2026-09-15 11:57:21
Anonymous:
Outcome 59: distinguish three build pleasures
hold the flood/build comparison.md ..
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# Build Comparison — Salvage Recovery Sortie
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# Build Comparison — Three Ways to Break a Horde
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This page is a systems example, not an opening mission. The owner has accepted connected reusable-part builds and spare oxygen sharing carrying capacity with equipment and loot. The compared parts, interactions, objective and quantities are proposals.
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The astronaut enters the same broad ward with three different machines. Storm Choir runs toward a connected knot and waits for its charge meter. Ricochet Foundry circles for hard angles, watching three discs cross the room. Gravity Furnace keeps moving just ahead of a tail, trying to preserve a rhythm of glowing footsteps. All three can become absurd; they do not ask the player to watch, move or press for the same reason.
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## Requirements and shared proposals
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These are **proposed directions**, not settled recipes or balance. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) selects connected reusable parts, mostly automatic ordinary fire, regular temporary growth through fighting with major transformations, fresh hordes each expedition, and loss of temporary power on every return. Physical carried parts remain. Exact growth cadence and numbers stay open. [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) owns common connection behavior, the [Equipment Catalogue](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment%20Catalogue) owns parts, [Hordes and Builds](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Hordes%20And%20Builds) owns encounter rhythm, and [Mechanical Interfaces](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities) owns current limits.
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The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) requires limited carried oxygen, meaningful hordes and powerful combinations, with equipment competing against salvage. Discovery leads; enemy manipulation is secondary. The connection rules are in [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules), and part behaviour is defined in [Equipment Catalogue](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Equipment%20Catalogue).
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## Storm Choir — conduct the crowd
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For this comparison:
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In ordinary combat, Sensor keeps Projector firing. Its impacts feed the locally clamped Dynamo; Fork divides each charge between Arc and Capacitor. The player reads the crowd as a circuit, crossing toward mutually visible bodies so one arc keeps finding the next. That dangerous move also fills the store.
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- The objective is a **compressor head** from station canister-filling gear. It occupies meaningful capacity and must be brought aboard. Installing it extends reach per canister slot.
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- Equipment, ordinary salvage and spare oxygen canisters share one visible carry-capacity interface. Active oxygen and estimated time remaining are always readable.
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- The head begins in a readable powered rack and reserves its full shared capacity from the moment it is lifted, whether in hand or stowed; a full pack must first make room. **In hand**, it travels immediately but overrides equipment form: both builds lose their full functions and retain only basic defence. **Stowed** on the carry frame, it still occupies full capacity but restores full build use after a deliberate, exposed transfer. **Dropped**, it frees capacity and restores handling immediately, but stays where placed. In-hand carriage is transitional during release, transfer or emergency re-pickup; once safe stowing is possible it is not intended as a competing long-return strategy. Ordinary hordes remain active during the return.
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Regular growth first lengthens or branches the local song: **Echoing Arc** turns one useful route into several. At a major transformation, **Thunderhead** keeps the current full-store rule. The player sees three chain heads and a pressure-lance corridor previewed across the crest, then chooses whether to spend now on a merely good knot or risk holding for the dense centre. At its peak, blue-white routes tear open a lane while ordinary fire later rebuilds charge.
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## Approach A: Relay Cascade Array
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The six-part rig costs the current **7 C / 7 A**, so it needs the later 8 A ship state; one canister makes 9/10 C, leaving one discovery unit. It has no Barrier. Wide spacing, hard cover or a moving gap can strand the branches, and crossing toward density can put the astronaut inside the horde before the store is ready.
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The player assembles a linked rig from reusable parts. An ordinary automatic weapon's physical impacts can feed an Impact Dynamo; compatible connections send its charge to an Arc Emitter or Capacitor storage. A Thermal Lens can convert released charge into a heat payload. Each part occupies space, and each connection follows the catalogue's port, readiness and receiver rules. Descendant effects retain their causal sequence and finite allowances under Build Rules. A powerful legal chain may overwhelm an ordinary crowd; power, heat and physical routes still limit its effects.
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The same Fork can be seated in Cargo Turn's service board, where one pulse visibly reaches two lamps. That station discovery teaches branching and branch refusal, but not the finished combat recipe.
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Commitment happens before reaching the salvage. Each module improves the cascade but displaces salvage or a spare canister. The player can keep a reliable partial combination or detour while oxygen falls. Returning with the full array and target is an aggressive bet: exceptional lane clearing, little room, and narrow oxygen margin.
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## Ricochet Foundry — compose the room
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It needs compatible triggers and enough targets. Sparse durable creatures or separated attack angles interrupt the chain. A full pack may force the player to abandon a module, sacrifice salvage, or leave the target even when the horde payoff is spectacular.
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Sensor automatically launches Projector discs while the player runs around the architecture, reading shown bank lines and terminal fans. Manual→Nozzle moves eligible bodies or loose cover before a disc arrives. The useful experiment is not “more damage”: a shove that catches one of the player's own discs can change where its current route ends.
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## Approach B: Cargo-Cycler Rig
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Regular growth grants **Rebound Disc**, then **Fragment Wake**, so several bounded flights turn walls into a moving factory. The proposed major **Foundry Drop** changes the current rule: remove Dynamo, Capacitor and the full-store master disc from this direction. Instead, a Nozzle pulse that visibly intersects a friendly disc may force that disc to take its normal terminal immediately. At the peak, the player waits until two or three automatic discs cross different sides of the horde, faces one pressure cone through them and presses. Several existing fragment fans open together from player-chosen points. Pressing early wastes the geometry; waiting too long lets the discs terminate naturally. Nozzle still does not steer a flight.
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The player instead uses a Salvage Cycler linked to compatible output parts. Chosen conductive, pressure or brittle material produces its inspected charge, force or fragment response; the linked receiver determines the action. Sequencing material inputs can create combinations—for example, a shove followed by an arc or fragment burst—while consuming those inputs. The Cycler and its linked parts remain reusable equipment with their own carrying and rig costs.
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Sensor, Projector, Manual and two-space Nozzle cost **5 C / 5 A** before any supporting part, so the rig needs the 6 A ship state; one canister leaves three of ten carrying units. That attractive footprint is also the largest balance risk. The build gives up stored charge, Arc and Barrier, while its manual shove must serve setup, emergency escape or forced terminals. Open atriums, soft surfaces and fans aimed into cover spoil it.
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Commitment is economic. Capacity left after the Cycler and its linked parts holds canisters, the target, and varied inputs, but combat spends colony-bound salvage. The player chooses ammunition, return value, and whether to search longer for a useful response family. The designated target cannot be consumed accidentally.
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Seated in a decontamination air-knife mount, the same Nozzle accepts the local control and pushes a loose shield away from a hard service face. The revealed reflection mark suggests a possible bank without listing every useful angle.
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Deliberately collected materials can produce a ridiculous sequence anywhere. Careless firing empties the pack; a poor mix lacks control or damage; hoarding starves the weapon. A configuration with fewer carried equipment units leaves more oxygen margin, but input searches spend it. Power trades future return value for present survival.
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## Gravity Furnace — make pursuit into fuel
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## Reusable discovery
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Stride→Nozzle rewards deliberate movement; **Inward Draft** later turns each qualifying traversal into a rear pull. Sensor→Projector supplies modest automatic pressure while the player kites a tail. The player watches spacing and their own cadence, not an impact-fed battery.
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Before discovery, item inspection states observed individual behaviour or material traits: an Arc Emitter chains through nearby bodies, a Capacitor stores charge, scrap is conductive. It does not list all cross-object combinations. In the paused journal, the link preview checks compatible ports and shows the power and heat demands of possible operating states, including temporary modes. Learned families help predict unfamiliar objects and plan what to carry before their ports can be inspected. Physical mounting and removal still take running time under Build Rules.
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This direction also proposes replacing the current Dynamo/Capacitor routine. A regular **Heatstep** transformation leaves one visible wake ember after each qualifying voluntary Stride pulse, with only three recent embers held and the oldest expiring after a short shown interval. Forced motion, recoil and conveyor travel make none. At the major **Furnace Burst**, temporary behavior gates the Sensor path and lets Manual→Thermal Lens→Projector accept only while all three embers remain; acceptance consumes them into the lance and bloom, then restores Sensor→Projector without a journal edit. The exact exception is narrow: during this transformation, three live Stride embers satisfy Lens's heat source instead of stored U.
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Near the target, alien service glyphs group components into **relay**, **sink**, and **isolator** families. During the rack’s readable shutdown, a visible power trace passes through a relay-stamped junction, drains into a sink-stamped buffer, and stops at an isolator-stamped contact. The clustered marks and observed behavior support the player’s inference. Every mark was already visible; a notebook records only a chosen facsimile and location, without naming families, highlighting matches or translating.
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At the peak, three hot seams glow behind a gathered tail. The player must turn and fire before the oldest fades, but turning early may put the bloom behind the mass. Hard cover divides it, a missed stride breaks the rhythm, and Bellback's pressure can scatter the wake. The proposed permanent manifest replaces Dynamo and Capacitor with Manual Trigger: Stride, Nozzle, Sensor, Projector, Lens and Manual total **7 C / 7 A**, requiring the later 8 A ship state, or 9/10 C with one canister. It has no Barrier and cannot bank a burst while standing still.
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Original marks are consistent machine etching or stamps. Once the player recognizes the pattern, they reliably predict whether a component transfers, absorbs, or interrupts an effect. Visibly irregular human-painted copies provide crew context only, never mechanical identification; neither kind is deceptive. Later, the Array player may recognize that a heat-safe coupling’s relay stamp can pass a trigger before deciding whether it displaces a canister or salvage. The Cycler player may leave a sink-stamped input behind when the desired attack must release rather than absorb an effect. These are carry/build decisions across rooms, not a translation unlock or answer to the language mystery.
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A station gait rail fitted with Stride ignores a conveyor-carried pass but answers deliberate steps; a sterilization exchanger shows Lens turning a valid input into heat. Those observations reveal ingredients, not the Heatstep sequence or best combat route.
| Acquisition | Several compatible reusable parts | Cycler, compatible linked parts and varied salvage inputs |
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| Commitment | Equipment space before the objective is understood | Return value consumed during combat |
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| Power payoff | Impact-fed cascades through dense hordes | Player-sequenced material bursts |
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| Oxygen/return | Full power leaves little carrying or oxygen margin | Remaining capacity depends on linked parts; input searches spend oxygen |
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| Actual limits | Broken chains, sparse targets, committed pack | Empty or mismatched cargo; hoarding starves it |
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| Reusable learning | Recognized original glyph predicts module compatibility | Recognized original glyph predicts salvage response |
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## Why the difference matters
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## Largest unresolved tradeoff
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Storm asks **which crowd is connected and when to spend stored power**. Ricochet asks **where moving paths will end and when to collapse them together**. Gravity asks **whether the player can maintain movement cadence, gather pursuit and turn before the window closes**. Fresh hordes let those skills face new crowd shapes each expedition; regular fighting supplies incremental transformations, while major milestones supply Thunderhead, Foundry Drop or Furnace Burst without this page choosing thresholds or pickups.
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The risk of shared capacity is oxygen dominance: if another canister is usually correct, equipment and loot choices narrow despite sharing one interface.
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Death does not undo the carrying choice: everything still carried, including the compressor head and unused salvage, returns aboard with the astronaut. Material already fired through the Cycler is consumed, and anything dropped or installed in the station was not carried. A living return preserves the current station arrangement and cleared ground; death shifts unconnected areas and resets transient crowds under Combat Rules. Both end temporary combat upgrades. Returning by death may therefore be useful; no replacement penalty is added.
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The accepted cost is three clearer fantasies but two new temporary exceptions and more preview work. Current shared Mechanical rules continue to govern until these replacements are separately reconciled; this comparison does not silently change their power, heat, slot or finite-route safeguards. Written scenes cannot prove that any direction is fun, balanced or sufficiently discoverable.
## Open questions
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- Quantities and balance in Build Rules and Equipment Catalogue are unselected.
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- The magnitude and uniqueness of the compressor head's reach extension per canister slot.
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- Exact capacity, canister value and encounter pressure are untuned.
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- Whether oxygen dominance narrows equipment and loot choices under shared capacity.
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- Are Ricochet's forced terminal and Gravity's three-ember Lens exception understandable without turning the journal into a recipe list?
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- Does Ricochet's smaller permanent footprint need a physical part or higher operating cost, or is its dependence on room geometry enough?
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- What regular-growth choices lead toward each major transformation, and what milestone triggers it?
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- How should renewed hordes occupy permanently opened and joined rooms without making return travel repetitive?
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- Which exact power, heat, duration and coverage values preserve overpowering success without making one build universal?
