Build Comparison — Three Ways to Break a Horde

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.

These are proposed directions, not settled recipes or balance. The Owner 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 owns common connection behavior, the Equipment Catalogue owns parts, Hordes and Builds owns encounter rhythm, and Mechanical Interfaces owns current limits.

Storm Choir — conduct the crowd

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ricochet Foundry — compose the room

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.

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.

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.

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.

Gravity Furnace — make pursuit into fuel

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.

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.

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.

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.

Why the difference matters

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.

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

Are Ricochet's forced terminal and Gravity's three-ember Lens exception understandable without turning the journal into a recipe list?
Does Ricochet's smaller permanent footprint need a physical part or higher operating cost, or is its dependence on room geometry enough?
What regular-growth choices lead toward each major transformation, and what milestone triggers it?
How should renewed hordes occupy permanently opened and joined rooms without making return travel repetitive?
Which exact power, heat, duration and coverage values preserve overpowering success without making one build universal?