Fighting the Horde

Combat rules. Owner decisions are recorded in the Owner Brief; crowd sizes, timings and effects are proposals to test later.

What a fight is

Crossing this station means crossing crowds. Ordinary weapons fire automatically, and by default each one picks the nearest visible valid target. So the player's combat is about where to be: which route to take, how close to let the crowd come, which line through it to walk, which automatic effects are connected, and when to press a manual special.

A rig may carry more than one ordinary weapon output. What limits it is power, heat, rig space and carrying capacity; Build Rules owns those limits and how outputs connect.

Opening the journal pauses everything, including enemies and oxygen, even in the middle of a fight. Build Rules places changing links between rig parts inside that pause. Picking up or first fitting a newly found part, and operating station machinery, still happen while the world runs.

An ordinary crossing

You need to reach a sampling loop at the far end of a long pressure hall. Through the entry glass you can see why nobody comes this way: the side wards are full, bodies slumped against their doors, and a few already shuffling in the main lane.

Wake. You step in and the nearest bodies turn. The sound carries. Two ward doors further down shudder, and you can tell which ones will open before they do.

Gather. Thirty or forty slow patients spill into the main lane and walk at you. A faster pack runs the side gallery. Your projector works without pause while you back up the lane, keeping the slow mass in front of you and the pillars between you and the pack. Fighting the crowd supplies regular temporary growth: your build begins changing while the hall is still dangerous.

Crest. The second ward door gives. There are seventy bodies in the hall now, and the fast pack has reached the pillar you were counting on. You have three choices: take the dense middle, where every spark in your arc chain finds another body; hug the wall, where fewer reach you; or run for the door and lose the hall. You take the middle. When the pack arrives you raise your barrier, and every blow against it charges the capacitor behind it.

Break. You release. A white wash rolls down the lane and takes everything that came through the first door. The second ward is still pushing bodies at its threshold, so on your way past you throw its lock and clear the remaining bodies already inside. Silence. That release is resolved — cleared on one side, sealed on the other. The temporary power earned while fighting stays with you for the rest of this trip; the cleared hall gives you room to use it on the next objective.

Quiet. The loop at the end is yours now, and in it is what you came for: a sample counter stamped with a date after the hospital was supposed to be empty.

What made it work: the danger was readable before it arrived, the build paid off because the crowd was dense, and the silence was earned rather than given. How it could fail: a crest that goes on too long becomes exhausting rather than exciting; bodies and effects bury the clue you came for; or the wall is always the safe line, so nobody ever takes the middle and the build never sings.

The four beats

Most fights follow a readable shape.

Wake. Something disturbs an occupied space — your arrival, noisy work, an alarm, a machine you started. You see sleeping bodies, moving shadows, opening doors, and you hear which routes are going to answer.
Gather. A slow majority fills the broad lanes. Faster packs take side routes, climbers come from ceilings and ducts, and a few heavy bodies bend the flow so you have to change course.
Crest. Two or three movement patterns overlap. You choose the dense line your build rewards, the safer line that protects your condition, or a costly retreat that spends oxygen and position. If you are working toward something that moves — a carriage, a rising lift, a walking scan — it keeps going through the fight rather than turning the room into a defence circle.
Break. The release is resolved: everything it sent into the room is cleared, or you complete a seal that closes its source. Killing faster than bodies arrive keeps a lane clear, but it does not stop a source that is still feeding. You can also get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area — that saves you, though it resolves nothing. Closing a source stops its incoming flow but leaves creatures already inside active. Once the current space is cleared or safely separated from them, the music and room silhouette release, and the lull belongs to looking, salvaging and deciding where to go.

Where crowds come from

Crowds come from source areas: wards, lift wells, ducts, flooded concourses, sealed volumes — places that physically hold bodies and connect to the route you are on. Bodies always arrive through routes you can see or hear, and no extra wave arrives because your build was efficient. A warned route can still carry enemies around or behind you.

Each source releases its crowd in stages: a finite surge the room announces, from a source you can identify. A stage commits when its announced attackers and arrivals are released. While it is feeding, out-killing it keeps a lane open but does not stop it. Once committed, it ends when you clear all its committed attackers or complete a physical seal that ends their access. Walking away ends your part in it, not the stage. A further stage exists only where the room announces and sources one — a machine waking, a new mouth opening. Finite sources are fine; what the design avoids is an encounter that is over after five enemies. Sources feed through apertures — grilles, hatches, ward doors, ducts — that are separate from the passages you walk through, so sealing one never closes a route you need.

Scale. In a broad ward, dock or gallery a developed crowd might show 80 to 150 bodies at once and pass several hundred through its full crest. A narrow corridor shows fewer at once but a continuous river through doors, lifts and ducts. A small room can host a short teaching moment — one new creature, one new warning — but the way to it still carries the crowd. Where a placed room is too small for the crowd its encounter needs, that is rework to do; Encounter And Mechanism Placement Inventory lists those obligations.

What wakes more

Noise and machinery wake the next stage. Loud work, alarms and a Caller that finishes its call can each wake an adjacent source, and its route is always shown before the crowd arrives. Cutting the alarm, stopping the Caller or completing a physical closure before the release commits prevents it. After commitment, cutting the alarm cannot recall attackers already released; completing a physical seal can still stop their access. Bodies already beyond that closure remain active.

Letting it happen can be a choice, too. A player with a strong build may want the second surge. Deliberately waking a large machine brings a much larger surge and often reveals new space — The Game shows one.

Earning quiet

Clearing the current space, or safely separating it from remaining threats, earns a lull: time to investigate, salvage and choose a route. The room shows whether each source is sealed, exhausted for the present surge or still able to release another announced stage. Clearing all committed attackers or sealing their access before the peak resolves that committed stage immediately. Creatures already beyond a completed seal remain dangerous until cleared or safely separated. Or you can simply get out past a bulkhead or outrun the woken area.

An occupied area next door can still send bodies through a visible route, with sound and door movement to warn you. Permanent seals remain closed. The arrangement and timing of further pressure must leave useful quiet for discovery; the rules for replenishment during an ongoing expedition remain to be designed. Returning home prepares fresh crowds for the next expedition, while permanent work remains done.

Growing stronger through fighting

Ordinary fighting supplies regular temporary combat growth. Larger transformations come at major horde milestones. Growth happens while the fight develops, so out-fighting an incoming crowd can strengthen the rig before its whole release is resolved. Major milestones mark bigger changes in what the build can do. Build Rules owns the upgrade effects and connections.

The exact growth meter, pickups, choice frequency and milestone conditions remain to be designed. Clearing or sealing a source still changes access and pressure, but a resolved stage no longer automatically defines the only ordinary award. Preventing a release gives safety and access; any additional reward for avoiding that fight, including an early seal, remains open.

Retreat preserves the temporary power already earned until the expedition ends. Leaving and re-entering a room does not by itself count as a new expedition. Reopening a seal or dying is not itself an ordinary fighting reward. Completed work keeps its owning persistence rule.

Rhythm. The intended climb begins during ordinary travel fights, changes the way the player handles denser crowds, and reaches larger transformations at major horde milestones. A new expedition renews both the opposition and the opportunity to grow, even on a route used before. Exact quantities and intervals are open. How it could fail: frequent choice screens interrupt the fight; growth arrives too late to affect it; or a milestone transformation feels like a reward after the exciting part rather than a new way to tackle what comes next.

Working under pressure

Some objectives are physical work: cutting bolts, turning a valve, framing a record. Prefer work that moves with you over work that pins you to a panel. When work does hold you in place, it shows its current stage, and every completed checkpoint stays done. You lose only the unfinished stage — by cancelling, being knocked off the control, or having a creature occupy it. Damage alone does not stop you. Capturing a record is all or nothing: interrupted before it commits, there is no record.

Coming home, dying and the next climb

An expedition ends when you are back aboard, whether you walked or revived.

Temporary combat upgrades end on every return home. Unchosen temporary offers expire too. Each expedition starts a fresh climb toward spectacular power.
Everything physical you carry comes home, even after death. Oxygen breathed and material consumed stay spent. Ordinary condition is restored for the next trip.
Combat areas refill for each new expedition. Renewed fighting supplies fresh temporary growth after living returns and revival alike. Previously defeated crowds and previously earned temporary awards do not leave later expeditions with permanently spent combat routes.
Permanent changes remain. Unlocked doors, selected room connections, completed permanent work and permanent source seals keep their states. The new population must use sources and routes consistent with those changes.
Walking home alive keeps the current room arrangement. It still leads to a new expedition with renewed crowds.
Dying shifts the unjoined station as well as ending the expedition. Unconnected areas gain new neighbours. Death carries no extra penalty beyond losing your position and any unfinished work; the new crowd is never a reaction to how well your build did.

A familiar route, a new climb. You return with a useful component after clearing the pressure hall. On the next expedition your temporary upgrades are gone, but the component is still yours and the door you unlocked stays open. Fresh enemies make the route a place to grow again. A permanent seal still blocks its former source, so the renewed encounter needs believable remaining approaches rather than reopening your completed work. How populations occupy these altered routes is the next placement task. The route should offer useful growth before its major encounter while retaining a viable approach for a player without a particular temporary upgrade. Hordes and Builds describes the intended power climb.

The creatures

Combat And Enemy Roster owns each creature's warning, action and recovery. In a crowd they play distinct parts. Pressers are the slow majority that fills the lane. Flankers are the fast packs on side routes. Callers wake the next stage. A Boltspitter demands a ranged line, a Clampcrawler occupies the control you are working, and a Veilbearer briefly hides the crowd behind it. Three special creatures — Bellback, Shutterback and Glass Siphon — change force, cover or your oxygen clock enough to deserve a featured entrance.

Everything attacks on sight, investigates recent noise and pursues what it saw, then searches locally and gives up. Nothing knows where you are without perceiving you, and nothing tracks you across the station.

A climax

The balance gallery is broad, and it is the right kind of room for a big fight. As you enter, a Bellback plants itself across a fixed rib, its chest filling for a pressure wave, while the two feeding mouths at the far end of the gallery are already crowded. The station's own machinery keeps time around you. A Breath Bank draws across one lane on a three-beat rhythm, and a balance chamber's two plates tilt toward whichever side carries more weight.

The stage pours from both mouths at once. The Bellback's wave shoves a dozen bodies onto one plate, the ribs swing, and the floor tips under you. A cautious player seals one mouth early, shelters at the rib and crosses on the Bank's quiet beat. A player with a crowd build steps into the neutral lane, lets the stage come to them — and releases.

In the quiet after, the chamber is still live. Freeing one rib takes two cutter releases, each a job that stays done once finished, and seating the pin then fixes that rib for good while the other still swings. On the far wall a mark matching the sample counter turns an old record into a lead.

How it could fail: three rhythms at once become unreadable, and the player dies to something they could not see coming.

Open questions

Target overrides and aim assistance, including whether nearest-visible stays the default.
Damage, health, warning timings and displacement.
Exact crowd sizes, performance and effect density on screen.
How renewed crowds occupy combat areas after permanent doors, joins and source seals change their routes.
How further pressure or replenishment works during an ongoing expedition, while preserving useful quiet.
Whether actual routes offer enough ordinary fighting and growth before major encounters.
What the upgrades do, their choice frequency and presentation, and what counts as a major transformation milestone.
Rewards for avoiding a fight or sealing a source before release.
Field healing and lasting injuries are not yet designed.