Hold The Horde — Combat Rules

Status. Working ordinary-horde contract after focused review. The owner accepted the route-pressure and selectively contested-work direction; this is not approval of a roster, frequency or balance. Mostly automatic ordinary fire, manual specials and the journal pause are owner-set; targeting details remain proposed.

Minimum player control

Ordinary weapons fire mostly automatically; specials are manual, as the owner requires. The player moves, activates mapped specials, aims/faces a special where its inspected rule requires, interacts/cancels and opens the journal. Oxygen, condition, reserve/capacity, selected automatic target and special controls remain visible.

Proposed target rule. Each ordinary actuator shows its reach and line-of-sight requirement. When ready, it highlights and selects the nearest visible valid hostile; without one, it holds fire. Positioning therefore changes the target. Arc Emitter applies its public chain rule from that initial target. Overrides, assistance and equipment exceptions remain undecided.

An ordinary weapon launches when both its world-time readiness and a valid target are present. If readiness finishes without a target, it remains ready and fires when a valid target later appears; each launch consumes that readiness before the next stated interval. The controller launch is a proposed external equipment event that starts one causal wave. Rig output cannot ready the controller again or mint a launch event, and descendants retain the launch wave. Journal pause advances neither readiness nor firing. Assembly labels manual specials: a chosen Capacitor release, aimed shove or directional Barrier starts a manual external wave. Dynamo and other reactive parts remain automatic only on inspected triggers.

Ordinary enemies needed by the encounters

• A presser follows a reachable route and strikes close. Groups crowd lanes without shared omniscience. Separate attacks are separate external events, so Counterwall can be repeatedly fed while strikes continue.
• A flanker uses a visible connected side approach when the direct lane is obstructed. It never teleports or knows an unseen route, making facing matter without making enemy steering the experiment.
• A caller visibly braces and warns. If completed, it calls eligible adjacent groups. Displacement, obstruction or defeat prevents the call. At the jammed door, the caller and connected entrance are cued before cutting begins.

All attack on sight. They also investigate recent local force impacts, Cycler discharges, grinding doors or stated alarms. They pursue sight or the last perceived location, then search locally and return to their route/holding behavior rather than track across the station.

Pressure and reinforcements

A route crowd can occupy space without escalation. Reinforcements require a readable mechanism alarm or completed caller warning. Lights/sirens identify the source; sound and door movement identify the connected entrance. Alerts move only existing adjacent groups. They cannot spawn behind the player or refill a crowd because the rig killed efficiently.

Stopping the source prevents unanswered calls; groups already moving continue. An active source with unused eligible groups means its area is not clear. After every eligible group answers, it manufactures no more. Quiet observation, record framing and journal use make no call; a noisy mechanism must cue that rule before commitment.

The lit run ending at the vestibule entrance is one readable boundary. Clearing its visible crowd removes that encounter population for the expedition, not the distinct door caller, an active source or unused adjacent groups. A living enemy outside may later walk or investigate through a connected route with sight, sound or door cues. That is ordinary movement, not success-triggered replacement.

Action interruption and discovery

World-time actions state checkpoints. Each cut bolt and each completed hand-cycle leaves a visible physical state that survives later expeditions. Canceling or leaving reach loses only the unfinished stage and spent time/oxygen. Damage alone does not cancel; readable displacement or an occupied control can. A later obstruction, powered brake or damage may block the next stage, but cannot replace a bolt or erase a latched position. Backing out still requires reaching an exit past any obstruction or pursuer.

Recording is atomic: interruption before commit yields no record; completion persists. The journal freezes the world even in combat but finishes no door, attack, alarm or record. Quiet looking and paused thought remain; sampling or changing the world uses running time.

Winning, withdrawing and returning

Within an expedition, defeated enemies stay defeated. Survivors search and disengage locally rather than reset at a doorway. A deliberately disabled alert persists as infrastructure; otherwise later power follows the mechanism's stated state.

A decisive rig can decide an encounter. Cascade clearing the run defeats that crowd; a quiet return stays clear unless a separately cued living enemy approaches. The wider door area is quiet only after its caller/source, present enemies and travelling groups are resolved, with no unused eligible groups behind an active source. Counterwall can preserve completed door stages; Cycler can spend cargo to open a temporary lane, not a solid lasting barrier. None causes replacement elites, invisible escalation or reduced reward. Victory buys access, time, oxygen margin and discovery opportunity.

A hit visibly reduces condition and narrows the margin before damage death. Lost condition persists for the expedition with no passive field recovery in this proposal. Returning alive or reviving aboard restores ordinary condition for the next expedition; field healing and lasting injuries remain undecided. On death, everything still carried—including unused loot—returns aboard with the astronaut. Cycler inputs and canister oxygen already consumed stay spent; dropped or installed property remains where left. Combat adds no replacement tax or substitute death penalty. Working under attack still risks losing the current position, unfinished action and time while completed world changes persist under their own rules.

Withdrawal is valid but physical. Completed records/checkpoints remain; unfinished stages do not. Detours spend oxygen and may defer the objective; abandoned alarms may stay active. Later, authored evidence and deliberate changes persist while population may differ. Breadcrumbs promise no safety.

Encounter policy and alternative

Preferred scope: route pressure is common; mechanism alarms and investigative defence are selective authored encounters. Crowds then alter access and expedition choices without making every clue demand combat, while a few moving mechanisms let defence builds protect world-time observation.

Alternative: visible continuous attention. Loud combat and most world actions fill a meter that brings nearby groups. It offers one systemic pressure rule with fewer authored sources. Its cost is a repeated noise tax on doors and experimentation, encouraging meter optimization over mystery; spatial provenance must stay clear.

Prefer local sources because arrival is understandable and quiet discovery remains possible. Reopen if alerts are too sparse/easy or their authoring becomes formulaic. Prose establishes no frequency, readability, fun, balance, performance or pacing.

Self-check and dependencies

Attack ancestry, reinforcement scope, interruption and persistence are explicit. Successful power stays successful; avoidance has opportunity costs without becoming failure. No attack-on-recording or global reset is imported. Enemy senses, population placement, targeting overrides/assistance, accessibility and frequency remain dependencies.