Hold the Flood — Coil

EQP101 · r2 · 2026-09-06 UTC · Equipment and Build Designer · Two-second power ruling integrated; shared effect details in review. Source: Design Document r14 / ec1b6c, §§4–6 and 8; World r20 / 7699de, W1 and price of the panel. Design Index · Expansion Brief · Glossary.

C1 — Full catalogue specification

Player action and trigger. Select Coil and discharge while the player stands in the connected water to be energized. Require a full linked battery; a dry target or insufficient charge refuses the action without spending. The player positions and times the discharge; there is no automatic firing whenever a battery fills.

Effect and target. Spend all ten units from the full linked bank. Inject current into the connected water for two seconds, following shared contract 59f895 §§2/4/10; withdraw r1’s eight-second power proposal (a7d2d5). The stun remains eight seconds. Equipment proposes sampling conductive bodies present at discharge, with that boundary completion awaiting Combat/Lead agreement. Connected powered devices work while a live source reaches them; a separately fixed-powered channel stays hot after the two-second Coil contribution expires. No enemy damage and no signal. Combat 91a866 accepts our old eight-second power number, so its table still needs this explicit amendment; EQP101 r2 effect disposition records it. Complete-ten fresh-body yield and pulse/overlap boundaries are specified in Inventory and the response, with pending details marked.

Space and resources. Two adjacent rack cells, rotated at shelter; a separate battery costs one more. Insulation adds a fourth if the player wants protection from the water they energize. A reserve bank adds a fifth but does not link in parallel; shelter rewiring remains necessary.

Visible information. Full-bank readiness; connected water and observed devices highlighted before firing; separate power remaining and stun recovery cues, because two seconds and eight seconds are different states. The power cue remains active while any fixed source still supplies the channel. Steady powered beacons never show a dispatch pulse. Separate remaining-yield markings from non-conductive Crust outlines; no reliance on tint alone or claim of verified readability.

Restrictions and price. No dry-ground mass stun, no signal generation, no intake change, no repeated charge from a spent crowd. Uninsulated users suffer the existing water hazard. A valve or cable may extend power to an unwanted beacon; do not secretly restrict it to the selected door. Partial charge never produces a weaker hidden discharge. Charged water can be abandoned, but money spent is not refunded.

Combinations and reasons to retain it. Coil + Insulation makes gathering inside a hot channel possible; second Battery saves more of a fresh harvest; Arc spends a separate bank during or after the control window; it cannot fit its full ten-second burst inside an eight-second stun. Cable Reel can extend its temporary power to a reachable terminal. The coil remains the catalogue's independent temporary power source and wet mass-control action; no later item upgrades those jobs away.

Acquisition. First visible machinery cache reachable with the free panel/valve route. Inspect to learn the recipe, pick up into a legal two-cell space, fit/link at shelter. Later machinery caches and workshop choice use the acquisition contract. It starts uncharged; early trigger opportunities must include reachable charge, not assume one Siphon fills an empty battery.

One route and one failure

Illustration: with panel on Causeway and its crowd holding at nearer B1, shut the junction valve and discharge in the isolated junction pool. The indicator and gate receive two seconds of power; B1’s crowd stays. A Coil-assisted crossing is valid only if the named operating position and doorway traversal actually fit that window. Do not assume a long run through successive gates fits it. The free alternative is opening the valve and powering the yard, accepting its crowd/water cost. Campaign must state a short crossing or a mechanical action that retains its progress; Equipment does not add an unapproved latch to rescue the example.

Counterplay using existing enemies: a crowd spreads across dry ground or has already shed. The coil can neither harvest that dry crowd nor fund a second wet stun from spent organisms. Use the cutter to thin a safe edge, attract a fresh crowd into water, or leave. “Harvest forty and refill both banks” elsewhere is conditional on fresh targets and actually reaching the motes, never a guaranteed result.

Integration delta

Retain two-cell size, full-bank spend, water propagation, shelter links and once-only yield. R1 alternative retained in history: eight seconds of power aligned with stun, at Coil a7d2d5. Adopt Lead’s two/eight split because it preserves a possible uninsulated collection choice after an isolated pulse while making Insulation valuable for sustained fixed power or Spark exposure. The shorter interval weakens machinery access and requires revised district examples; it is not an established balance improvement. EQP101 r2 effect disposition records the remaining Combat/Lead handoff.