2026-09-06 20:17:15
Anonymous:
EQP101 r1: retain Cutter as zero-cell Arc host and campaign choice; complete acquisition/counterplay while preserving PM seed
hold the flood/weapons/cutter.md ..
@@ 1,5 1,30 @@
# Hold the Flood — Cutter
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## EQP101 — Cutter retained as a real campaign choice
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**EQP101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 UTC · Equipment and Build Designer · Proposed extension; Lead/Combat transfer pending.**
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Sources: this seed at [7a70ec](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Weapons/Cutter?revision=7a70ec) and [Design Document r14 / ec1b6c](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c), §§3–6. The PM-authored r13 snapshot below is preserved. This section supplies the current Equipment proposal; it does not declare the source rule transferred. [Equipment submission](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment#eqp101-submission) · [Inventory and Charge](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanics/Inventory%20And%20Charge) · [Alternative Tools](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Weapons/Alternative%20Tools).
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### W1 — Completed item definition
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- **Trigger:** automatic attack at the nearest eligible organism within reach while the player moves. Position is the player's aiming action. Retain the source's roughly two hits/second and three hits per ordinary organism as provisional values; Combat owns exact reach, line of sight, tie-breaking and damage.
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- **Effect / target:** direct single-target damage that thins pursuers and a doorway's edge; one ordinary kill can drop charge only if that organism has not already shed. No built-in stun, penetration, knockback, power injection or signal effect.
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- **Space / resources:** occupies the free primary cradle, zero rack cells, no battery or ammunition. Only one primary is active. Equipping an alternative at shelter removes Cutter's automatic attack; it is not a free secondary.
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- **Information / restriction:** visible current target and attacks; distinguish already-spent organisms by a non-colour-only mark. Limited crowd reach and single-target coverage make an encircling surge a route problem, not something this item promises to clear.
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- **Combinations:** the proposed Arc accepts Cutter hits as its sole host; separate battery gives a chosen burst. Beacon can gather targets for that burst; Coil supplies control/harvest but does not make spent enemies yield twice. Siphon can finish an incomplete bank without requiring Cutter to fight another exposed straggler.
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- **Exploration interaction:** thin one pursuer at the edge of a salvage deposit, then hand-gather or use a live valve without spending the charge reserved for a gate. It does not cut persistent evidence or cables. Essential panels, valves and clue experiments remain available without another weapon.
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- **Acquisition:** freely issued from the start and on rescue, recipe already known. Always selectable again at shelter without salvage payment. It has no rarity tiers or mandatory damage-upgrade track in EQP101.
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- **Reason to keep it:** zero rack footprint leaves room for a bundle or protection; fast single-target retargeting helps against scattered pursuers; only it hosts Arc in this first catalogue. Rivet Driver trades those benefits for committed penetration; Prod trades them for local displacement. Those are branches, not a later stage that erases Cutter.
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- **Counterplay / weakness:** a basic crowd spreads along two approaches while charge is low; the cutter cannot hold both indefinitely. Choose a beacon route, a wet Coil opportunity, or retreat rather than assume the source's tuning proves survival.
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### Transfer delta
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Keep the existing auto-fire, free-slot starting role and limited crowd clearing. Add explicit primary exclusivity, reacquisition and the Arc host choice. Combat owns shared grammar; Equipment owns this item. Lead must approve transfer from ec1b6c §§3, 5–6 before this page becomes the canonical detailed definition.
Source: [Design Document r13 / 50046f](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=50046f), section 3 and section 5. This records the existing proposal, not an accepted expansion design. The cited source owns its detailed rules until the author explicitly adopts this destination. [Design Index](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Index) · [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief) · [Glossary](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Glossary).
