hold the flood/encounter and mechanism placement inventory.md ..
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## Shared encounter contract
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Warnings remain visible independently when they overlap. **Every placement except E03's deliberately quiet first latch lesson is a crowd encounter fed by named source areas** — wards, lift wells, ducts or sealed volumes that physically hold bodies. Sources release their crowds through **feeding apertures** — grilles, hatches, ward doors, ducts, gantry mouths — shown before anything arrives. Feeding apertures are distinct from the walking passages a room needs for the ship, rescue, records, clamps or exploration, and sealing an aperture never closes a walking passage. A placement's first readable cue may be one creature, but the route to and through it carries a crowd, following [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules). Nothing enters except through a shown aperture or route, nothing appears behind the player, and no source reacts to build strength, kill speed or reward. Defeated creatures stay defeated for the expedition. A different finite population variant is selected only at a **death shift**, never on a living return and never on a load. A living return preserves this arrangement's population state entirely — resolved stages stay spent, occupied sources stay occupied, and nothing is replaced, escalated or reduced because the result was clean. E03's later variant remains restricted to a later death shift exactly as stated in its own row.
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Warnings remain visible independently when they overlap. **Every placement except E03's deliberately quiet first latch lesson is a crowd encounter fed by named source areas** — wards, lift wells, ducts or sealed volumes that physically hold bodies. Sources release their crowds through **feeding apertures** — grilles, hatches, ward doors, ducts, gantry mouths — shown before anything arrives. Feeding apertures are distinct from the walking passages a room needs for the ship, rescue, records, clamps or exploration, and sealing an aperture never closes a walking passage. A placement's first readable cue may be one creature, but the route to and through it carries a crowd, following [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules). Nothing enters except through a shown aperture or route, no creature materializes without a physical approach, and no source reacts to build strength, kill speed or reward. A shown route can still carry creatures behind the player. Defeated creatures stay defeated for the expedition. A different finite population variant is selected only at a **death shift**, never on a living return and never on a load. A living return preserves this arrangement's population state entirely — resolved stages stay spent, occupied sources stay occupied, and nothing is replaced, escalated or reduced because the result was clean. E03's later variant remains restricted to a later death shift exactly as stated in its own row.
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**Stages and temporary upgrades (proposal).** A **stage** is a finite, announced pressure release from an identified physical source. Its peak — feeding apertures fully open, overlapping movement patterns, warning lights and music shifting — is what the player reads as the crest. While a stage is still feeding, killing faster than it arrives suppresses a lane but does not stop it. A stage **resolves** when the player clears all of its committed arrivals, or completes a physical seal that ends its access. Either earns the **same** single temporary upgrade choice in [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules), and clearing or sealing early, before the peak, qualifies immediately. **Escaping resolves nothing:** leaving the pressure boundary saves the astronaut, who keeps carried property and knowledge, but earns no consolation choice, and re-entering resumes the same unresolved stage. Each stage pays once for the current arrangement: it stays spent across a living return, cannot be farmed by leaving and re-entering, and reopening the same seal does not create a new stage. Whether a seal stays closed follows its owning mechanism. Further machinery releases count as separate stages only where they are authored, announced and sourced; a deliberately woken larger stage may offer a transformation. Cleared travel earns nothing, earned-but-unchosen offers expire aboard with temporary power, and death itself pays nothing. Rescue eligibility is a separate question, stated below. Upgrade effects belong to Build Rules.
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**Stages and temporary upgrades (proposal).** A **stage** is a finite, announced pressure release from an identified physical source. Its peak — feeding apertures fully open, overlapping movement patterns, warning lights and music shifting — is what the player reads as the crest. While a stage is still feeding, killing faster than it arrives suppresses a lane but does not stop it. A stage **resolves** when the player clears all of its committed arrivals, or completes a physical seal that ends its access. A seal leaves already-arrived creatures active: reward resolution is separate from a safe quiet space, which also needs those threats cleared, bypassed or physically separated. Either earns the **same** single temporary upgrade choice in [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules), and clearing or sealing early, before the peak, qualifies immediately. **Escaping resolves nothing:** leaving the pressure boundary saves the astronaut, who keeps carried property and knowledge, but earns no consolation choice, and re-entering resumes the same unresolved stage. Each stage pays once for the current arrangement: it stays spent across a living return, cannot be farmed by leaving and re-entering, and reopening the same seal does not create a new stage. Whether a seal stays closed follows its owning mechanism. Further machinery releases count as separate stages only where they are authored, announced and sourced; a deliberately woken larger stage may offer a transformation. Cleared travel earns nothing, earned-but-unchosen offers expire aboard with temporary power, and death itself pays nothing. Rescue eligibility is a separate question, stated below. Upgrade effects belong to Build Rules.
**Cadence and route support.** As an illustration, a sustained outing might offer three to five meaningful choices — a foundation, a branch, later refinements, and possibly a transformation from a larger optional stage — while a short trip can earn one. The ten placements alone supply only one or two stages each, so that rhythm depends on ordinary travel stages along the routes between them, which are **not yet authored or verified**. The PM's route check of representative Arrangement A found R25's major setpiece reachable directly from cleared R11 after a reset, with no ordinary stage between. Every major placement therefore keeps a baseline approach that needs no temporary upgrade, and route support for the climb is next-assignment room-layout work, not claimed here. If stages come too often the rhythm becomes a chore; too rarely and the build barely grows between climaxes.
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**Host and warning.** R08 First Local Latch Hall with a currently adjacent R09 test face, objective 3 and P03 Triage Relay. On the first local-latch introduction, one Clampcrawler is visible beside the centre inspection island and it is the entire combat population. Its arched crouch and jaw-flash lock draw a fixed landing arc when the latch control activates. The answering shutter is physically closed and its empty count lamp confirms that no Presser is eligible during this first lesson.
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**Crowd, sources and geometry.** The first latch lesson is a deliberately quiet beat: inside the hall one Clampcrawler is the whole fight, reached through the ordinary crowded route. Entry to that first lesson records one persistent **introduction seen** staging bit whether the player succeeds, refuses, cancels or withdraws; it is not a reaction to a build or victory. On a later death-shift population setup after that introduction, the authored finite variant may occupy the **holding volume** behind the alarm-only shutter with a crowd of perhaps 20–40 Pressers, already present before the player enters. The introduction-seen bit does not create a creature on a same-life retry, exit or immediate re-entry; that life retains its existing population and defeated enemies stay defeated. This delays the combined variant until a later life and does not settle other encounters’ repopulation rules. A count silhouette shows the holding volume is occupied before activation, but the closed opaque shutter denies mutual local sight and is the only physical route, so this variant is explicitly alarm-only. A completed P03 alert opens that route; cutting the lead before alert commitment prevents it. If the alert has already opened the shutter and the crowd is moving, cutting the lead neither closes the route nor dismisses it. **Stage:** the later variant's released crowd while the latch work runs. **Resolution:** clear its committed arrivals. Cutting P03's lead before the alert commits prevents the stage entirely, so there is nothing to resolve or earn. P03's own persistent commit dogs the shutter *open*, so this placement has no physical seal, and none is invented here. The first lesson itself is not a stage and awards nothing. There is no hidden pool or success-triggered spawn. Opposed service faces are readable from the island; the latch work position sits inside the Crawler's possible arc, while one side step and R09 retreat lie outside. P03's alarm lead is exposed before the control. **Rework:** M06's hall and holding volume need space for the later crowd.
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**Crowd, sources and geometry.** The first latch lesson is a deliberately quiet beat: inside the hall one Clampcrawler is the whole fight, reached through the ordinary crowded route. Entry to that first lesson records one persistent **introduction seen** staging bit whether the player succeeds, refuses, cancels or withdraws; it is not a reaction to a build or victory. This alarm-only variant is eligible only while its shutter is closed; a persistently dogged-open shutter stays open and excludes this closed-holding variant. It is never closed again merely to stage the crowd. On a later death-shift population setup after that introduction, the eligible authored finite variant may occupy the **holding volume** behind the alarm-only shutter with a crowd of perhaps 20–40 Pressers, already present before the player enters. The introduction-seen bit does not create a creature on a same-life retry, exit or immediate re-entry; that life retains its existing population and defeated enemies stay defeated. This delays the combined variant until a later life and does not settle other encounters’ repopulation rules. A count silhouette shows the holding volume is occupied before activation, but the closed opaque shutter denies mutual local sight and is the only physical route, so this variant is explicitly alarm-only. A completed P03 alert opens that route; cutting the lead before alert commitment prevents it. If the alert has already opened the shutter and the crowd is moving, cutting the lead neither closes the route nor dismisses it. **Stage:** the later variant's released crowd while the latch work runs. **Resolution:** clear its committed arrivals. Cutting P03's lead before the alert commits prevents the stage entirely, so there is nothing to resolve or earn. P03's own persistent commit dogs the shutter *open*, so this placement has no physical seal, and none is invented here. The first lesson itself is not a stage and awards nothing. There is no hidden pool or success-triggered spawn. Opposed service faces are readable from the island; the latch work position sits inside the Crawler's possible arc, while one side step and R09 retreat lie outside. P03's alarm lead is exposed before the control. **Rework:** M06's hall and holding volume need space for the later crowd.
**Objective and approaches.** Commit a valid seam or record a safe refusal, walk through and operate the network-side release. (1) In the solo introduction, bait the Crawler: start work, wait for jaw-flash lock, cancel, step out so it skids, then use the recovery to work; this needs no part. (2) Opening rig: Manual→Barrier intercepts a committed leap while Sensor→Projector fires only on a visible valid target. (3) Later Manual→Nozzle displaces the Crawler before lock or clears the work face; recoil clearance is shown at this instance. In the later crowd variant, cut P03's lead before crossing if the alarm-only route should stay closed, or accept the cued second lane; once the alert has committed, the physical approach remains valid.
