Hold The Horde — Equipment Acquisition And Rig Growth

What is selected and what is proposed

The owner has decided what a part is after the player has it (see the Owner Brief): one reusable object can be linked into different builds; active and inactive carried parts compete with oxygen and loot once; everything still carried returns on death. These decisions do not say where parts come from, and they grant no tier ladder.

This page's default is functioning parts found in specific station fixtures. The player first observes a machine's individual action and ports, then decides whether to remove that exact object. Removal disables only the named local function while the part is absent, never erases completed work, and must be reversible by reinstalling the same instance. A part may instead be left, revisited, or installed for infrastructure. Irregular access and carrying pressure make discovery physical, while no part below is required to complete its hosting objective.

The alternative is observation-led fabrication. A no-survivor ship bench would require a recorded working exemplar and its ports, then consume a set amount and type of returned salvage to create one new object instance. Another copy would require the same real cost and is neither common nor guaranteed. This makes a desired build more targetable, but adds a bench state, twelve pattern records, material requirements, duplicate interactions and the risk that exploration becomes shopping. Under the found-part default, the bench keeps only a narrow recovery-valve operation template: after the same observations, it may repair a recovered damaged core or make one explicitly paired station-port adapter. It cannot print an intact catalogue part from a note or redefine the separate persistent room-join rule.

Found parts are preferred here because they make removal, carrying and return part of the discovery, reuse the Regional map, and add less recipe/material bookkeeping. Fabrication should replace that spine only if the owner prefers targeted planning enough to accept its content and economy cost.

Twelve source and use paths

The first four rows are the Survival opening kit, installed aboard the ship at the start. Every later source can be inspected and left in place; the worn cutter or its room's ordinary controls expose it after the objective's normal access, so no acquisition requires that same part or a later part first.

Part	Initial possession or concrete source/lead	Observable individual behaviour	Removal or installation consequence	Next useful change; miss/revisit
Threat Sensor	Installed opening kit aboard the ship.	Its dock calibration arc highlights a moving hostile dummy and offers a repeated target-bearing pulse only when a ready ordinary actuator can accept it.	Moving it inactive suspends automatic target events but disables no station fixture.	Sensor → Projector gives ordinary automatic fire; Sensor → Fork can later condition two ready branches. The cutter remains basic defence if the Sensor is packed inactive.
Manual Trigger	Installed opening kit beside the ship's Barrier control.	A press produces one visible output flash and one linked response; it cannot bypass downstream readiness.	Moving it inactive removes that mapped special until reinstalled, while still consuming carrying capacity.	Trigger → Barrier gives the opening faced special; later it deliberately activates Nozzle or Cycler.
Pulse Projector	Installed opening rig, separate from the unported worn cutter.	A ship service target shows reach, readiness and the weak force pulse produced by a bare trigger.	Inactive Projector removes the rig's ordinary shot; the worn cutter remains available but cannot join a cascade.	Sensor → Projector is the baseline; later a local Dynamo clamp can convert its impacts to charge or Lens can give it heat payload.
Barrier Plate	Installed opening kit, tested against the ship emergency partition.	Facing, a brief wall and deformation from a test strike are visible before any Counterwall theory.	Packing it inactive removes the directional rig barrier; it is not the station partition itself.	Manual → Barrier protects work; enemy strikes on its frame can later feed a locally clamped Dynamo.
Fork Relay	Regional objective 1, Collar isolation: the loose working relay in Cargo Turn's maintenance cradle.	One service-board pulse reaches two lamps; invalid sockets refuse before commitment.	Removing it gives a rig part but leaves the rack/shutter tradeoff to the board selector. Leaving it installed powers the selected fixture and records that exact location; reclaiming it later removes that benefit.	At four spaces, Sensor → Fork → Projector + Barrier changes control without increasing area. If left behind, the opening Sensor/Projector and Manual/Barrier chains remain capable, and the same Fork can be revisited when Cargo Turn is reachable—no duplicate is promised.
Stride Switch	Regional objective 2, Pace calibration: the detachable switch beside the gait/service-belt comparison.	The same astronaut's voluntary grounded crossing pulses; conveyor-carried motion does not.	Removal turns off that local counter, not navigation or the completed calibration record.	Stride → Projector makes relocation an input; a configured Stride packet may trigger Capacitor release into Barrier. Leaving it costs no objective progress and preserves the fixture.
Arc Emitter	Regional objective 4, R-3 crossing: one rig-scale emitter in the quarantine threshold at R-3.	Its repair mode jumps visibly among closely spaced conductive test points.	Removal disables that local arc grid while absent. Hard cover and the existing one-junction rescue preparation remain; rescue never requires taking it or any survivor.	Dynamo charge → Arc turns local impacts into dense-horde clearing; a charged Cycler branch can also feed it. A no-survivor visit can inspect or claim it before, after or without the rescue.
Thermal Lens	Regional objective 5, Builders' runs: the cable junction's marked sterilisation exchanger.	A charge pulse warms one marked output while preserving the same visible pulse cadence.	Removing the Lens leaves the exchanger cold while absent, but the builder marks, A/B plate and workstation comparison stay available.	Capacitor → Lens → Projector yields a chosen heat shot; conductive Cycler response can later be converted instead. Missing it leaves force and arc paths complete, and its recorded fixture can be revisited.
Impact Dynamo	Regional objective 6, Pressure ledger: the working clamp on the abandoned sampling loop.	Hits on its own plate produce one batched charge flash for their causal wave; remote impacts do nothing.	Removal ends that local sampling shortcut but preserves freed caps, ledger evidence and other completed work. Reinstalling the same instance restores only that fixture function.	Clamp it to one Barrier frame or Projector physical-output feed, then route its charged trigger to Capacitor or Arc. If left, the pressure objective remains completable and other rigs still work.
Salvage Cycler	Regional objective 7, Transfer pairs: the material bay at one of the three visible one-way-transfer sites.	Selected conductive, pressure or brittle samples produce distinct visible one-shot responses; observation grants no hidden recipe.	Removing its detachable chamber stops that sorter's response but does not erase the already observed transfer or the other two directional cases.	Manual → Cycler → Projector creates a chosen cargo-spending shot; conductive output can later branch to Arc/storage. Leaving it preserves salvage and avoids a consumption build.
Vector Nozzle	Regional objective 8, Balance and decontamination: the decontamination air knife, the objective's part reward.	Its shown facing pushes loose covers and kicks against its mount; sealed machinery and regions do not move.	Removing it disables that powered air knife while absent. The completed cap/pin and the timing/hard-cover route remain usable.	Manual → Nozzle creates deliberate lane separation and recoil; Cycler pressure can strengthen that positional action. The four-space Barrier alternative handles the same valve more slowly if Nozzle is missed or left.
Capacitor	Regional objective 9, Regulator reply: the visible buffer component exposed by the R4 pull under the found-part default.	Its meter rises, shows saturation and discharges into a dead load without emitting merely because it became ready.	Removal disables the regulator's buffered discharge/quick reset while absent; the completed pull, seated plate and written lines persist.	Dynamo → Capacitor banks repeated external impacts; its built-in chosen manual release can feed Arc, Barrier or Lens/Projector. Direct Dynamo → Arc and ordinary strip work remain if it is left.

These placements add three equipment-source fixtures—the R-3 quarantine emitter, the cable-junction sterilisation exchanger and one transfer-site Cycler—inside the existing objective rooms 4, 5 and 7.

Rig space and operating supply grow separately from carrying

The ten-unit overall carrying example is unchanged: every active or inactive part pays its catalogue C once, canisters use their separate carrying cost, and suit oxygen does not become rig power. Active rig area limits how many already-carried parts can be mounted. A separate visible operating supply limits the demand that can overlap. The same ship configurations provide both; neither grants more carrying space or stored charge. Here C means carrying units, A means mounted rig spaces and P means simultaneous operating demand.

4 A / 6 P opening: the ship's emergency backplane supports the four 1 A starter parts. Learning to face Barrier well, time its manual source or replace Manual with the found Fork changes use without granting space.
6 A / 8 P optional configuration: installing objective 2's recovered 2 C navigation coupler aboard exposes two additional readable signal positions and raises the visible operating supply from 6 to 8 P. Installation is a completed persistent ship state. The player first has to reach the calibration bay and bring the assembly home while it competes with oxygen, Stride and loot.
8 A / 10 P optional configuration: with that coupler still installed, installing objective 8's recovered 2 C thermal exchanger core exposes two further positions and raises the visible operating supply from 8 to 10 P. The player must discover, free and carry that second assembly; no timer, repeated resource payment or character level unlocks it.

Both assembly installations are reversible only at the ship. Before reclaiming one, the player must move active parts until the rig fits the remaining area and check that every possible overlapping operating state fits the remaining supply; the assembly then becomes one stored or carried object and the corresponding ship-readiness function becomes incomplete. Nothing is destroyed and no home loan is charged as abandonment. The assemblies' virtue is one visible discovery/packing/ship-commit chain; their risk is making two regional rewards feel obligatory. Reopen the source if other viable builds cannot remain credible at 4 A / 6 P or if ship readiness becomes an unwanted build ladder.

Under ten C, an 8 C active rig plus one 2 C canister leaves no room for new loot. A player may deliberately field four or five active spaces late to preserve oxygen and discoveries.

Permanent equipment, temporary power and knowledge

These are separate forms of progress:

Permanent equipment: a physical reusable part carried aboard remains in the collection. Taking it still costs room that could hold oxygen or salvage.
Temporary expedition power: regular fighting supplies growth, and major horde milestones provide larger transformations of the active rig. Exact award cadence and conditions remain open. Every temporary upgrade and every earned-but-unchosen offer resets when the astronaut returns aboard, alive or revived.
Knowledge: observed part behaviour, source locations, crowd traits and useful combinations remain recorded. Knowledge neither creates a part nor preserves a temporary upgrade; it lets the player plan the next fresh climb.

Combat Rules owns regular fighting growth, major horde transformations and the exact questions still to design. Clearing or sealing a physical source changes pressure and access; any additional reward for preventing a fight remains open. Retreat keeps temporary power already earned until the expedition ends.

Each new expedition renews crowds and growth opportunities after living return or revival. Permanent doors, joins, source seals, completed work and equipment locations retain their owning states. Fresh combat must fit those changes. Leaving and re-entering a room, or loading the same ongoing expedition, does not by itself create another expedition.

Three later rigs and their packing choices

Costs below use the existing carrying and mounted-space values. Each base needs the 8 A configuration to mount in full. Several ordinary outputs are legal when the installed rig, carrying manifest and visible operating supply support them. Each automatic actuator keeps its own target and readiness. A possible operating state must fit its full power and heat requirements; each disc keeps its operating reservation through its last fragment. Heat is reserved for the complete action at commitment; later contacts and fragments spend no additional heat. Mutually gated charging and discharge states are checked separately, including work already in flight. Mechanical Interfaces owns the numerical overlap checks, heat and physical coverage contracts.

Storm Choir — seven carrying and mounted spaces

Permanent base. Threat Sensor 1→Pulse Projector 1 supplies ordinary fire. Impact Dynamo 1 clamps to Projector's physical-output feed and emits 2 U through Fork Relay 1→Arc Emitter 2 + Capacitor 1. These six existing parts total 7 C / 7 A. With both branches eligible, Arc receives 1 U and Capacitor stores 1 U per eligible Projector wave; blocked branches follow Fork's existing allocation rule (pre-allocation candidates and conservative division). With one 2 C canister, the manifest uses nine of ten carrying units and leaves one for a discovery.

Temporary development. The base Arc follows one chain through at most six bodies. Echoing Arc adds two branch routes under the same nearby-hop and cover rules, for at most 18 unique bodies in the action; it creates no signal output or usable charge. Thunderhead supplies a gated full-store manual mode on these same six parts: Capacitor→Fork→Arc + Projector. With both branches eligible, the 4 U store divides 2/2 between three Arc chain heads and one pressure lance. With Echoing Arc present, the combined ceiling is 30 Arc bodies plus 12 lance bodies, at most 42 unique bodies when the paths do not overlap.

Packed, mutually visible bodies reward crossing toward density before the release. Sparse targets and hard cover can break the routes. Arc, Fork and storage occupy space that could support defence; this base has no Barrier. Burst descendants cannot refill the store when charging mode returns.

Ricochet Foundry — seven carrying and mounted spaces

Permanent base. Threat Sensor 1→Pulse Projector 1 supplies ordinary fire; Impact Dynamo 1 clamps to its physical-output feed→Capacitor 1. Manual Trigger 1→Vector Nozzle 2 supplies the separate faced shove. These six existing parts total 7 C / 7 A, or nine of ten carrying units with one 2 C canister. The original launch can contribute to Dynamo only once, however many later contacts it makes.

Temporary development. Rebound Disc changes an ordinary shot into one physical flight that follows its committed direction. A stationary hard face banks it only where the preview shows a clear outgoing reflection and a rebound remains; other endings are shown terminals. Distance, time, rebounds and body contacts limit its path. Fragment Wake adds one forward fan at every normal terminal, including body/time limits, for at most 30 unique bodies per disc and fan together. Foundry Drop gives the same rig a gated full-store command: Capacitor→Projector dispatches one longer master disc and fan, with at most 48 unique body contacts in total. The master uses the same bank and normal-terminal rules. Each disc keeps its one operating reservation through the last fragment; restoring automatic fire includes every remaining ordinary/master reservation. The three ordinary slots and single master slot remain occupied through those fragments. The opening Rebound/Barrier interlock and all slot/command checks are defined in Mechanical Interfaces.

The player runs to improve the next angle and uses Nozzle to move eligible bodies or loose cover. Nozzle never steers a disc; spending it on setup may remove an escape tool. Open rooms, soft or irregular surfaces and poor reflected paths shorten useful routes; a terminal fan aimed into cover may reach few bodies. The rig spends the spaces Storm Choir uses for Fork and Arc on Manual and Nozzle and likewise has no Barrier. An optional paused relink for Capacitor's ordinary chosen release remains possible; Foundry Drop itself needs no journal edit per burst.

Gravity Furnace — eight carrying and mounted spaces

Permanent base. Stride Switch 1→Vector Nozzle 2 supplies deliberate outward movement pulses. Threat Sensor 1→Pulse Projector 1 fires separately; Impact Dynamo 1 clamps to Projector's output→Capacitor 1. Thermal Lens 1 is mounted for later conversion. These seven existing parts total 8 C / 8 A. One 2 C canister fills all ten carrying units: there is no Barrier or free salvage space.

Temporary development. Inward Draft reverses only a Stride-sourced Nozzle action into a rear pull with limited angle, reach and displacement. Each fresh deliberate traversal can affect at most twelve eligible bodies with clear lines of effect; forced motion cannot trigger another traversal. Furnace Burst gates new Sensor and Stride launches and spends the full store through Capacitor→Thermal Lens→Projector. The heat lance can reach sixteen bodies; its terminating bloom can reach thirty-two additional bodies with sight to the impact, for at most 48 unique bodies overall. Pulls and burst descendants create no usable charge.

Running gathers a dangerous wake. The player chooses whether to hold it for a larger release or fire early to escape. Fixed or sealed objects stay put, hard cover divides the pull and bloom, and ranged enemies remain dangerous. The same seven physical parts stay mounted throughout this development.

Returning to ordinary fire and returning home

Thunderhead, Foundry Drop and Furnace Burst each use Capacitor's built-in chosen-release control. Capacitor ordinarily stores 0–4 U and releases 2 U. A full store makes a brief visible manual opportunity available at the next instant all required actuators are naturally ready, before automatic fire consumes them. An early press arms only that opportunity, with no charge or heat spent. Receiver, target, route and complete power/heat overlap still have to pass. Cancellation, refusal or lapse releases ordinary fire without spending; after a lapse another hold requires a new press. Acceptance spends all 4 U; a later miss, obstruction or receiver refusal gives no refund. Charging restores automatically after dispatch without granting readiness or clearing existing effects. Disc reservations last through their fans; a finishing Arc still consumes its demand and remains unavailable to a new Arc action. Straight Thunderhead/Furnace lances resolve during dispatch. Every burst descendant remains ineligible to refill storage through Dynamo. Ordinary independent impacts must recharge the next burst.

These are contrasting later directions that the player may hybridize or stop developing early. Their ordered transformations choose behaviours, not a reward frequency.

Property lifecycle

State/action	One-instance transition and capacity	Voluntary return or death	Function and reversal
Found part at source	Remains one world-source object until pickup commits. Capacity is checked first; refusal leaves it visibly in place.	It does not return if pickup did not commit. Once carried, the same instance returns.	Its source fixture continues or loses only the function named above.
Installed station fixture part	Completed installation moves the object out of carried property; it uses no C/A in the rig.	It remains attached to its stable fixture through return/death and a shift; it is never also aboard.	Function exists only while that instance is present. Reclaim happens while the game runs, needs a capacity check and may remove the function.
Reclaimed or inactive part	Completed removal makes the same object carried; active installation pays its C once plus A, inactive carriage pays C and no A.	Everything still carried returns aboard once, preserving active/inactive substate.	Ship rearrangement is safe. In the station, mounting or removing the physical part takes time while the game runs; compatible link edits among mounted, accessible parts occur in the fully paused journal and do not alter ownership or capacity.
Dropped part	Completed drop gives it one recorded station location and removes it from carrying/rig use.	Death does not move or duplicate it; the station shifts and the old route becomes historical.	A later reachable visit may reclaim it. Convenient adjacency is never promised.
Duplicate	Exists only as a separate found or fabricated object with its own identity, source and full C/A cost.	Each actually carried instance returns once; no collection, install or death creates another.	Duplicate legality, stacking and frequency are open per-part questions.
Consumed material	Cycler activation or a committed fabrication/repair step moves only the stated material to consumed.	It never returns on living return or death. Unspent carried salvage does.	Cancelled/uncommitted work spends nothing; protected objectives refuse selection.
Damaged core repaired	The bench consumes named material and changes that same core instance to working after its observed behavior/ports are recorded.	If carried after completion it returns; if the step is incomplete, the core and unspent material remain in their last committed states.	Repair creates no second part and grants no unobserved pattern.
Paired service adapter	Under the narrow valve, one adapter is made only after both exact station ports are inspected. It is a reusable service object, 1 C when carried and no active-rig A; material spent to make it stays spent.	Carried adapter returns; an installed or dropped adapter remains there.	It bridges only that named pair, never supplies power, translates text or becomes a universal free part. Removing it ends that connection.

If a future home project borrows a reusable part, the manifest shows that exact home-fixture location and its observable function. The player may reclaim it safely before departure; the home function then becomes unavailable until it is returned. A loan is never consumption, upkeep, a permanent abandonment charge or a duplicate.

One changed expedition — pressure work after the air knife

Before objective 8, the player can reach the pressure loop with the four-space Sensor/Projector plus Manual/Barrier rig. It can protect one Breath Bank cap window, but it cannot deliberately push bodies into the announced draw lane; holding and withdrawing are slower and expose the hand-cycle longer.

At the decontamination objective, the player sees the mounted air knife push loose covers along its arrow and recoil against its frame. After completing a cap/pin checkpoint, they remove the Vector Nozzle. The local powered shove stops, while the persistent cap/pin and the hard-cover/timing route remain. Back aboard, no survivor or translation is required to inspect its facing and ports. Under the optional 6 A configuration, the player packs Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector for ordinary automatic fire and Manual Trigger → Vector Nozzle as the deliberate special: 5 C / 5 A. With one 2 C canister, three of ten carrying units remain free.

At Regional objective 6, mechanical gauges and an actually reachable long approach establish the no-language baseline. During the valve horde, Projector fires only at a valid shown target when ready; Manual → Nozzle shoves eligible bodies into the draw lane and recoils the astronaut away from contact. That positional action was unavailable to the opening rig. It does not move rooms, sealed machinery or designated immovable threats, and its collision descendants retain the same wave. The player can now complete the hand-cycle with less exposure if execution and geometry cooperate.

After completed pickups, the 1 C Dynamo and 2 C regulator core fill the remaining three units exactly. A deliberate death at that point legitimately returns the 5 C active rig, the carried canister in its current fill state, Dynamo and regulator core once each; oxygen already breathed stays spent, the removed Nozzle is not duplicated at its old fixture, and the station shifts. A living return brings the same manifest without a shift. Death before either pickup commits does not collect it.

The lateral alternative remains meaningful: leave Nozzle installed and take the four-space Sensor/Projector plus Manual/Barrier rig. Use hard cover, the Breath Bank tell and one persistent cap checkpoint, then withdraw or return for another attempt. It has less positional control but one more carrying unit free and preserves the decontamination air knife. Journal comparison and compatible link edits fully pause enemies, oxygen and readiness. The journal never performs the live pickup, physical mounting or removal, fixture operation, valve work or movement that makes a link possible. The nearby R-3 rescue, if attempted, stays one short cooperative crossing.

No-survivor baseline and optional home help

Every listed source, observation, removal, rig assembly, area configuration and return works with an empty ship: visible mechanics and recorded evidence provide the leads, and the recovery bench is ship equipment. No survivor is required to translate, fabricate, repair, grant active area or find an unseen route. Survivor-dependent colony upgrades and story relationships elsewhere are unaffected by this.

A survivor may annotate a known fixture record, remember which owned object is on loan, or help compare two already captured observations. Such help may reduce safe home organisation or point back to an existing lead, but it creates no item, pattern, slot or present-route knowledge. The same action and result remain available without them.

Parent alignment, scope and unresolved interfaces

Equipment Catalogue defines part behavior and receiver acceptance; Build Rules defines linked-build grammar; Progression Options compares acquisition approaches. This article owns the twelve source paths, the rig configurations and the property transitions. Mechanical Interfaces supplies the operating demand, heat, coverage and release quantities.

Open questions

Acquisition method: the owner has not chosen between found parts (this page's default) and observation-led fabrication.
Exact regular-growth meter, thresholds, pickups, choice frequency and major-milestone conditions; rewards for avoiding fights. The owner has selected regular fighting growth and larger horde transformations.
The true starting kit, carrying and active-area values.
Whether the navigation coupler and thermal exchanger core should be the assemblies that control area and supply; alternatives or tuning to the assembly and objective-item sizes.
Tuning or replacement of the operating supply, heat and effect budgets.
Part quantities, duplicate legality, stacking and frequency (per part), and salvage availability.
Which fixtures may be stripped and their recovery geometry, including the exact geometry, recovery access and encounter placement of the three added source fixtures, which the room/mechanism inventory must place.
The repair/paired-adapter operation template is not a usable missing-item route until its exemplar or port pair, material requirement, source and recovery path are designed.
Adapter presentation.
Where the next eligible frontier lies after a reset needs route/content support; no quick first choice after reset is guaranteed.
Whether stored Capacitor charge persists across an expedition boundary.
Alternate overflow, readiness and target policies.
Alive-return population behaviour.
Ship-readiness interaction.
Optional home projects and cast.
Final shift, story, corruption and ending rules.
These rules are untested; numbers are proposals.