 0.6 seconds (0.5 dodging plus 0.1 walking), returned to 1.1×, and refused an early repeat. This verifies mechanics, not how the dodge feels or balances in combat.
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## The starting bag
Four by four, sixteen squares. **Owner decision, 2026-09-17: "for now, the inventory should only start with the following items": the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun.** They use six squares, so ten are free for what the station holds.
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- Three of the ways to grow: fitting the isolation bridge aboard earns a strip of four, bringing Yeva home earns her pouch of four, and a Tune can be spent on a spare pocket of two squares for that trip. Each piece is dragged against the bag's edge by the player.
- A small picture of the pack on the HUD whose squares flash as items activate, with a note when the pack is strapped shut.
- Old saves are converted: carried things are laid into the new pack and the player is told.
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- A picture on every item (owner, 2026-09-17: "look for free icons for the items"). The eleven pictures come from game-icons.net under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, which is free to use and asks that the artists be credited: Lorc, Delapouite and Caro Asercion. The credits file sits beside the pictures in the project, and the game's credits must name them when it has a credits screen.
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- A picture on every item (owner, 2026-09-17: "look for free icons for the items"). The twelve pictures come from game-icons.net under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, which is free to use and asks that the artists be credited: Lorc, Delapouite and Caro Asercion. The credits file sits beside the pictures in the project, and the game's credits must name them when it has a credits screen.
- **A picture is made to its item's shape** (owner, 2026-09-17: the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun "don't use their sprite correctly with their tiles. it makes it look awkward"). A square icon shown at one square's size never matched a three-wide tank or an L-shaped gun. Rule: every item's picture is a canvas exactly as wide and as tall as the item's squares, the drawing lies only on squares the item has, the pack stretches it over those squares and turns it with the item. The tank is one scuba tank with its valve laid along the three squares; the gun is the ray gun drawn across the whole L with its grip in the square under the barrel; the isolation bridge is a resistor with wires out to both ends of its bar. Still only centred in their largest plain block, to be made to shape when they matter: Pulse Projector, Barrier Plate, Navigation coupler. The build script in the project (tools/item-art) refuses a picture that lies on a square the item does not have.
Not built yet: frames and pouches found in the station, home projects, the alien carrying rail, and item cards for the later parts.
