Hold the Flood — Colony and Persistent Progression

COL101 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Colony and Progression Designer · In review — first substantive submission. Campaign-spanning settlement proposal for PM review and Lead integration. The PM seed is retained below as attributed source material; its unstaffed wording predates this submission. This page owns the Colony proposal. It does not transfer or change the Lead's integrated rules, other specialists' rules, task acceptance, or owner decisions.

Design Index · Expansion Brief · Tasks · Glossary. Sources and exact revisions: the source ledger below. Existing inbound link: Design Index's refuge/progression row.

COL101 recommendation

Develop a refuge that commits help to the next expedition, then lives with the district the player leaves behind. Keep the dock pump, workshop and forecast repair. Expand their functions through discoveries, with one reusable support assembly shared between advanced pumping, equipment preparation and observation. The player can eventually repair everything, but cannot take every service into the same expedition. Their investment history opens choices; their current assignment and the world's persistent outcomes decide which choice is useful.

This is preferable to an additive town upgrade tree: buying the last building would otherwise remove the colony decision just when the campaign's routes, equipment combinations and mystery consequences become richest. It is also preferable to assigning food, housing and work shifts: those demand another activity loop without explaining a better expedition. No population simulation, mandatory upkeep, per-expedition service fee, build timer or off-session decay is proposed. Failed investigation must remain worth attempting.

Everything new below is a Colony proposal, including quantities. Retained drafting baselines are attributed to their owners, not called owner-approved. Early/middle/late describe growing knowledge and campaign stakes, not numbered districts, compulsory trip counts or hours. Eight districts remains PM's provisional planning target; this design neither approves it nor derives a duration from it. Machinery, the drowned setting and bioelectric enemy fiction remain provisional. All scenarios are written illustrations, not simulated or tested behavior.

Integration against the Campaign submission that arrived during COL101

Lead published Campaign DES104 r1 / 34dc09, Design Document r15 / 5f9fbb, and the adopted shared-rule contract r2 / 69024c during this draft. I read the new campaign shape, district geography/consequences, equipment, colony, mystery and handoffs, the contract in full, and the Design Document changes before submission. The new contract owns shared rules; the old document remains the derivation/examples. The contract now limits exported charge specifically to charge carried by the player (REV104-2); the drum/trunk and fixed-power questions remain open. The latest Wiki Conventions 32a35d only changes the editor's maintenance-status notice, not the save rules.

Shared-rule diff for Lead review: forward service proposes one additional dry extraction shelter at a named compatible connection while support is assigned; this changes the one-held-dock limit, not enemy access to shelters or the power requirement. Its signal is the board's supported/dry versus unsupported/flooded berth preview and the same state on arrival; its choice is a shorter retreat versus advanced gear/observation. Tooling changes starting issue, not slot count, linking, charge, drops or attraction. The receiver adds predeparture timing, and the reader preserves only witnessed input/output events. All three are proposed additions to the current contract, awaiting Lead's integration.

1. Outcome to choice to changed expedition

1. Return or rescue. Show cargo actually extracted, cargo lost, newly observed facts/recipes and any deliberately committed district outcome separately. Ordinary extraction banks carried salvage and ends the expedition; a dock is not an unlimited mid-expedition deposit point. Rescue banks no current cargo. Previously banked resources, observations and colony work survive either outcome.
2. Read the consequence board. The refuge board lists the held dock, reachable surveyed service sites, known local relay outcomes, repaired capabilities, bank balance and the last observed forecast state. Mark an old observation as historical; do not invent a current prediction after a network change. The notebook still pauses and contains only observed evidence.
3. Make a persistent investment, or save the cargo. Salvage pays for a missing capability once. Choosing nothing is legal. An investment preview names its expedition effect and what the same balance could buy elsewhere; no automatic upgrade queue runs.
4. Commit support and preparation. Select the held dock, one advanced service and its target, starting equipment, and a player-chosen investigation or hauling aim. Preview the safe return point, occupied rack slots, unsupported service and any known conflict with a fixed/shut relay. Confirming departure fixes support for that expedition; there is no mid-trip remote reassignment.
5. Act in the district. A forward berth changes the walk home; tooling changes what can be attempted before a lucky equipment find; observation support helps compare a live intervention with its input and output. All use the same survival world and its shared power/signal rules.
6. Bring back a new option or an enduring consequence. A visited service site, an inspected module, a completed rack arrangement or a relay decision changes the next preparation screen. No requirement to finish an expedition successfully before retaining something the player actually observed.

The return screen presents consequences; it does not declare a deduction correct, pick a story outcome, or sell access to the campaign answer.

2. Minimum colony and resource model

One settlement, three stations, one currency, one shared support assembly. These are functional stations in the existing dock scene, not three new buildings. The assembly is colony equipment, not a carried battery, rare loot currency or exported charge. It starts in the refuge, is never lost, and can be connected to one advanced service. It provides machinery capacity, not an exception to the district's power supply. A powered service needs a live supply under the owning rules; grid-shutdown consequences remain an explicit integration dependency in section 7.

Support cannot be stacked by menu switching. Preparation is a plan, not a persistent item stockpile: changing service before departure returns provisional issued modules to the workshop and rebuilds the legal starting kit. The chosen service remains fixed until return/rescue. Rack records never fabricate salvage bundles. Reissued modules cannot be sold or dismantled into bankable salvage; found modules remain expedition finds. At a shelter the player may drop equipment for cargo space under Equipment's ordinary rules, but cannot call in another colony service.

Illustrative prices for Lead's economy review: four extracted salvage bundles for each of (a) reversible outlets, (b) workshop repair, (c) forecast repair, (d) forward-pump fittings, (e) workshop tooling, (f) comparative reader fittings. The latter three enable their corresponding advanced service; tooling requires the workshop and the reader requires the forecast receiver. Each purchase is once per campaign, never per district. There are no escalating prices, district-specific currencies, research points, morale or passive salvage income. Recipes, observed service connections and trace records are knowledge, not spendable resources.

These are alternative purchases, not a required six-step checklist. With four banked bundles, outlets compete directly with the first workshop or forecast repair. With workshop already repaired and four more bundles, tooling competes with forward fittings or the forecast repair. Capital spending is not refunded, but the paid capability never disappears. Support reassignment and use are free. No mystery solution or district entry requires any of these purchases.

How opportunities expand without more tiers of prices: forward fittings can serve each newly surveyed compatible berth; workshop recipes grow through equipment inspection, and its full-rack option becomes available when the player records a legal six-slot equipment-only arrangement they have actually assembled at a shelter; observation fittings can be attached to each newly surveyed relay with visible input and output leads. There is no “reach chapter three” flag. These capabilities can arrive earlier for a knowledgeable player. Campaign must deliberately place useful compatible sites, and Equipment must supply the acquisition paths; the page does not claim those content assignments are already fulfilled.

3. Three development strategies

These are changeable priorities, not exclusive classes. All retain ordinary panel access, a baseline return point and the right to attempt the mystery. Each row below names a real action, information, consequence and forgone option.

Why these differ: route support spends colony capacity on position; outfitting spends it on a reliable starting composition and possibly sacrifices all cargo space; investigation spends it on a clearer causal comparison and preserves a district option that a convenient permanent clamp would remove. None makes a larger damage number the reason to progress. The late game changes the purpose of return visits and the consequences under which the same stations operate; it does not introduce another repair bill for each district.

4. Three connected examples for the domain owners

Illustrations with designer spoilers. No claimed play session, timing validation or balance result.

Route example — for Campaign, with Lead interim

Source: Design Document r14 sections 2/4/10 and the Pumping District seed. After a salvage return, the player fits reversible outlets instead of the workshop, holds the yard dock and plans a hall investigation. The preview shows the yard dock dry, the causeway dock flooded, and the culvert still dry. On the later expedition, setting the panel to Yard opens the hall and selects the yard intake; the same water that makes a coil useful threatens unprotected feet. Darkening the yard while its crowd is present can spread that crowd onto the home approach. The purchased choice changed the endpoint and the acceptable switching plan; it did not alter the panel rule or make the dock approach safe.

The new Campaign r1 supplies a concrete extension candidate: the Tram summit dock, reachable by the upper canal only after the Lock Flight's L2 outcome joins it. Request a surveyed pump connection there. First leave L2 open at extraction as Campaign specifies, then reach and inspect the summit connection during a live expedition; surveying does not dry it. Back at the refuge, assign forward support to that connection while retaining the depot as the baseline held dock. On the later visit, power Rail to open the pass toward the Exchange; this darkens the depot gates, making summit extraction the purchased alternative. The tram's lamp still draws enemies and the walk to the summit still costs. Give up tooling/observation for this expedition. If support is reassigned, the summit loses this additional dry-berth benefit and the player must plan the depot route or make the summit the ordinary held dock if Campaign permits it. This proposes an extra supported berth at Lead's actual named site; it does not claim a second dry berth is already adopted. Campaign must confirm pump placement/supply and what happens if the upper-canal outcome is reversed.

Preparation example — for Equipment

Source: Equipment seed and Design Document r14 sections 5/6/10. A player inspects the coil and insulation during an expedition but is rescued. The proposed inspection rule retains the two recipes. Previously banked salvage repairs the workshop/tooling; no failed-trip cargo is credited. On the next departure, tooling issues coil, insulation and the standard empty battery, using four slots. The player can deliberately work toward a wet-channel experiment rather than wait to find the coil. They must still collect charge, choose links at a shelter, respect conduction/leakage and find a fresh crowd in water. The remaining two slots compete between cargo and more equipment.

Later, a legal full harvester arrangement recorded in a shelter enables its reissue; failure does not erase that knowledge. Taking it consumes all six slots at departure and forgoes both advanced route and observation support. Requested Equipment contract: adopt or replace the recipe-recording trigger, two-module issue and recorded-rack reissue; specify acquisition of the required modules. Colony does not add weapon effects, change rack size or approve this as balanced.

Discovery and enduring consequence — for World

Source: World r20's stopped relay / continuing trunk pulse and local Shut/Fix/Hold outcomes; Design Review REV104 r1. A player initially records Hold, keeping the relay switchable, and invests in observation fittings instead of tooling. After seeing the Exchange's shared machinery, they return to the surveyed pumping relay with the comparative service assigned. They select its visible incoming and outgoing leads and record an event. They then deliberately open drain R in the live room and record another: under World's proposed chain, the drum and local output stop while the incoming trunk still pulses. The reader preserves that witnessed contrast; the player may infer that local shutdown does not stop the upstream network. Ordinary cable observation can reach the same inference without any colony purchase, and World requires a redundant clue elsewhere.

This choice leaves the Shut district outcome on later visits: unannounced trickles, no useful announced-dispatch forecast there, and still-functional local panel power under the current local rule. The workshop remains useful, and the receiver/reader can serve other surveyed districts; no replacement purchase is due. Choosing Fix instead could simplify the intake beside a supported route but would remove the switchable signal comparison that motivated Hold. A saved trace is evidence of an event, never a solution flag.

Unresolved interface, not an adopted cure for REV104: this example uses World's stated Shut observation, not the Exchange's disputed suppression rule. World and Lead must settle drum versus trunk requirements, empty dispatches and grid power before claiming the wider network behavior is coherent. COL101 changes none of those rules and does not close REV104 findings.

5. Persistence boundaries

Failure floor: a valid district entry must retain a baseline dry return/shelter and the ordinary starter. No colony upgrade, rare cargo or mandatory enemy harvest may be required to restart investigation. If all new purchases are unaffordable, the player can keep learning with the panel, live evidence, notebook and shelters, or make an optional hauling return. Multiple zero-cargo investigations leave the colony exactly as it was, apart from observed knowledge and deliberate world choices.

Enduring choice is different from failure. Deliberately stopping a relay may make future visits harder even if the expedition ends in rescue; that consequence is the player's chosen world action, not a rescue penalty. Before adopting this persistence timing, World should confirm it alongside its outcome warnings and recovery routes.

6. Assets, people and scope

No recruitable or individually simulated people are required. The existing refuge inhabitants operate the stations as one collective, represented by the board and machinery. There are no assignments, needs, casualty rolls, named worker traits, dialogue trees or rescue-to-unlock-person gates. If a later person is proposed, their choice must change an expedition in a way these stations cannot already express.

Prefer existing free assets; do not infer availability, compatible style or usable terms from a category name. Purchases and rare minimal authored assets require prior owner approval. No AI-generated art, concepts or placeholders; none created. No game code, Unity setup, prototypes, simulations or playtests. The principal content burden is meaningful placement of service sites and equipment discoveries across the actual campaign, plus readable service/outcome previews; six purchase entries do not supply that content by themselves.

7. Integration proposals and requested responses

These are written handoffs to the named domain owners through this page and Tasks. Their responses/adoption are pending; publication is not evidence that another chat read them. Lead remains the interim interface owner wherever PM has not yet recorded a specialist submission.

COL-I6 — to Lead and Campaign, on Campaign 34dc09 sections 2 and 5. The sentence “the next expedition is at home” makes defence compulsory after an outcome. I recommend that the player choose when to undertake the resulting Refuge expedition; retain the normal dry inner dock as shelter, and put the threatened landing/approach outside it. The preview must name the affected route before the original district action. Defeat can lose expedition cargo and leave that approach problem unresolved; it must not delete banked salvage, recipes, facilities or people, nor charge a repair before investigation resumes. Successful defence can reopen that named approach or release its assigned support for use elsewhere, rather than pay a repeatable defence reward. This keeps the existing machinery/route loop and a local consequence. The credible alternative, immediate forced defence, gives the outcome urgency; its cost is turning investigation into an obligation even without literal upkeep. Prefer voluntary commitment under the no-investigation-tax baseline. This is a position for Lead to accept or counterpropose, not a completed Refuge district design, owner ruling or edit to Lead's page.

Main design risks, unvalidated: one service may feel like another loadout menu rather than settlement development; comparative recording may be less valuable than gear or a shorter retreat; full-rack reissue may flatten expedition growth; a poorly placed forward berth may erase the intended survival return; the power-source/ending contract is incomplete. The substantive case is their interaction with paid persistent capabilities and actual district consequences, not a claim that these risks have been tested away. Review should first challenge those decisions and missing interfaces, not request a prototype in this phase.

PM submission: COL101 r1 supplies the full outcome/choice/next-trip loop, three early/middle/late strategies, costs and reversibility, failure/persistence boundaries, route/build/mystery examples and minimum content/asset dependencies. Please review this contribution and record staffing from this evidence; acceptance and integration remain yours and Lead's respectively. No blocking owner question is needed to review the proposal. The network and campaign-ending interfaces above remain explicit dependencies rather than claims of agreement.

8. Source revisions used

Read current sources via source?raw, discovered pages/recent changes through index and log, and identified revisions through each page's history. The revision-linked source bodies were compared with the read Markdown after removing the final machine trailer. These are the design inputs, not claims that their earlier review verdicts cover COL101.

The PM seed below is retained verbatim in its original order, including its links and source attribution. COL101 proposes a successor layer; no Lead or other specialist text was overwritten, and no detailed rule transfer is claimed complete.

PM seed — retained source material from before COL101

PMU004 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · PM-seeded source summary; intended owner: Colony and Progression Designer (proposed); Lead interim · Awaiting author validation/transfer. Source: Design Document r13 / 50046f, section 10. This records the existing proposal, not an accepted expansion design. The cited source owns its detailed rules until the author explicitly adopts this destination. Design Index · Expansion Brief · Glossary.

Current design, before expansion

Map, notes, observed rules and recipes persist. Banked salvage, the selected dock and colony repairs persist. Enemies, found expedition modules, carried cargo, charge, field state and panel state reset. The current rescue/failure rules preserve previously banked progress and knowledge while losing current expedition cargo and finds.

There is no mandatory upkeep or off-session decay in the drafting baseline. This protects an investigative expedition that brings home knowledge rather than cargo. It does not prevent substantial colony management from being designed.

Expansion assignment — COL101

Define a colony loop that matters through the larger campaign: what expeditions bring home, who or what uses it, what the player chooses between, and how that choice changes a later route, expedition preparation, discovery or build. Supply three materially different development strategies and concrete early/middle/late choices, including their costs and recoverability.

Avoid three automatic upgrades stretched across eight districts, repeated resource payments used to inflate hours, or an unrelated management game. People and facilities can be proposed where they create a useful decision, but their behavior and asset burden must be explicit. Preserve the no-mandatory-upkeep baseline while making a positive case for deeper management; propose any change to that baseline with its effect on exploratory failures.

Coordinate travel/outpost functions with Campaign, unlocks with Equipment, and persistent mystery consequences with World. Lead reconciles the overall economy. No production assets, colony simulation or playtests are authorized.