Build Rules
Status: PM provisionally integrated this written design after focused review and author response; gameplay quality remains unvalidated. The owner has accepted connected reusable-part builds and spare oxygen sharing carrying capacity with equipment and loot. The exact grammar, parts, capacities, starting equipment, quantities and progression below remain proposals. Mostly automatic ordinary fire, manual specials and the journal pause are owner decisions.
Proposed core: a connected effect grammar
The player carries one finite rig. Its spaces hold active equipment parts; ordinary salvage, inactive parts and spare oxygen canisters occupy the same overall carrying capacity, as the owner accepted. A part installed in the rig occupies capacity once, not once as cargo and again as equipment. Moving it to inactive cargo frees active rig area but not carrying capacity. The exact grid, shapes, capacities and canister quantities remain open. A suit tank supplies limited portable oxygen.
Parts use a public grammar rather than hidden recipes: a trigger notices an event; a payload carries charge, heat, force or fragments; a modifier transforms, stores or branches; an actuator produces a projectile, arc, barrier or shove. A packet contains a trigger and may carry a payload. Impact Dynamo, for example, emits a trigger carrying charge; Capacitor stores it and later emits a charged trigger, while Thermal Lens changes charge into heat without inventing another trigger.
The player arranges parts and draws compatible directed links between visible ports. Multi-role parts reopen old arrangements. Rig-installed and inactive carried parts each consume capacity once; installation also consumes active area and enables use. Field swaps consume world time.
At the ship, rearrangement is safe. In the station, installing, removing or rewiring a part is a deliberate world action while oxygen and threats continue. The journal still pauses the rest of the game as the owner requires, but consulting a recorded diagram cannot complete a rig edit.
Resolution and readable limits
An ordinary controller launch, manual special activation, a new enemy attack or an ambient hazard is an external event and starts a causal wave. In the current Sensor → Projector arrangement, the ready, target-valid controller event and physical launch are one event; a downstream actuator accepting a rig packet retains that packet's wave. Ordinary firing is mostly automatic and special abilities are manual under the owner's decision. Combat Rules supplies the proposed targeting/readiness contract: a ready controller launches when a valid target is available, spends readiness, and recovers through stated world time; rig output cannot reset it. Rig-created projectiles, fragments, arcs, barriers and contacts keep that wave identity rather than becoming new external events.
Within a wave, each part resolves once and a returning signal stops. Force projectiles, pressure bursts, fragments and external strikes against the player or Barrier Plate are impacts; arcs and heat are not unless explicitly converted. Impact Dynamo watches one named carrier through its local clamp and batches qualifying same-wave impacts there into one visible accumulator contribution and downstream charged trigger. The carrier is a Barrier frame, Projector physical-output feed or authored fixture surface; the Dynamo does not hear remote impacts. Stored states persist across waves with saturation visible. Releasing stored charge requires a chosen trigger: a manual release starts a new wave, while a release caused by a rig-generated packet retains that packet's wave. Storage becoming ready does not itself create a new external event. Exact capacities and damage remain open.
A later external event begins another wave. Enemy attacks can repeatedly feed Counterwall until attacks stop, the barrier fails or storage saturates. That is an intended horde-fed engine, not recursive self-activation or a balance claim.
An incompatible link is visibly invalid before commitment. A saturating part holds, vents or passes overflow by its stated rule. Surprise should remain traceable, not depend on hidden exceptions.
Navigation, inspection and discovered families
The suit always shows oxygen, carried reserve/capacity, condition and controls. Its minimum return reference is a reverse breadcrumb through passages actually traversed to the last confirmed anchor, ultimately the ship. It promises neither safety nor continued access, exposes no unseen route and predicts no exact return cost. Unknown routes have local orientation only. A recorded location keeps captured evidence and its anchor-relative breadcrumb; a learned crew name labels the record without granting tracking.
A carried or accessible part shows individual behavior, controls and ports. Preview answers only whether the proposed direct link between accessible endpoints is valid; it does not calculate every combination. An unfamiliar fixture shows visible traits, ports and its original cut mark. Once learned, relay predicts packet transfer, sink absorption and isolator interruption. Human-painted copies remain contextual. Controls work without this discovery, and not every build requires it.
At an exposed isolator contact, the player may bypass it and seat a carried relay-family part—such as Fork Relay—in readable service ports. Knowing relays transfer packets tells the player what to pack; local preview only confirms the proposed link on arrival. The part stays seated to keep the section and hoist powered. It is lost to the rig but, once left behind, no longer occupies carrying capacity. This adopts Exploration Structure's persistence choice.
Illustrative parts
These eight parts demonstrate the grammar; they are not a final catalogue or starting loadout. The current Equipment Catalogue owns their acceptance, clamp, split and readiness details. Larger modular expansions, integrated weapons, heated-barrier effects and separate vent receivers remain undeveloped, unselected alternatives.
| Part | Known individual behavior | Different uses it opens |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse Projector | An accepted trigger, valid target and readiness launch the packet's payload, or a weak force pulse if the packet has no payload | Starter actuator; carries heat or force; supplies impacts |
| Impact Dynamo | Qualifying impacts on its one locally clamped carrier emit a charged trigger once per causal wave | Projectile engine; barrier counter; salvage-chain bridge |
| Fork Relay | Copies a bare trigger to accepting outputs; divides any usable payload between accepting outputs while retaining one wave | Splits offense/defense; charges storage while firing |
| Capacitor | Stores charge across waves and releases it on a chosen trigger | Burst damage; emergency barrier; delayed combo timing |
| Thermal Lens | Converts a packet's charge payload into heat while preserving its trigger | Stored-charge or conductive-Cycler heat through Projector |
| Arc Emitter | An accepted charged trigger produces arcs from its valid selected target when ready | Horde clearing; capacitor burst; secondary Fork output |
| Barrier Plate | A trigger creates a directional barrier; a charged trigger can create or refresh it using that charge; strikes produce impact events | Defence; Dynamo trigger surface; route-holding tool |
| Salvage Cycler | A valid activation trigger consumes selected salvage and emits the inspected material-response packet | Conductive charge, pressure force or brittle fragments |
Finding a Capacitor is therefore not a prescribed upgrade. The player can replace an immediate Arc connection with stored burst, store Dynamo charge from qualifying Barrier strikes, or route one Fork branch into storage while the other fires. Taking it occupies room that could carry salvage or an extra canister, whether installed or inactive. Installing it grants present use and commits active rig area and edit time; carrying it home inactive preserves later options without using it now.
Three materially different paths
Cascade lance. Use the catalogue's hypothetical later 8 A / 8 C configuration: Sensor → Projector starts one ordinary launch wave; Dynamo, clamped to Projector's physical-output feed, sends its charged trigger through Fork. Ready Arc and unsaturated Capacitor receive separate shares, subject to their eventual thresholds. The player then pays for a world-time rewire, disconnecting Sensor from Projector and connecting built-in manual Capacitor release → Thermal Lens → Projector. A prepared later release produces one targeted heated shot if each receiver accepts; the built-in release checks its first receiver and does not promise an atomic check of the entire path. Sparse targets reduce Arc opportunities; this is not the four-space opening rig. Packed hordes may be overwhelmed.
Counterwall reactor. The catalogue's later 6 A / 6 C example uses Manual Trigger → Barrier, Dynamo clamped to that Barrier, Capacitor and Arc Emitter. Each new external strike can feed a separate charge contribution; a later built-in manual Capacitor release feeds the ready, targeted Arc. Releasing toward Barrier instead requires its single input to be configured for that path, replacing its Manual Trigger link. The wall becomes protection and engine while a horde attacks; it stops when strikes stop, bypass its facing or break the barrier, and storage cannot accept more charge when saturated.
Salvage storm. The current catalogue supports a chosen cargo shot through Manual Trigger → Cycler → Projector, using 4 A / 4 C and spending the selected material. Conductive responses can instead use the catalogue's compatible charge-consuming routes. The former continuous Cycler/Dynamo/Fork/Arc/storage expansion is an undeveloped alternative, not an established complete loadout. All descendants retain their wave. The path spends colony-bound salvage; hoarding starves it and firing destroys return value. Equipment/material composition, not enemy control, is the experiment.
All three reuse parts while asking whether to sustain a chain, power defence or consume cargo. A found Fork, Lens or Capacitor changes several paths because ports describe possibilities, not archetype membership.
Acquisition, commitment and return
Found equipment is readable individually. The player may install it, carry it inactive, leave it or discard something else. Taking a new part consumes carrying capacity; installing an already-carried part adds active-area use and field-edit time, not another carrying charge. Returned salvage has no currency or automatic upgrade value defined here.
Hordes test space creation, sustained output and the oxygen-limited return while feeding dense-target chains and barrier impacts. A deliberately assembled build may erase ordinary hordes as payoff. Its real limits are causal shape, carried cost, acquisition and situations it does not address.
Capacity still forces choices before death or departure: keep the rig and leave salvage, leave or discard a part to carry a discovery, spend salvage through Cycler, or turn back. Moving a part into inactive cargo alone frees no capacity. Everything still carried at death, including new loot, returns aboard with the astronaut under the owner’s rule. Consumed Cycler material is already spent; a part deliberately dropped or left powering station infrastructure was not carried and remains where left.
Proposed suit baseline
The owner’s death rule removes the cached-loadout recovery dependency. A ship-issued baseline remains useful as a clear starting and minimum-control proposal rather than replacement gear:
- a refillable integral tank providing limited portable oxygen;
- navigation and the owner-required pausing journal;
- a deliberate close-range emergency cutter for common cutting interactions and desperate defence; it occupies the astronaut and supplies no automatic fire or build ports.
These baseline functions do not expose build ports and cannot join a cascade. The suit baseline remains worn rather than becoming detachable or saleable cargo. It supports navigation, basic defence and common interactions without replacing returned equipment or explaining revival. Additional canisters, build parts and tools occupy the shared capacity the owner accepted; exact starting gear remains proposed.
Credible alternative: multi-tag synergies
Instead of directed links, each part could carry semantic tags such as heat, impact, branching and barrier. Compatible pairs or sets would activate authored effects automatically; arrangement would mostly manage carrying space. This is easier to explain and bounds the authored interaction list. Multi-tag parts can support cross-combinations, and their authored rules would still need to exclude or contain any feedback loops.
Its cost is prescription. Once combinations are listed, a found part tends to complete an intended set rather than transform several existing machines. The connected grammar is preferred because the player authors the causal path and can understand why a ridiculous outcome occurred. That preference accepts higher interface, authoring and consistency burdens.
Reopen it if a representative catalogue cannot keep three-step chains readable without solving them for the player, if legal connections repeatedly create dominant or incoherent outcomes despite the once-per-wave rule, or if supporting cross-part interactions makes each new part too expensive to author and verify. Written design cannot establish readability, balance, fun or production feasibility.
Counterexample and consistency check
- Infinite feedback: descended effects retain their source wave; a returning path stops. Multiple qualifying impacts on Dynamo's attached carrier become one batched accumulator contribution. New enemy attacks may sustain new waves, but rig output alone cannot mint them.
- One obvious upgrade: Capacitor, Fork and Lens each have offensive, defensive and storage placements with different carried costs; no path is declared numerically superior.
- Cycler consumes the entire tradeoff: it cannot consume the protected objective accidentally, and spending ordinary salvage loses return value. Other paths remain effective without cargo fuel.
- Death duplication: the astronaut and everything still carried return aboard once. Consumed resources stay consumed, and parts dropped or left installed in the station stay there; no second copy is created.
- Paused rewiring exploit: only the journal pause is owner-required. Field rig changes remain world actions and cannot be completed from its paused diagrams.
Remaining dependency: the exact capacity model, part availability and ship storage determine whether abandonment and recombination stay credible under the accepted directions. None of these proposals changes the design-only phase.