Hold The Horde — Design Plan

The team is designing a discovery-first survivorlike under the Owner Brief, with expressive builds, meaningful hordes and an authored colony. The work below is design only. Written comparisons establish a proposal and its dependencies; they do not demonstrate fun, readability, balance, production feasibility or campaign duration.

Current milestone: coming home

One ordinary return, one scarce material choice and the following departure should show a home community whose people have specific wishes and contributions. All three independent home positions were saved before peer conclusions, read and hash-verified, then jointly released unchanged195–197. The proposals can combine personal commitments and shared projects; similar preferences are not a vote or proof of emotional impact.

Assignment198 gives complete parallel outcomes and a preauthorised review. Systems posts an early interface; authors self-check actual sources, guard and verify publication, report exact dependencies and stop article edits. PM then assesses the actual work and review, coordinates one focused response if needed and makes a provisional disposition. No unanimity round or extra independent checkpoint is required.

Coming Home199 is submitted and the preauthorised review has begun. Systems201 identified a concrete issue for the combined review: the permitted listen-pack-reclaim sequence can retain the information, improved canisters and relay, so the scene must not claim an unestablished lasting commitment. Home Projects is still being finished; PM will assess the actual pair and one focused response.

While this review proceeds, Lead202 independently prepares two explicit central-mystery frameworks connecting or separating the station, revival and escape. This is narrative proposal work within the design phase. It does not adopt an answer as owner canon: all roles will save independent options before a joint release, and the owner will receive a concrete comparison before the central direction is committed. Existing local-example restrictions are not a ban on this newly bounded narrative task.

A project needs an actual before/after benefit or human consequence. Ship oxygen remains unlimited, a shipboard bench cannot inspect unreturned salvage without a stated information channel, and a recovered part cannot remain simultaneously installed. Sequential use can be a legitimate choice. Preserve readable equipment information, attributed character knowledge and optional postponement. Emotional attachment, relative content cost and whether a one-time project feels like a chore remain untested.

This is no full colony economy, new cast, campaign or central-mystery answer. No mandatory upkeep, offline timer, home raid or irreversible person/relationship loss is adopted. No implementation, simulation, playtest, numerical tuning, art or purchasing is authorized.

Completed written foundations

• Expedition Proposal and Build Comparison: a provisional sortie with observed glyph evidence, contrasting equipment/cargo builds, carrying choices and a survivor interpreting a player-shown clue. The particular notebook use and survivor contribution do not prohibit other uses or cast roles. The comparison's inspection and activation wording now matches the later build rules.
• Oxygen and Observation: provisionally integrated record/display proposal. The owner decided that opening the journal pauses the rest of the game, including enemies and oxygen during combat; that requirement is in the brief. Other journal details and the wider oxygen rhythm remain proposed.
• Death and Persistence: working proposal for persistent recoverable caches and retained records. Equipment availability and recovery journeys are costs. The suit baseline proposed in Build Rules answers the minimum-expedition dependency on paper; actual reach, part supply, abandonment and recovery viability remain unvalidated.
• Exploration Structure: provisionally integrated fixed geometry with varying state, reach and access, concrete goal examples and narrative reinterpretation. Stable anchors with varying connections remain a credible alternative. Player changes survive ordinary resets, but operating infrastructure depends on its stated power and installed parts.
• Build Rules: provisionally integrated connected equipment grammar, illustrative shared-part builds, causal-event rules and suit baseline. Navigation records traversed breadcrumbs without promising an unseen safe route; local equipment previews remain understandable while learned families help with unfamiliar objects and preparation. Fields, capacities and performance are not tuned or validated.

The foundations milestone closed after review125, coordinated responses and final PM consistency edits, disposition137. Article ownership is Lead for Expedition, Exploration and Death; Systems for Build Comparison, Build Rules and Oxygen. No further broad foundations review is pending. Their working proposals can be reopened for a concrete contradiction, owner preference or later authorized evidence.

Rescue and Home and Rescue Rules are provisionally integrated after focused review and response, disposition158. The Dorn example combines traces, an expressed route preference, cooperative crossings and a home contribution. Air handover, current-refuge death, a finite route and a resealable final abort vestibule are explicit. Continuous escort remains credible; no global survivor-loss rule or proven emotional impact follows. Ownership is Lead for the story and Systems for the rules.

Horde Encounters and Combat Rules are provisionally integrated after focused review, response and final consistency edits, disposition174. Route crowds and selectively contested work are the working rhythm; a cleared route does not erase a door caller or prevent later cued movement. Completed work persists and withdrawal depends on actual occupants and pursuit. The owner's mostly automatic ordinary fire and manual specials are required; nearest-valid targeting and readiness are proposed details. The observed alcove anomaly is available to avoidance too. Carrying, salvage and condition costs are explicit, with no guaranteed escape or established cheapness claim. Lead owns the encounters and Systems the rules. No broad second combat review is pending; fun, frequency, balance and control readability remain unvalidated.

Discovery Chain and Clues and Help are provisionally integrated after review184, response186 and final PM corrections, disposition194. Repeated marked crawlways and an ordinary marked passage support candidate wall access; they do not prove translation or builder intent. A landmark sightline makes attempting a bypass reasoned without guaranteeing connectivity. Early truthful survivor interpretation and an unaided route both remain available. Panel checkpoints and records persist; failed expectations must be interpreted from visible evidence, not automatically explained away. One small fragment/use case does not fulfil a language requirement. Ownership returns to Lead for the chain and Systems for the help contract. No broad second review is pending. Older build examples now reflect the owner's mostly automatic ordinary fire and manual specials.

Acceptance and remaining scope

A useful design preserves the astronaut, hostile station, limited carried oxygen, unexplained revival and growing authored colony. It gives clear information and immediate options while leaving room for open-ended exploration and discoveries about people, history and mechanisms. Builds may become spectacular without manufactured symmetrical weaknesses. Requirements, proposals, dependencies and observations must remain distinct.

The revival cause, station history, escape solution, language details, full rescue/colony systems, exact equipment economy, numerical oxygen rules and campaign content scope remain open. The 30/90/100–200 hour ambitions remain unproven. No implementation, simulations, prototypes, playtests or game assets are authorized.

PM coordinates ready handoffs during active sessions, with one-minute scheduled checks as a fallback while useful authorized work remains. Hourly checks apply only when no such work can continue. The Team page records the working agreement. Add specialist capacity only for a concrete useful need; duplicate work and idle queues are not progress.