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1 | # Hold The Horde — Equipment Catalogue |
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| 3 | **Status.** Provisional 12-part SMALL-band sample, not an approved content budget, starting inventory, progression, balance model or implementation. The owner has selected connected reusable parts, shared oxygen/equipment/loot capacity, carried-property return on death, mostly automatic ordinary fire and manual specials. The exact port grammar, rig growth, acquisition and every number below remain proposals. |
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| 5 | The worn emergency cutter and suit functions are not catalogue parts: they have no ports and do not provide a second automatic weapon. Ten entries preserve the eight illustrated Build Rules parts plus the selected opening’s Threat Sensor and Manual Trigger. Stride Switch and Vector Nozzle fill movement-event and spatial-control gaps without creating a stat tier. |
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| 7 | ## Reading the sample |
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| 9 | A **packet** contains a trigger and may carry charge, heat, force or fragments. A source creates a new external wave only when its rule says so. Descendants keep that wave; each part resolves at most once in it. Proposed cost is written **C/A**: overall carrying units / active rig spaces. An installed part pays its carrying cost once, not again as cargo. An inactive carried part pays C but no A. The opening parts use 1/1 so the current four-space reconfiguration remains legal; larger examples state their separate later-area assumption. |
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11 | For this sample, a receiver accepts a packet only when the link and type are valid, its readiness/storage can accept, and any required target is valid. A target-valid, ready Sensor/ordinary-actuator launch is **one external event and one wave**; Sensor output and the physical launch are not two waves. With a Fork behind Sensor, at least one ready ordinary actuator gates that event. Every branch then checks independently: a blocked branch neither buffers the packet nor creates another source event. Multiple ordinary actuators with different readiness remain a later controller-specification problem. |
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13 | Every discovery context identifies somewhere the behavior could be observed. It does **not** decide whether the player claims the functioning object, retrieves a damaged core, fabricates it after observation or receives an adapter. Found-part versus fabrication progression remains open. |
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| 15 | Parts compete directly with portable oxygen and loot. Voluntary return or death brings every still-carried part aboard; consumed Cycler material stays spent, while deliberately dropped or station-installed parts remain where placed without duplication. Field installation and rewiring use world time, and completed work persists under its owning rule. |
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| 17 | ## Twelve concise part briefs |
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| 19 | | Part | Ports and triggering behavior | Observable before a combination is known | Cost and situation-specific limit | Two candidate combinations or roles | Proposed discovery context | |
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| 21 | | **Threat Sensor** | Source; one target-bearing trigger output. When a valid hostile is in its shown arc, it offers the trigger whenever the connected ordinary actuator is ready; the target need not leave and re-enter. | Sweeping arc, target highlight and a repeated output pulse beside a moving training dummy. | **1/1.** Needs line of sight and a valid hostile; target override remains unchosen. It supplies no damage or payload. | Sensor → Projector for ordinary fire; Sensor → Fork for two target-conditioned actions. | Ship emergency rig; its arc can be checked against a dockside calibration target. | |
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| 22 | | **Manual Trigger** | Source; one trigger output. A deliberate mapped press starts a manual external wave; it cannot bypass a downstream part’s readiness. | Press, output flash and linked fixture response can be seen independently. | **1/1.** Occupies area that could automate another path and requires player timing. | Trigger → Barrier for faced defence; Trigger → Cycler for a chosen cargo-spending special. | Ship emergency rig beside the Barrier Plate control. | |
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| 23 | | **Pulse Projector** | One packet input; on a valid trigger while ready, launches its payload toward the selected valid target, or a weak force pulse if none is attached. Its launch is physical output, not a signal port. | Reach, readiness and a weak pulse against a service target. | **1/1.** One selected target, line of sight and world-time readiness; sparse angles or obstruction waste positioning, not ammunition. | Sensor → Projector for baseline fire; Capacitor → Thermal Lens → Projector for a manually released heat shot. | Ship rig or station service cradle; distinct from the unported worn cutter. | |
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| 24 | | **Barrier Plate** | One packet input; a trigger creates a short-lived directional barrier, while a charged trigger may create or refresh it. Enemy strikes on the plate are impact events. | Facing marker, brief wall and visible deformation when struck. | **1/1.** Can be bypassed, broken or faced poorly; its own barrier does not emit a new trigger. | Manual Trigger → Barrier as the opening special; Barrier impacts → Dynamo for Counterwall. | Ship emergency partition or a hospital crowd-control shutter test. | |
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25 | | **Impact Dynamo** | One local sensing clamp plus one charged-trigger output. The clamp attaches to one named impact carrier: a Barrier frame, a Projector’s physical-output feed or a fixture surface. It batches qualifying impacts there and emits once for that wave; it does not hear remote world impacts. | A door closer converts hits on its own plate into one charge flash even when fragments arrive together. | **1/1.** One attached carrier at a time; force, fragments and external strikes qualify, while arcs and heat do not unless converted. It cannot count a wave twice. | Projector impact feed → Dynamo → Arc; Barrier frame strikes → Dynamo → Capacitor. | Impact latch in a service door or bed-crash protector. | |
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| 26 | | **Fork Relay** | One packet input, two compatible outputs. It copies trigger, payload **type** and wave identity. A bare trigger reaches every accepting branch. For usable payload, the accepting branches receive shares whose total equals the incoming amount; exact split is open. | One service-board pulse visibly reaches two lamps, with invalid sockets refusing before commitment. | **1/1.** Only ready, compatible branches participate. If one is blocked, the other receives the full usable payload; a blocked share is never buffered. Packed Fork gives no benefit. | Sensor → Fork → Projector + Barrier uses a bare trigger; charged release → Fork → Barrier + Arc divides usable charge between both accepting receivers. | Loose in Cargo Turn’s maintenance cradle; may serve infrastructure or rig. | |
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27 | | **Capacitor** | Charged-packet input, stored-charge state, chosen release trigger and one charged output. Manual release starts a new wave; release caused by a rig packet retains that packet’s wave. Becoming ready emits nothing. | Rising meter, visible saturation and a controlled discharge into a dead load. | **1/1.** Needs charge, has finite proposed storage and may hold/vent/pass overflow only by its stated variant. Storage delays rather than multiplies energy. | Dynamo → Capacitor for horde-fed storage; manual release → Lens → Projector for a burst. | Defibrillator bank, door buffer or damaged core whose stored state stays visible. | |
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| 28 | | **Thermal Lens** | One charged-packet input and one packet output. Converts charge payload to heat while preserving the trigger and wave; it does not add a trigger. | A heat exchanger accepts a charge pulse and warms one marked output surface. | **1/1.** Spends the packet’s charge identity to make heat; heat is not impact and poor targets may resist or avoid it. | Capacitor → Lens → Projector for a stored heat shot; conductive Cycler response → Lens → Projector for cargo-fed heat. | Sterilization exchanger with inspectable input/output behavior. | |
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| 29 | | **Arc Emitter** | One charged-trigger input; when ready, arcs from the selected initial target across nearby valid targets. Arcs are physical effects, not new signal outputs. | A quarantine tool jumps between closely spaced conductive test points. | **2/2.** Expensive area/carrying footprint; weak with sparse or separated targets and cannot feed Dynamo as impact. | Dynamo charge → Arc for impact-fed clearing; Cycler conductive response → Fork → Arc + Capacitor. | Quarantine grid or visibly arcing repair tool. | |
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| 30 | | **Salvage Cycler** | Material bay, proposed activation-trigger input and one response-packet output. On valid activation it consumes the selected salvage and emits its inspected response: conductive charge, pressure force or brittle fragments. | Different scrap samples produce visibly different one-shot responses in a waste processor. | **2/2.** Permanently spends chosen salvage that could return home or serve projects; protected objectives refuse selection. Exact activation port is a catalogue proposal extending the source behavior. | Manual Trigger → Cycler → Projector for a chosen cargo shot; conductive Cycler → Fork → Arc + Capacitor. | Human waste processor or alien sorting machine; observation does not grant a recipe. | |
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| 31 | | **Stride Switch** | Source; one trigger output after the astronaut deliberately traverses a shown distance while grounded and the switch is ready. Rig-produced shove, knockback and conveyor motion do not count. | A rehab gait plate pulses after measured voluntary steps but ignores a rolling bed. | **1/1.** Silent while stationary, displaced or below threshold; its own descendants cannot walk it into retriggering. | Stride → Projector for kiting fire; Stride packet triggers a configured Capacitor release into Barrier while relocating. | Physical-therapy gait monitor or maintenance pace counter. | |
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32 | | **Vector Nozzle** | One packet input; when ready, vents along the player-set facing. It pushes eligible external bodies/objects away and gives the astronaut opposite recoil; a force payload increases both qualitatively. Collision impacts keep the incoming wave. | A decontamination air knife pushes loose covers while its frame kicks against its mount. | **2/2.** Needs facing and clearance; cannot move station regions, sealed machinery or designated immovable threats. Recoil and pushed motion cannot trigger Stride. | Face toward danger, Manual Trigger → Nozzle to separate astronaut and threat; Cycler pressure → Nozzle for cargo-fed lane control. | Decontamination curtain or gurney-positioning jet with a visible flow arrow. | |
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| 34 | The two new entries are behavior proposals, not implied owner choices. Their strongest value is qualitative: Stride makes deliberate movement an input, while Nozzle turns a packet into position. Neither is “the faster sensor” or “the stronger projector.” |
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36 | **Provisional Fork payload decision.** Split usable payload across accepting branches, with total output no greater than input; copy only trigger, type and wave identity. This is a legibility choice, not an owner requirement or claim about physical realism. Full-copy amplification remains the strongest alternative, but would require labelling Fork as an amplifier and costing that power rather than claiming no energy creation. Reopen after later authorized evidence or if amplification is deliberately chosen as part of the build fantasy. |
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38 | **Source reconciliation.** Progression Options once says Pulse Projector “automatically launches” without naming a controller; Build Rules and the selected opening give Projector a trigger input and explicitly use Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector. This catalogue follows the latter, current contract and treats the progression wording as omitted controller shorthand. If a self-triggering Projector was intended, the opening controller relationship would need an explicit new decision. |
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| 40 | ## Three legal causal sequences |
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42 | Capacitor retains Build Rules’ built-in chosen manual release; these examples do not add another Manual Trigger. Before discharge, the player faces/positions the relevant actuator and sees its selected valid target and readiness. With no acceptable first receiver, the release refuses before starting a wave or spending stored charge. Counterwall’s Arc therefore uses the nearest visible valid hostile in its faced reach; the heat-shot rewire uses Projector’s displayed target. |
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| 44 | **1. Four-space opening branch — optional reconfiguration.** Move Manual Trigger to inactive cargo, install the found Fork, and link **Threat Sensor → Fork → Pulse Projector + Barrier Plate**. Cost: 4 A and 4 C active, plus the inactive Manual Trigger still using 1 C. Projector readiness plus a valid target gates one Sensor/controller event and one wave; Fork copies that bare trigger. Projector fires, while a ready Barrier becomes sensor-timed; if Barrier is unready its branch does nothing and is not queued. This changes control and spends field-edit time; merely packing Fork has no combat effect. |
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46 | **2. Six-space later Counterwall — defence becomes storage.** Under a replaceable later **6 A** assumption, install Manual Trigger (1), Barrier (1), Dynamo (1), Capacitor (1) and Arc Emitter (2). Manual Trigger → Barrier is a faced manual special. Dynamo’s clamp is attached to that Barrier frame. Each later enemy strike is a separate external event; Dynamo emits one charged trigger for that strike’s wave, and Capacitor stores it. A later built-in manual Capacitor release starts a new wave into the ready, targeted Arc. The rig trades all six spaces/units for faced defence and dense-target discharge; attacks stopping, barrier failure, sparse enemies or saturation break its payoff. |
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48 | **3. Eight-space later heat-lance network — attack becomes a future shot.** Under a separate replaceable **8 A** assumption, Threat Sensor (1) and ready Pulse Projector (1) create one ordinary launch wave. Dynamo (1), clamped to Projector’s impact feed, sends charge through Fork (1) to ready Arc Emitter (2) and unsaturated Capacitor (1). Under the provisional split, Arc receives and spends one share while Capacitor stores the other; success is conditional on each share meeting its receiver’s eventual threshold. The player then pays for a world-time rewire, disconnecting Sensor from Projector and linking built-in manual Capacitor release → Thermal Lens (1) → Projector. One later release makes one targeted heated shot. No input is shared and no payload is duplicated. |
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| 50 | ## Why feedback stops |
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52 | The tempting loop is **Projector impact → Dynamo → Fork → Projector**. It does not recurse. The returned packet is descended from the original launch wave; Dynamo has already emitted once for that wave and Projector has already resolved and spent readiness. A returning signal therefore stops. Payload splitting changes neither ancestry nor readiness, and a blocked branch buffers nothing. Adding Capacitor does not make storage readiness an event. Only its configured manual release starts a later wave, and rig-triggered release remains in the incoming wave. Enemy attacks may sustain Counterwall as distinct external waves, but only while enemies keep striking and the barrier, storage and downstream readiness hold. |
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| 54 | ## Station use without hidden answers |
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| 56 | A part may fit a visibly compatible service port: Fork can split a service pulse, Dynamo can expose an impact response, and Nozzle can test a pressure path. Installation uses world time and leaves the part outside carried property; completed work and installed state follow their owning persistence rules. Individual behavior and direct-port validity may be shown. A part name or port never translates alien text, identifies an unseen destination, proves a historical interpretation or chooses the whole-station binding mechanism. |
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| 58 | ## Uncertainty, self-check and scope |
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60 | Open questions include acquisition model, later active area, part shapes, port multiplicity, exact Fork share/threshold tuning, readiness across multiple ordinary branches, storage/overflow, targeting overrides, fixture eligibility, removal consequences and discovery order. The sequences above were checked against their stated C/A totals, packet ancestry, once-per-wave resolution, readiness, manual/automatic source, and carried-versus-installed cost. They are paper traces, not simulated evidence of clarity, power or balance. |
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| 62 | **First-pass package planning envelope:** Systems authoring **10–16 role-hours**, one independent review **3–5**, and one bounded response **2–4**; **15–25 role-hours total**. The author range maps inside the Whole Game Outline’s 10–18-hour author-only catalogue allowance; review/response are additional and must not be counted again as that allowance. These are planning estimates, not logged work or throughput. |
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| 64 | **Later detailed SMALL catalogue specification:** Systems authoring **36–60 role-hours**, review **8–12**, response **4–6**; **48–78 role-hours total**. Unique work would define per-part port diagrams, state/overflow variants, source-placement alternatives, legal-link matrix and authored edge cases. It excludes UI-owned cue/accessibility presentation, acquisition economy, implementation, assets, numerical tuning and playtesting. TARGET/STRETCH expansion remains unestimated until reuse and per-part authoring cost are known. |
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| 66 | Later owner-authorised implementation and real-player observation must establish whether individual parts are legible, the four-space swap is discovered, combinations remain expressive without one dominant path, costs compete meaningfully with oxygen and loot, field edits are usable under pressure, and rare station uses feel revelatory rather than like metadata keys. None is established here. |
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