2026-09-15 11:53:51
Anonymous:
Align resumed design work and confirmed expedition choices
hold the flood/combat rules.md ..
@@ 16,11 16,11 @@
**Wake.** You step in and the nearest bodies turn. The sound carries. Two ward doors further down shudder, and you can tell which ones will open before they do.
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**Gather.** Thirty or forty slow patients spill into the main lane and walk at you. A faster pack runs the side gallery. Your projector works without pause while you back up the lane, keeping the slow mass in front of you and the pillars between you and the pack.
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**Gather.** Thirty or forty slow patients spill into the main lane and walk at you. A faster pack runs the side gallery. Your projector works without pause while you back up the lane, keeping the slow mass in front of you and the pillars between you and the pack. Fighting the crowd supplies regular temporary growth: your build begins changing while the hall is still dangerous.
**Crest.** The second ward door gives. There are seventy bodies in the hall now, and the fast pack has reached the pillar you were counting on. You have three choices: take the dense middle, where every spark in your arc chain finds another body; hug the wall, where fewer reach you; or run for the door and lose the hall. You take the middle. When the pack arrives you raise your barrier, and every blow against it charges the capacitor behind it.
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**Break.** You release. A white wash rolls down the lane and takes everything that came through the first door. The second ward is still pushing bodies at its threshold, so on your way past you throw its lock and clear the remaining bodies already inside. Silence. That release is resolved — cleared on one side, sealed on the other — and your rig offers you a temporary upgrade for the rest of this trip.
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**Break.** You release. A white wash rolls down the lane and takes everything that came through the first door. The second ward is still pushing bodies at its threshold, so on your way past you throw its lock and clear the remaining bodies already inside. Silence. That release is resolved — cleared on one side, sealed on the other. The temporary power earned while fighting stays with you for the rest of this trip; the cleared hall gives you room to use it on the next objective.
**Quiet.** The loop at the end is yours now, and in it is what you came for: a sample counter stamped with a date after the hospital was supposed to be empty.
@@ 51,19 51,19 @@
## Earning quiet
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Clearing the current space, or safely separating it from remaining threats, earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. A completed source seal after release commitment can earn its upgrade while creatures already inside remain dangerous. The room shows whether each source is sealed, spent or still able to release another announced stage. Clearing all committed attackers or sealing their access before the peak resolves that committed stage immediately. Or you can simply get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area.
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Clearing the current space, or safely separating it from remaining threats, earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. The room shows whether each source is sealed, exhausted for the present surge or still able to release another announced stage. Clearing all committed attackers or sealing their access before the peak resolves that committed stage immediately. Creatures already beyond a completed seal remain dangerous until cleared or safely separated. Or you can simply get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area.
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Quiet does not last forever. An occupied area next door can still send bodies through a visible route, with sound and door movement to warn you. But a stage you resolved does not come back by itself.
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An occupied area next door can still send bodies through a visible route, with sound and door movement to warn you. Permanent seals remain closed. The arrangement and timing of further pressure must leave useful quiet for discovery; the rules for replenishment during an ongoing expedition remain to be designed. Returning home prepares fresh crowds for the next expedition, while permanent work remains done.
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## What earns a temporary upgrade
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## Growing stronger through fighting
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Once a release commits, resolving it earns **one temporary upgrade choice**, the same whether you **clear** all its committed attackers or **seal** their physical access. Resolving early counts immediately. Closing access before commitment prevents the release and gives **no combat-upgrade offer**: the benefit is safety and access, with less temporary combat growth. Completed work keeps its owning persistence rule.
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**Ordinary fighting supplies regular temporary combat growth. Larger transformations come at major horde milestones.** Growth happens while the fight develops, so out-fighting an incoming crowd can strengthen the rig before its whole release is resolved. Major milestones mark bigger changes in what the build can do. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) owns the upgrade effects and connections.
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**Running away earns nothing.** Leaving the woken area saves your life, and you still bring home everything you carry and everything you learned, but there is no consolation upgrade. Stepping back in resumes the same unresolved stage, so there is nothing to farm, and reopening a seal you closed does not create a new one.
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The exact growth meter, pickups, choice frequency and milestone conditions remain to be designed. Clearing or sealing a source still changes access and pressure, but a resolved stage no longer automatically defines the only ordinary award. Preventing a release gives safety and access; any additional reward for avoiding that fight, including an early seal, remains open.
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Each stage pays once for the current arrangement of the station. It stays spent across a living return, and ground you already cleared earns nothing when you cross it again. Offers you earned but did not choose expire when you get home, along with the rest of your temporary power. A large machine you deliberately wake releases its own stage and may offer a transformation rather than an ordinary choice. Dying pays nothing. What the upgrades are belongs to [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules).
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Retreat preserves the temporary power already earned until the expedition ends. Leaving and re-entering a room does not by itself count as a new expedition. Reopening a seal or dying is not itself an ordinary fighting reward. Completed work keeps its owning persistence rule.
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**Rhythm.** A sustained outing might bring three to five meaningful choices: a foundation first, then a branch, then refinements or changes, with a larger optional stage able to transform the build. A short trip can earn one. That rhythm needs routes that actually offer stages between major encounters. The Arrangement A route supplies E06 before R25 while E06 is unresolved; after it is spent, the next return can leave that approach without another ordinary award stage. **How it could fail:** stages that come too often turn choosing into a chore; too rarely, and the build barely grows between climaxes.
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**Rhythm.** The intended climb begins during ordinary travel fights, changes the way the player handles denser crowds, and reaches larger transformations at major horde milestones. A new expedition renews both the opposition and the opportunity to grow, even on a route used before. Exact quantities and intervals are open. **How it could fail:** frequent choice screens interrupt the fight; growth arrives too late to affect it; or a milestone transformation feels like a reward after the exciting part rather than a new way to tackle what comes next.
## Working under pressure
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An expedition ends when you are back aboard, whether you walked or revived.
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- **Temporary combat upgrades end on every return home.** Each expedition starts a fresh climb toward spectacular power.
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- **Temporary combat upgrades end on every return home.** Unchosen temporary offers expire too. Each expedition starts a fresh climb toward spectacular power.
- **Everything physical you carry comes home**, even after death. Oxygen breathed and material consumed stay spent. Ordinary condition is restored for the next trip.
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- **Walking home alive** leaves the station as it was. Places you cleared stay cleared, and places still occupied stay dangerous.
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- **Dying** shifts the station. Unconnected areas gain new neighbours, transient crowds reset, and a new set of crowds comes with the new arrangement. That is never a reaction to how well your build did, and death carries no extra penalty beyond losing your position and any unfinished work.
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- **Combat areas refill for each new expedition.** Renewed fighting supplies fresh temporary growth after living returns and revival alike. Previously defeated crowds and previously earned temporary awards do not leave later expeditions with permanently spent combat routes.
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- **Permanent changes remain.** Unlocked doors, selected room connections, completed permanent work and permanent source seals keep their states. The new population must use sources and routes consistent with those changes.
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- **Walking home alive** keeps the current room arrangement. It still leads to a new expedition with renewed crowds.
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- **Dying** shifts the unjoined station as well as ending the expedition. Unconnected areas gain new neighbours. Death carries no extra penalty beyond losing your position and any unfinished work; the new crowd is never a reaction to how well your build did.
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**Where the fresh climb happens.** After a living return you walk back out through ground you cleared, at your starting power, and the climb begins again at the first stage you have not yet resolved. In Arrangement A, after a first living return that leaves R11 cleared, the route **R11→R17→R20→R25** crosses E06 before the R25 setpiece. If the astronaut resolves E06 and returns home again, that second living return removes temporary power while E06 stays spent. The same route then reaches R25 through cleared ground with no ordinary award stage between. Every major encounter therefore keeps an approach that works without temporary upgrades. This route provides an initial growth opportunity, but does not guarantee a fresh one after every return; the distance to another unresolved frontier remains a design cost. Occupied areas beside a cleared route can still drift into it visibly; that is ordinary movement, not a respawn. What the upgrades do is described in [Hordes and Builds](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Hordes%20and%20Builds) and Build Rules.
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**A familiar route, a new climb.** You return with a useful component after clearing the pressure hall. On the next expedition your temporary upgrades are gone, but the component is still yours and the door you unlocked stays open. Fresh enemies make the route a place to grow again. A permanent seal still blocks its former source, so the renewed encounter needs believable remaining approaches rather than reopening your completed work. How populations occupy these altered routes is the next placement task. The route should offer useful growth before its major encounter while retaining a viable approach for a player without a particular temporary upgrade. [Hordes and Builds](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Hordes%20and%20Builds) describes the intended power climb.
## The creatures
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- Target overrides and aim assistance, including whether nearest-visible stays the default.
- Damage, health, warning timings and displacement.
- Exact crowd sizes, performance and effect density on screen.
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- How surviving creatures hold on a living return.
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- Whether actual routes offer stages between major encounters.
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- What the upgrades do.
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- Whether upgrades come from this stage rhythm or from regular growth from defeated enemies with larger milestone transformations; the owner is still choosing.
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- How renewed crowds occupy combat areas after permanent doors, joins and source seals change their routes.
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- How further pressure or replenishment works during an ongoing expedition, while preserving useful quiet.
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- Whether actual routes offer enough ordinary fighting and growth before major encounters.
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- What the upgrades do, their choice frequency and presentation, and what counts as a major transformation milestone.
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- Rewards for avoiding a fight or sealing a source before release.
- Field healing and lasting injuries are not yet designed.
