Build Rules

Builds are machines the player assembles from reusable parts. A good build has a recognizable fantasy—storm, ricochet factory, moving furnace—not merely a higher damage number. Permanent parts let the player begin an expedition with an intention; temporary combat upgrades make that machine grow into something outrageous before the astronaut returns home.

The owner has selected connected reusable parts, mostly automatic ordinary fire, manual special abilities, shared carrying space and a full journal pause. Temporary combat upgrades reset whenever the astronaut returns aboard, alive or revived. The specific connection language, upgrade effects and limits below are proposals.

Example: choosing what this expedition becomes

The astronaut leaves with a Pulse Projector, an Arc Emitter, a Fork Relay and a charge cell. They expect crowded hospital corridors, so the parts are connected to turn automatic hits into branching arcs. The same four parts could instead support a forceful projectile and a defensive release; the machine is an intention, not a fixed class.

The first occupied hall gathers into a real crest. Automatic weapons keep cycling while the player chooses the dense line, uses a manual barrier to survive the flank and clears the source route. In the quiet afterwards the rig offers two temporary upgrades based on what is installed:

• Echoing Arc lets the final arc return once through the connection, adding charge and heat. It promises a larger payoff when enemies stay close.
• Rebound Disc changes the Projector's ordinary shot into a heavy disc with a limited return path. It promises repeated impacts when the room has hard walls and useful angles.

This is a choice of play, not “damage plus five percent.” Echoing Arc asks the astronaut to run toward density and save a manual discharge. Rebound Disc asks them to read the architecture and bank shots through the crowd. The player chooses Echoing Arc.

At the next crest, returning arcs fill the charge cell quickly enough to power a manual Thunderhead. The player holds the dangerous centre for one more second, presses the special and watches the stored charge fork through the entire lane. A build that was modest at departure has crossed a visible threshold. A deliberately woken larger surge may later offer one rarer transformation, but the player can also turn home with the parts and knowledge already earned.

Back aboard, every temporary upgrade is removed under the owner-set reset. The physical Projector, Arc, Fork and charge cell remain. The player also keeps the discovered fact that the next freight route has hard rebound surfaces. On the next departure they may rebuild toward Rebound Disc from the start, carry more oxygen instead, or follow a different clue. The power climb restarts; the player's equipment and understanding do not.

Three kinds of progress

Retained equipment is physical. A reusable part carried home remains in the collection. Installed rig parts and inactive carried parts use the same shared carrying capacity as oxygen canisters and loot; active use also occupies rig space. A part left in a station machine or dropped in a room is not carried home.

Expedition power is temporary. Resolving meaningful crowd pressure earns upgrades tied to parts already installed. Every such upgrade resets on any return aboard. The player gets the survivorslike pleasure of rising from vulnerable to dominant during each outing without losing permanent finds.

Useful knowledge is remembered. The journal can preserve observed part behaviour, source locations, crowd traits and successful connections. Knowledge does not grant a part or an upgrade, but it makes the next loadout and route more intentional.

Connecting parts

Each part explains one action and shows compatible ports. A build reads as a plain causal sentence:

start → change → deliver → payoff

A sensor may start an automatic event; a fork branches it; a lens changes charge into heat; an actuator turns the result into an arc, projectile, barrier or shove. A part can fill more than one role, so finding one object can reopen several existing builds.

The player mounts or removes a physical part in the live world. That action checks carrying and rig space, occupies the astronaut and can be interrupted. Once accessible parts are mounted, the proposed link editor lives in the journal. The journal already pauses enemies and oxygen by owner decision; link changes there consume no world time. Preview shows whether direct ports fit and how much power and heat the proposed connection demands.

This makes expression easy to try without pretending that a frozen menu is active combat. Closing the journal returns the player to exactly the danger they paused. Constant mid-fight optimization is a real usability risk, so temporary upgrades alter existing connections automatically and offers should stay few and consequential. Later authorized observation must determine whether players experiment freely or feel obliged to pause after every change in the room.

Several ordinary weapons can work together

A rig may contain more than one ordinary automatic weapon. Each automatic actuator owns its visible reach, target rule and readiness. When ready with a valid target, it fires; another actuator checks independently. A Fork may also send one event to several compatible payoffs. The universal single-ordinary-launch ban is removed.

The understandable limits are physical:

• Rig space: every active part must fit.
• Carrying space: equipment competes with spare oxygen and discoveries.
• Power: the link preview refuses a configuration whose simultaneous operating demand exceeds the rig's visible supply.
• Heat: firing and repeated effects add visible heat. A hot component pauses or weakens according to its own inspected rule until it cools; it does not secretly choose another weapon to disable.

Multiple outputs therefore buy coverage and spectacle by consuming the same capacity that could support defence, oxygen or a more focused chain. Ordinary fire stays mostly automatic. Facing, movement and proximity determine what the actuators can reach; the player reserves button presses for labelled specials such as a barrier, shove or stored discharge.

Bounded returns and feedback

Spectacular builds need effects that can travel, branch and return. A blanket “each part resolves once and every return stops” makes that fantasy disappear. The proposed replacement is a visible echo budget.

An automatic launch, manual special, enemy strike or environmental event begins one causal sequence. A part or temporary upgrade may give that sequence a number of echoes. An arc jump, projectile rebound or signal return spends one echo and adds its stated heat. The returned effect may pass through compatible parts again while echoes remain. When the budget reaches zero, no target remains or a component overheats, that branch ends visibly.

A descendant cannot refill the echo budget that created it, refresh its own readiness or mint power from itself. Forking divides or copies only the kind of event its inspected rule names; stored charge and consumed salvage remain real inputs. A later automatic firing cycle, a new manual special or a separate enemy attack starts a new sequence with its own budget. This allows a single disc to rebound several times or an arc to sing across a dense crowd without permitting an undefined loop that runs forever in an empty room.

The exact echo counts, power draw, heat thresholds and cooling rates are deliberately unselected. They must make causes visible and spectacle possible before later implementation can test performance, dominance and readability.

A proposed reward rhythm

When a new local crowd crest commits its arrivals, resolving that crest earns one temporary choice tied to the active rig. Resolution can come from defeating those arrivals, sealing their physical source route or crossing the crest's named escape boundary; the encounter page owns the visible start, pressure and break tells. The visible high-pressure beat is the latest safe resolution window, not a quota the player must wait to fill. A strong build that clears the first arrivals, or a prepared player who seals the route before pressure peaks, earns the reward immediately. The crest then counts as spent for the current station arrangement even if the player escaped and its source remains occupied. Stepping back across the boundary or re-entering the surviving crowd pays nothing. A genuinely new crest requires another source route, machinery wake or authored pressure stage—not a distance reset.

An ordinary forward expedition aims to offer a foundation choice after its first route crest and a branch or refinement after a second distinct crest. Deliberately waking a larger surge may offer a rarer transformation as a third choice. A short retreat may end with only one, while backtracking through cleared or spent areas grants none. Living return preserves those areas, so the next fresh climb points toward an occupied frontier rather than refilling the route behind the player.

Offers should change behaviour: add a branch, create a return, convert a payload, move a payoff or turn stored energy into a manual climax. Small statistical improvements can support tuning later, but they should not be the defining choice. An offer fails when one answer is mandatory for every crowd shape, when its effect is hard to see, or when the player cannot explain why the machine changed.

This rhythm gives the encounter and reward systems a clean handoff. Combat provides pressure and a release; the release provides a brief paused choice; the changed machine makes the next crowd desirable. The cost is that a familiar cleared route becomes safer but cannot rebuild peak power. The next climb comes from an occupied frontier, changed death-shift geography or a larger event the player chooses to wake—not from a death reward or instant reset of the world.

Two contrasting directions, not recipes

These are illustrative fantasies built from reusable behaviours and temporary transformations. They do not allocate new permanent parts or sources beyond the current equipment list. The player may hybridize them, stop early, or use the same Fork, Projector, Dynamo, Arc and storage parts for defence or station machinery. The meaningful question is what the machine does in this expedition and what it costs, not whether the player completed an authored set.

Property and unresolved boundaries

Everything physical still carried returns aboard after death. Consumed salvage remains consumed; a dropped part or one deliberately installed in station infrastructure remains at that location. Link changes never duplicate an object. Equipment Acquisition and Rig Growth owns source, pickup and property examples; Hordes and Builds shows three developed visual fantasies.

Whether stored Capacitor charge survives death remains with the existing persistence decision and is not answered here. Starting parts, exact carrying and rig space, power/heat values, upgrade frequency, duplicate stacking, acquisition by finding versus fabrication and detailed targeting assistance also remain open. Written rules cannot establish that the builds are fun, balanced, readable or technically feasible; those claims require a later authorized phase.