2026-09-10 11:39:46
Anonymous:
Outcome 48 response to 624/625: finite stages, clear-or-seal pays the same one choice and early resolution counts, escape earns nothing, spent across living return, offers expire aboard, illustrative cadence with route support unverified, nearest-visible marked as proposed default, balance-gallery climax corrected to plates, two cutter releases and one rib pin
hold the flood/combat rules.md ..
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## What a fight is
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Crossing this station means crossing crowds. Ordinary weapons fire automatically at the nearest visible valid target — an owner decision — so the player's combat is about **where to be**: which route to take, how close to let the crowd come, which line through it to walk, which automatic effects are connected, and when to press a manual special (also an owner decision).
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Crossing this station means crossing crowds. Ordinary weapons fire automatically — an owner decision — and the proposed default is that each one picks the nearest visible valid target. So the player's combat is about **where to be**: which route to take, how close to let the crowd come, which line through it to walk, which automatic effects are connected, and when to press a manual special (also an owner decision).
A rig may carry more than one ordinary weapon output. What limits it is power, heat, rig space and carrying capacity, not a fixed rule of one gun; [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) owns those limits and how outputs connect.
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**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. The wards are still spilling, but more slowly than you are killing, and on your way past you throw the ward door's lock and the flow stops. Silence. For breaking the crest and sealing its source, 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. 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.
**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.
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1. **Wake.** Something disturbs an occupied space — your arrival, noisy work, an alarm, a machine you started. You see sleeping bodies, moving shadows, opening doors, and you hear which routes are going to answer.
2. **Gather.** A slow majority fills the broad lanes. Faster packs take side routes, climbers come from ceilings and ducts, and a few heavy bodies bend the flow so you have to change course.
3. **Crest.** Two or three movement patterns overlap. You choose the dense line your build rewards, the safer line that protects your condition, or a costly retreat that spends oxygen and position. If you are working toward something that moves — a carriage, a rising lift, a walking scan — it keeps going through the fight rather than turning the room into a defence circle.
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4. **Break.** Your build kills faster than the routes can fill, you close a bulkhead or a source, or you outrun the woken area. The music, the flow and the room's silhouette all release together. The lull that follows belongs to looking, salvaging and deciding where to go.
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4. **Break.** The release is resolved: everything it sent into the room is cleared, or you complete a seal that closes its source. Killing faster than bodies arrive keeps a lane clear, but it does not stop a source that is still feeding. You can also get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area — that saves you, though it resolves nothing. When a release is resolved, the music, the flow and the room's silhouette all let go together, and the lull that follows belongs to looking, salvaging and deciding where to go.
## Where crowds come from
Crowds come from **source areas**: wards, lift wells, ducts, flooded concourses, sealed volumes — places that physically hold bodies and connect to the route you are on. Bodies always arrive through routes you can see or hear. There is no secret timer, nothing appears behind you, and no extra wave arrives because your build was efficient.
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A source keeps feeding while its route is open and disturbed. It stops when you **seal** its route, **leave** its attention range, **exhaust** the surge it holds, or **kill** faster than it can feed. Finite sources are fine. What the design avoids is an encounter that is over after five enemies.
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Each source releases its crowd in **stages**: a finite surge the room announces, from a source you can identify. While a stage is feeding, out-killing it keeps a lane open but does not stop it. It ends when you clear everything it sent, or when you complete a physical seal that closes its access. Walking away ends your part in it, not the stage. A further stage exists only where the room announces and sources one — a machine waking, a new mouth opening. Finite sources are fine; what the design avoids is an encounter that is over after five enemies. Sources feed through apertures — grilles, hatches, ward doors, ducts — that are separate from the passages you walk through, so sealing one never closes a route you need.
**Scale, as a hypothesis.** In a broad ward, dock or gallery a developed crowd might show 80 to 150 bodies at once and pass several hundred through its full crest. A narrow corridor shows fewer at once but a continuous river through doors, lifts and ducts. A small room can host a short teaching moment — one new creature, one new warning — but the way to it still carries the crowd. Where a placed room is too small for the crowd its encounter needs, that is rework to do, not free capacity; [Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory) lists those obligations.
## What wakes more
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Noise and machinery wake the next source. Loud work, alarms and a Caller that finishes its call can each wake an adjacent area, and its route is always shown before the crowd arrives. Cutting an alarm, stopping a Caller or sealing the answering route prevents that wake; bodies already on their way keep coming.
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Noise and machinery wake the next stage. Loud work, alarms and a Caller that finishes its call can each wake an adjacent source, and its route is always shown before the crowd arrives. Cutting an alarm, stopping a Caller or sealing the answering aperture first prevents that stage; bodies already on their way keep coming.
Letting it happen can be a choice, too. A player with a strong build may want the second surge. Deliberately waking a large machine brings a much larger surge and often reveals new space — [The Game](/Hold%20The%20Flood/The%20Game) shows one.
## Earning quiet
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Breaking a crest earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. A broken crest shows whether its source is sealed, exhausted or still able to feed. You can also earn quiet early by sealing a source before its crowd fully arrives, or simply get out by crossing a bulkhead or outrunning the woken area.
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Resolving a stage earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. The room shows whether each source is sealed, spent or still able to release another announced stage. You can resolve a stage early, too — clear the first arrivals before the peak, or seal the source before its crowd fully arrives — and that counts at once; there is no need to wait for danger. 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 place you actually cleared does not refill by itself.
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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.
## What earns a temporary upgrade
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*Proposal.* A temporary upgrade is earned by **resolving a crest** — winning the room or shutting it. You resolve a crest by **breaking** it, when the source runs dry or you out-kill it and the room visibly releases, or by **sealing** it, when you close its door, hatch or lock as a finished act. **Running away does not count.** Leaving the woken area saves your life but earns nothing, and stepping back in resumes the same unresolved crest rather than starting a new one, so there is nothing to farm.
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*Proposal.* Resolving a stage earns **one temporary upgrade choice**, and it is the same choice whether you **cleared** the stage or **sealed** it. The two differ in what they cost you — oxygen, time, exposure, or a closed aperture — not in what they pay. Resolving early counts immediately.
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Each source area pays out once per trip. A crest is the peak a room announces — its feeding mouths open fully, several movement patterns overlap, warning lights and music shift — not a straggler or a lone creature, so a small teaching room awards nothing. A large machine you deliberately wake is its own source and may offer a rarer choice. What the upgrades are, and how many you choose between, belongs to Build Rules.
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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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**Rhythm.** An ordinary trip toward one objective crosses roughly three to five sources beyond ground you have already cleared: a small side source or two early, a larger hall or two, then the objective's own crest. A player who fights or seals their way through gets a choice every few minutes of travel, not only at the climax. Sealing gives a weaker player a way to earn power without winning every fight, at the cost of the bigger payoff a full break brings. **How it could fail:** crests that come too often turn choosing into a chore; too rarely, and the build barely grows between climaxes.
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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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**Rhythm, as an illustration.** 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 the major encounters, and the current room arrangements have not yet been checked for it. **How it could fail:** stages that come too often turn choosing into a chore; too rarely, and the build barely grows between climaxes.
## Working under pressure
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- **Walking home alive** leaves the station as it was. Places you cleared stay cleared, and places still occupied stay dangerous.
- **Dying** shifts the station — an owner decision. 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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**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 occupied source beyond it: the frontier. Cleared ground should be quick to cross, so that a reset upgrade does not mean a long flat walk before anything happens. Occupied areas beside a cleared route can still drift into it visibly. That is ordinary movement, not a respawn. Sources you already broke or sealed stay resolved on a living return, so they cannot pay out again; the next choices come from the frontier. What the upgrades do is described in [Hordes and Builds](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Hordes%20and%20Builds) and Build Rules.
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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. The current room arrangements do not yet guarantee an ordinary stage before a major encounter — in at least one arrangement a major setpiece is reachable straight from cleared ground — so every major encounter keeps an approach that works without any temporary upgrade. Making routes support the climb is later room-layout work. 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.
## The creatures
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[Combat And Enemy Roster](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20And%20Enemy%20Roster) owns each creature's warning, action and recovery. In a crowd they play distinct parts. **Pressers** are the slow majority that fills the lane. **Flankers** are the fast packs on side routes. **Callers** wake the next source. A **Boltspitter** demands a ranged line, a **Clampcrawler** occupies the control you are working, and a **Veilbearer** briefly hides the crowd behind it. Three special creatures — **Bellback**, **Shutterback** and **Glass Siphon** — change force, cover or your oxygen clock enough to deserve a featured entrance.
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[Combat And Enemy Roster](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20And%20Enemy%20Roster) owns each creature's warning, action and recovery. In a crowd they play distinct parts. **Pressers** are the slow majority that fills the lane. **Flankers** are the fast packs on side routes. **Callers** wake the next stage. A **Boltspitter** demands a ranged line, a **Clampcrawler** occupies the control you are working, and a **Veilbearer** briefly hides the crowd behind it. Three special creatures — **Bellback**, **Shutterback** and **Glass Siphon** — change force, cover or your oxygen clock enough to deserve a featured entrance.
Everything attacks on sight, investigates recent noise and pursues what it saw, then searches locally and gives up. Nothing knows where you are without perceiving you, and nothing tracks you across the station.
## A climax
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The balance gallery is broad, and it is the right kind of room for a big fight. As you enter, a Bellback plants itself across a fixed rib, its chest filling for a pressure wave, while the two feeding mouths at the gallery's far end are already crowded. Around you the station's own machinery keeps time: a Breath Bank draws across one lane on a three-beat rhythm, and a balance chamber tilts toward whichever side carries more weight.
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The balance gallery is broad, and it is the right kind of room for a big fight. As you enter, a Bellback plants itself across a fixed rib, its chest filling for a pressure wave, while the two feeding mouths at the far end of the gallery are already crowded. The station's own machinery keeps time around you. A Breath Bank draws across one lane on a three-beat rhythm, and a balance chamber's two plates tilt toward whichever side carries more weight.
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The stage pours from both mouths at once. The Bellback's wave shoves a dozen bodies onto one plate, the ribs swing, and the floor tips under you. A cautious player seals one mouth early, shelters at the rib and crosses on the Bank's quiet beat. A player with a crowd build steps into the neutral lane, lets the stage come to them — and releases.
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The crest comes from both mouths at once. The Bellback's wave shoves bodies into the chamber, and the floor tips. A cautious player seals one mouth early, shelters at the rib and crosses on the Bank's quiet beat. A player with a crowd build steps into the neutral lane and lets both mouths empty into it — and then releases. In the break, one pin through the rib locks the chamber permanently, and on the far wall a mark that matches the sample counter turns an old record into a lead.
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In the quiet after, the chamber is still live. Freeing one rib takes two cutter releases, each a job that stays done once finished, and seating the pin then fixes that rib for good while the other still swings. On the far wall a mark matching the sample counter turns an old record into a lead.
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**How it could fail:** three simultaneous rhythms become unreadable, so the player dies to something they could not see coming.
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**How it could fail:** three rhythms at once become unreadable, and the player dies to something they could not see coming.
## Still open
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Target overrides and aim assistance; damage, health, warning timings and displacement; exact crowd sizes, performance and effect density on screen; how surviving creatures hold on a living return; the exact spacing of crests along an objective route and what the upgrades do; and whether the frontier stays close enough after a reset for the fresh climb to feel quick. Nothing here is tested.
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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; how surviving creatures hold on a living return; whether actual routes offer stages between major encounters; and what the upgrades do. Nothing here is tested.
