2026-09-15 11:57:17
Anonymous:
Align regular combat growth and renewed expeditions with owner decisions
hold the flood/player information and options.md ..
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# What the Astronaut Sees and Controls
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This is the player-information design for Hold The Horde. Ordinary weapons fire mostly automatically and manual specials are deliberate button presses. The exact display, target assistance, bindings, visual language and stage-only upgrade rhythm are proposals. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) records the owner's decisions.
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This is the player-information design for Hold The Horde. Ordinary weapons fire mostly automatically and manual specials are deliberate button presses. Regular fighting growth with larger horde-milestone transformations is selected. The exact display, target assistance, bindings, visual language and upgrade cadence are proposals. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) records the owner's decisions.
## One fight, one discovery and a way home
This is a later expedition, after both relevant ship assemblies—the navigation coupler and thermal exchanger core—have been installed aboard, so the rig has eight mounted spaces. **Carrying capacity (C)** is the shared room taken by equipment, canisters and discoveries; **active rig area (A)** is the mounted space that can operate. **Usable charge (U)** is the payload stored or passed by certain parts, not oxygen or ammunition. The astronaut enters a pressure hall with six physical parts mounted as the **7 C / 7 A Storm Choir**—Threat Sensor, Pulse Projector, Impact Dynamo, Fork Relay (the splitter), Arc Emitter and Capacitor—and one 2 C oxygen canister. The suit says, in words and numbers, that nine of ten carrying spaces and seven of eight mounted spaces are used. One carrying space remains for a discovery. [Mechanical Interfaces and Opening Quantities](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities) owns the amounts and acceptance rules.
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Earlier in this same outing, resolved pressure stages offered **Echoing Arc** and **Thunderhead**, and the player chose both. They are temporary transformations of the six mounted parts, not carried objects. Neither could have survived a previous return aboard.
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Earlier in this same outing, regular fighting supplied the growth for **Echoing Arc**, and a major horde milestone offered **Thunderhead**; the player chose both. They are temporary transformations of the six mounted parts, not carried objects. Neither could have survived a previous return aboard.
Before anything attacks, the hall explains where danger will come from. A ward vent bucks in its frame. A door beyond it rattles. Bodies press against the glass, and the music leaves a gap in the same direction. These cues create anticipation without drawing an enemy from nowhere. When the finite release begins, the vent and its route stay marked at their physical positions; the display does not replace them with a generic “wave” banner.
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When Capacitor reaches 4 U, Thunderhead's manual control shows one brief opportunity at the required actuators' next natural-ready instant. An early press visibly arms that opportunity and can be cancelled; no charge or heat is spent until acceptance. A shown 0.75-second lapse, cancellation or refusal releases automatic firing, and another hold then needs a fresh press. The temporary effect provides two visible, mutually gated modes on the same mounted parts: normal charging and manual burst. The player presses the special once. The rig visibly gates ordinary charging, spends the real 4 U, routes the burst through Fork to Arc and Projector, reserves its complete heat and operating demand, then restores normal charging automatically. Both charging and burst previews include effects still in flight; a cancelled or refused command spends no charge before first acceptance, while later obstruction gives no refund. The player does not open the journal to fire or restore the build. A refusing receiver is named at that part; descendants cannot recharge the same burst through Dynamo.
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Had the astronaut completed the physical closure before the release committed, it would have prevented that release and awarded no combat-upgrade offer; lasting safety and access would be the payoff. Once the release commits, the finite stage ends when all attackers committed to it are cleared, or when the player completes a physical source seal that ends their access. The seal can stop committed attackers that have not crossed yet, and it resolves the stage even before the announced peak. Bodies already beyond the closure remain dangerous; quiet requires clearing or safely separating the present space. Escape earns nothing and re-entry resumes the same unresolved stage. Reopening the seal cannot pay again. [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules) owns the common release boundary.
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Fighting supplies regular temporary growth while the release develops. A physical closure before release prevents that pressure and gives safety and access; any additional reward for avoiding the fight remains open. Once released, the finite stage ends when its committed attackers are cleared or their source is sealed. Bodies already beyond the closure remain dangerous; quiet requires clearing or safely separating the present space. Retreat keeps growth already earned until the expedition ends. Larger transformations come at major horde milestones, whose exact conditions remain to be designed. [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules) owns these growth and release boundaries.
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The temporary-upgrade offer opens in a pause. It shows two behaviour changes, not percentages: what mounted part changes, what the player will do differently, the added heat, power and route limits, and one situation where the choice fails. Selecting one option returns to the exact frozen moment. An unchosen offer expires on return aboard.
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In the current presentation proposal, an earned temporary-upgrade offer opens in a pause; its timing and frequency remain to be designed. It shows two behaviour changes, not percentages: what mounted part changes, what the player will do differently, the added heat, power and route limits, and one situation where the choice fails. Selecting one option returns to the exact frozen moment. An unchosen offer expires on return aboard.
Silence reveals the reason for entering the hall: a sample counter stamped with a date after the hospital was supposed to be empty. Framing and committing the record happens while the game runs. Once captured, the player opens the journal, zooms, compares it with Yeva's photographed wall and writes “same fitting?” in their own words. The game records the images, places, dates and who said what; it does not promote the note to truth.
Later, a rescue begins only after a short route has been walked and prepared and is demonstrably quiet or separated. The status says who confirmed the travel air, where the abort refuge is and whether the survivor is waiting, prepared, in transfer, at refuge or Sent. The person opens their own door and walks the short crossing while the astronaut holds one exposed junction. It is not a long escort and does not require killing every creature if a shown quiet bypass or persistent local closure made the route safe enough.
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The airlock shuts. Noise, heat and urgency fall away. Walking home leaves this arrangement intact: the resolved stage remains spent and cleared ground remains clear. The physical rig, canister contents and committed record remain; every temporary combat upgrade and pending offer ends. If the astronaut had died, carried property would still return, but the unconnected station would shift once. Home is relief, then curiosity: inspect the new record, talk to the person who recognizes it, refill, and decide what one carrying unit should hold next time.
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The airlock shuts. Noise, heat and urgency fall away. Walking home leaves the room arrangement and permanent changes intact. The next expedition brings fresh crowds and new opportunities to grow, through sources and routes consistent with those changes. The physical rig, canister contents and committed record remain; every temporary combat upgrade and pending offer ends. If the astronaut had died, carried property would still return, but the unconnected station would shift once. Home is relief, then curiosity: inspect the new record, talk to the person who recognizes it, refill, and decide what one carrying unit should hold next time.
## The attention promise
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| **Survive now** | Exact suit oxygen, labelled reserve notch, condition, extra drain/tether, committed threat tells and the current interaction interruption | Earlier drain history, canister comparison and why a past work stage stopped |
| **Steer the fight** | Physical source apertures and arrival direction; each automatic actuator's source, target and readiness; manual-special facing/availability; current heat, storage and visible effect paths | Full links, alternate power modes, branch acceptance history and detailed U allocation |
| **Commit deliberately** | Work checkpoint, exact spend or handover, capacity/area refusal and the object that will move or be consumed | Property history, installed/dropped locations and comparison with another loadout |
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| **Understand later** | A new discovery, completed seal, spent stage or rescue-state change appears once at its source | Provenance, historical routes, testimony, notes, station joins and detailed diagnostics |
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| **Understand later** | A new discovery, completed seal, resolved release or rescue-state change appears once at its source | Provenance, historical routes, testimony, notes, station joins and detailed diagnostics |
Critical facts never depend on colour, sound, tiny in-world text or a single flash. Optional detail may be reduced; survival and action state may not.
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| **Body and oxygen** | Exact suit O; player-set reserve defaulting to 4 O; condition/displacement; Glass Siphon tether, radius and separately labelled extra drain; selected canister with exact O and partial/ordinary-full/prepared-full/empty state; incremental coupling progress | Numeric O plus filled form and labelled notch; condition step; physical tether; exact transfer already moved. Transfer stops at suit ceiling or empty vessel, keeps committed increments, and damage alone does not cancel. Reserve never becomes a return estimate. |
| **Carrying and rig** | Used/free C and A; active, inactive, installed and dropped location; each actuator's connected source, selected target and readiness; manual facing/availability; Capacitor 0–4 U and saturation; ordinary 2 U release availability; local heat and recovery; committed route/body/rebound/fragment/bloom allowances; current temporary upgrades and pending offer; charging/burst mode and possible concurrent demand against the visible 6/8/10 P ship supply, including each parent reservation through its last fragment and occupied ordinary/master flight slots; armed manual intent and remaining hold time; shown bank faces, terminal marker and fan cone | C and A never merge. No-target holds only that actuator. Ordinary release below 2 U or toward a refusing first receiver stops before commitment and spends nothing; a downstream failure after commitment gives no refund. Thunderhead, Foundry Drop and Furnace Burst each provide a temporary full-store 4 U command with their own stated receiver, heat, targeting and recovery checks. Automatic charging restoration grants no readiness and descendants cannot recharge their own burst. See [Mechanical Interfaces](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities). |
| **Equipment editing** | Physical pickup/mount/removal state; direct link validity; every mutually exclusive/gated operating mode and its peak demand | Physical work runs live and may be interrupted; mounted-link preview/edit is paused. Invalid or unsafe proposal changes nothing. Preview explains structure and demand, including Rebound's launch/Barrier interlock. It distinguishes a firing delay from an invalid link. Bank/reflected lines, terminal/fan shape and static cover breaks can be inspected; moving bodies can change the actual hit after commitment. |
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| **Work and reward stage** | Mechanism stage, completed checkpoints, exact commit/spend, interruption cause; actual host withdrawal face and neutral warning on re-entry; physical crowd source; finite stage uncommitted/unresolved/spent; seal state separately from present-space quiet | Cancel/displacement/occupied control loses only unfinished work; damage alone does not. Crossing the host face resets only that mechanism's temporary phase; re-entry begins at its visible neutral warning while completed work and spent reward stages persist. Pre-commit closure prevents a release with no offer; after commitment, early clear/seal resolves it. Escape, return and load do not create a reward. See [Encounter and Mechanism Placement](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory). |
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| **Work, crowd release and growth** | Mechanism stage, completed checkpoints, exact commit/spend, interruption cause; actual host withdrawal face and neutral warning on re-entry; physical crowd source and release state; seal state separately from present-space quiet; temporary growth and major milestone state | Cancel/displacement/occupied control loses only unfinished work; damage alone does not. Crossing the host face resets only that mechanism's temporary phase; re-entry begins at its visible neutral warning while completed permanent work persists. Source closure changes pressure; ordinary fighting growth and major transformations follow [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules), with early-seal rewards still open. Return ends temporary power and renews crowds for the next expedition; loading the ongoing expedition preserves its actual state. [Encounter and Mechanism Placement](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory) owns local mechanism boundaries. |
| **Threat and crowd** | Hostile awareness/facing; locked wind-up and bearing; Caller/alarm; answering physical aperture; attackers committed to a release and bodies that have already crossed | Body motion/shape plus directional form and named sound subtitle. Stopping a Caller/alarm before commitment prevents the release. A completed physical closure can stop committed attackers that have not crossed; bodies already beyond it remain locally dangerous. No unseen spawn or generic omniscient warning. |
| **Place and evidence** | Current room and entrances directly seen; fixed ship dock after a shift; unseen space beyond it; breadcrumb traversed this life; historical route/adjacency; unknown route; capture progress; multiple dated captures; fixed-instrument live report versus carried snapshot | Current and historical use different line forms and words. Interrupted capture yields no record; a new capture preserves earlier records. Instrument reports name anchor, time and limit and give no distance, path, safety or remote diagnosis. Alien script is never translated automatically. |
| **Station joining** | A/B/R face family; flow direction and transform sides; join attempt result; walking, latch and diagnostic-power states; joined/discovered-unjoined/anonymous roster counts | Family uses mark count and outline, direction uses arrowheads, not colour alone. Mismatch refuses without spending or changing a join. Walking, latch and diagnostic remain three separate readings. Roster names no unseen room or route. |
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## Open questions
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- Stage-only upgrade acquisition versus regular defeated-enemy growth with larger milestone transformations.
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- Presentation and cadence of regular fighting growth and major milestone transformations, including the meter or pickups and the interruption cost of choices.
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- How renewed crowds are shown on familiar routes while permanent seals and other completed work stay changed; early-seal rewards remain open.
