Hold The Horde — Regional Discovery Map
Status. A four-region, twelve-objective SMALL planning proposal, not owner-approved scope, fixed geography, campaign duration, story truth, cast choice, ending, or content-complete map. Region names and all objective placements after the selected opening are replaceable. Found functioning parts are the provisional acquisition default only. The station shifts after every death; selected joins and completed work persist, while old routes become historical.
How to read dependencies in a shifting station
An objective dependency is a fact, carried object, completed change, or tested working rule required to make an action intelligible. It is never a promise that two rooms will be adjacent after death. When an eligible objective's room is not reachable in the current arrangement, the player pursues another eligible lead or returns; no death is required to roll for one exact neighbour. Bearings and historical records guide investigation but reveal no unseen route.
Each objective below has one main dependency and a non-catastrophic alternative or honest deferral. Missing a clue, part, or provisional survivor changes the evidence or cost, not whether the twelve-objective map can continue. Local joins bind only their selected room faces/groups. The entire-station connection remains objective 12, deepest/latest, and is not a requirement for an apparent or deeper ending unless the owner later chooses that relationship.
Region 1 — Dock Collar and Service Intake
This ship-rooted territory teaches carried versus installed property and gives later objectives portable prerequisites. Only the opening direction is selected; the extra objectives are proposed.
| ID / layer | Player question and action | Entry condition; alternate or deferral | Useful return and later use | Pressure/build tradeoff; durable work versus knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Collar isolation — opening | Can one Fork Relay power rack and shutter while the isolation bridge is removed, or should it remain carried? At this authored board, both outputs visibly accept the Fork's split. Complete fasteners and bring the bridge aboard. | Begins from the dock. The board selector can power the rack without Fork, so misunderstanding or leaving the part never blocks extraction. | Isolation bridge stops damaging back-feed and lets the ship report R-3's live bearing, never a route. Fork may be carried for builds or left operating the board. | Final work is noisy; Fork installation buys a blocked approach but costs world time and carried capacity later. Fasteners, bridge installation, board state, and Fork location persist; R-3 remains an observation. |
| 2. Pace calibration — early | Does the rehab/service pace counter react to voluntary travel rather than movement imposed by machinery? Walk, then push a loose bed through and compare. | Requires only reaching this placed calibration bay. If inaccessible, the player defers; a later pace counter can repeat the distinction. | Proposed found Stride Switch and a navigation coupler, the second candidate ship assembly. Stride → Projector makes deliberate movement a build input rather than a damage tier. | Testing spends oxygen in a route crowd; carrying the coupler and part competes with a spare canister. The completed calibration record and collected objects persist; it proves this counter's rule, not every route's safety. |
| 3. First local latch — early/middle | Which adjacent threshold faces accept the visible service pulse, and how can a mistaken join be released? Inspect, attempt one compatible join, then walk and test its network-side release. | Requires two currently adjacent, observed faces. A mismatch refuses without consuming the charged source; no current compatible pair means honest deferral. | One persistent ship-rooted local connection and a recorded failed/successful signature comparison. Later it supports transformer reasoning, not a universal key. | A compatible charged source activates the fixture. A Fork can split only an existing incoming pulse where both shown thresholds accept its shares; it is not itself a source. Power does not maintain the mechanical latch. The join persists; diagnostic power and the unbound neighbours beyond its group do not. |
Region 2 — Clinical Exchange
This proposed hospital territory ties one short human rescue to a first language test and a build-changing pressure objective. None requires the selected survivor version.
| ID / layer | Player question and action | Entry condition; alternate or deferral | Useful return and later use | Pressure/build tradeoff; durable work versus knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4. R-3 crossing — early | Is someone alive, and is the present route short enough for one cooperative crossing? Personally walk airlock corridor → one junction → R-3 in one life; prepare air and hold that single junction. | Isolation bridge installed and the exact short current geometry personally walked. If absent, the scene waits; it never expands into an escort. | One authored person aboard only after that same person arrives and the airlock closes. Their bounded historical testimony can help compare records, but no later objective requires it. | A canister and junction defence cost capacity/time. Completed preparation persists under rescue rules; death during transfer remains unresolved and cannot grant delivery, safety, or loss. A person is never cargo. |
| 5. Builders' runs — early/middle, language 1 | Do swapped first tokens track which of two visible mains ends in a room? Record the pump hall and cable junction, then physically compare them. | Requires records of both authored cases, not a fixed route between them. Either order works; one missing case defers the conclusion. A survivor may name crew roads but cannot translate. | Working prediction: the first token may name the main purpose. Later it helps choose a pressure control and identify related converter rooms. | The detour costs oxygen/exposure; journal comparison is fully paused but capture is world time. Records and notes persist. The result favors one reading without proving grammar or present connectivity. |
| 6. Pressure ledger — middle | Can the language predictions identify sample versus purge and a likely redirected line, and is the shorter maintenance continuation walkable now? Test the controls and traverse or reject the prediction. | Reaching the loop is enough: visible gauges and the long route permit completion without language. Builders' runs and visitor pairs make the risky test more informed; absent evidence raises cost, not a lock. | Proposed found Impact Dynamo plus pressure regulator core, the third ship assembly. Dynamo makes local Barrier/Projector impacts feed later storage; the ledger changes a later investigation or provisional survivor account. | Holding a valve invites a local horde. Carrying both rewards may displace oxygen or salvage. Closed caps and freed objects persist; the observed destination/ledger are evidence, never proof of why transfers occurred. |
Region 3 — Ascension Works
The label is replaceable story language. This territory layers older-looking mechanisms with the second alien language and a fourth ship function without confirming who built either.
| ID / layer | Player question and action | Entry condition; alternate or deferral | Useful return and later use | Pressure/build tradeoff; durable work versus knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7. Transfer pairs — middle, language 2 | Do OSH·a and OSH·b mark source and receiving ends? Record several physically visible one-way transfers, predict one paired destination, and test a continuation. |
Two or three pairs establish direction; the candidate route can be attempted later. Without enough pairs, use the known long route or defer. | A tested/corrected source–destination rule that can point toward objective 6 or 10. Arrival elsewhere is recorded as that outcome, not a wrong-answer badge. | The uncertain continuation costs oxygen and may consume the trip's objective window. Records persist; material flow never proves a human-walkable route, current adjacency, or full translation. |
| 8. Balance and decontamination — middle | Can Phase-Balance plate order and a Breath Bank's travelling indicator predict a safe control window? Pin one rib or cap one vessel, then reuse the tell elsewhere. | No special part is mandatory: timing, hard cover, loose mass, and cutter checkpoints suffice. If the room is unreachable, another family instance can teach its narrower rule. | Proposed found Vector Nozzle and thermal exchanger core, the fourth ship assembly. Nozzle creates position/recoil choices; the completed cap/pin shortens a later traversal. | A large part plus assembly competes with oxygen/loot. Nozzle can move eligible mass but demands recoil clearance. Pins/caps persist; cadence knowledge travels, while the room's neighbours do not. |
| 9. Regulator reply — deeper language preparation | Are A/B endings only a status display, or does seating the matching B-plate change the writing without touching the regulator? Pull R4, compare the new line, then test one valid and one invalid reply. | Requires earlier A/B correlations plus builder-run records, not their true meanings. Those repeated plate sightings are cross-listed into objectives 5, 7, and 8 rather than a hidden thirteenth objective. Missing the scar/plate leaves ordinary strip work and seals usable; other occurrences can rebuild the correlation. | A bounded interaction protocol: named work may advance a line, a matching B-plate may defer it, and invalid plates do nothing. Later it offers one way to investigate objective 10, never proof of a mind or request. | Pulling is noisy and may yield a reusable Capacitor-family component under found-parts default, but deferral can preserve an enabled mechanism. Completed pulls, seated plate, and written lines persist; interpretation remains a note. |
Region 4 — Core Transfer Fringe
This is a late territory around—not an answer about—the central mystery. It contains an apparent ship-readiness opportunity, one deeper access problem, and the optional station-wide construction.
| ID / layer | Player question and action | Entry condition; alternate or deferral | Useful return and later use | Pressure/build tradeoff; durable work versus knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10. Ship readiness test — apparent layer | Do the four proposed recovered functions let the ship present a credible departure preparation? Install bridge, coupler, regulator, and exchanger, then inspect a bounded readiness report. | Objectives 1, 2, 6, and 8 supply the candidate assemblies. Missing one leaves its named function incomplete, not a hidden failure. Exact departure, irreversibility, revival limit, and credits remain owner decisions; the player can continue exploring. | A visible preparation state and a clear list of missing functions, not automatic escape. If departure is later selected, this can become its preview boundary. | Four assemblies consume expedition capacity while recovered but become ship fixtures after installation. Installation persists; the report makes no duration, safety, or ending-truth claim. |
| 11. Central boundary comparison — deeper layer | Which observable operation opens a bounded way across the sealed fringe, and what contrary evidence changes the plan? Test two independent predictions among builders' purpose, visitor direction, regulator protocol, and a diagnostic path. | The boundary itself must be found. Any two evidence paths may justify a test; a missing survivor or one missed language record is not mandatory. If no pair is available, gather another recurring case or defer. | Access to one deeper evidence site and a recorded comparison that can revise the leading hospital/godhood hypothesis without settling it. | Testing the live control is world time and may be contested; a control build can protect work or a route build can bypass the crowd. Completed control stages persist; the observation does not decide captive, cause, treatment, or ending. |
| 12. Connect every placed region — optional deepest/latest | Can every actually authored playable room/group become one ship-rooted traversable persistent network while every selected local join survives? Make/recover joins and verify physical inclusion. | Requires discovering all placed regions and the eventual owner-selected join mechanism. Under the current candidate, repeated refusals and converter observations from objective 3 support rare bridges; a different selected mechanism replaces that dependency. Never guaranteed by the next shift. | The entire-station construction itself, plus optional diagnostic evidence. What it does to future shifts or endings is unresolved; it is not required for objectives 10 or 11 by default. | Each bind can cost travel, oxygen, and a current adjacency opportunity; deliberate death may request another arrangement without loot loss but is never required. Joins persist; unobserved faces/routes remain unknown. |
Two viable dependency orders
These arrows show prerequisites and chosen priorities, not physical paths. Current access can interleave eligible objectives; either order can defer R-3 until its short geometry exists.
- Build-and-ship first: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 8 → 6 → 10, then 5 → 7 → 9 → 11 → 12. The player first earns movement, impact, and positional parts and exposes the conditional apparent-departure preparation, then turns to the two languages and deeper comparison. Objective 6 can be completed from gauges/long access before its language-supported shortcut is understood.
- Language-and-network first: 1 → 5 → 7 → 3 → 6 → 9 → 4 → 8 → 11 → 2 → 10 → 12. The player takes riskier observations early, uses tested language predictions to shorten later work, and reaches deeper evidence before assembling all ship functions. The survivor arrives whenever the short crossing exists; their absence never blocks 5, 7, 9, or 11.
The only universal opening dependency is objective 1. Objective 10 needs the four named assemblies but is not a final ending. Objective 11 accepts multiple evidence combinations. Objective 12 depends on complete authored placement and a selected joining rule, not on objective 10, rescue, treatment, or an ending. No required gate points back to its own reward.
One concrete later expedition — the pressure ledger
Back aboard, the player compares two builder-run records and several visitor transfer pairs. If the selected R-3 survivor is present, they may attribute the pressure-loop identifier to an old ward measurement; without them, the repeated identifier and live gauges still establish the objective, more slowly. Neither source reveals a route. The current airlock view offers one unwalked branch, so the player takes one fewer canister to reserve capacity for the suspected regulator core and an unknown part. That is a meaningful cost: less breathing margin now for the chance to bring both findings home.
At the loop, the builder rule predicts which marked control concerns pressure work, while the visitor source/receiving pair predicts that the line once ran toward a decontamination bay. The player records both claims before acting. They can take the known long approach, or test the maintenance continuation and accept that it may arrive elsewhere. At the valve, a local horde contests the hand-cycle. If objective 8 came first, Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector supplies ordinary automatic fire while Manual Trigger → Vector Nozzle shoves eligible bodies into the announced draw lane; a strong execution can win cleanly. Without Nozzle, a lighter rig can time the Breath Bank, close one persistent cap, and withdraw. The journal pauses every threat and action while records are compared, and completes nothing.
On success, the player removes the Impact Dynamo from the sampling loop and frees the pressure regulator core. If both will not fit, they choose between immediate build change and ship readiness, drop another carried object deliberately, or return for the remaining item; death would bring everything still carried home but shift the station. Back aboard, the regulator advances objective 10's visible checklist, while Dynamo enables local impacts to feed storage rather than merely increasing damage. A present survivor may revise one attributed claim after seeing the ledger; without that cast choice, the journal still records that the named transfer happened later than an earlier dated record. The expedition changes a build, a ship action, and one historical question without declaring why the transfer occurred.
Reuse, scope, and self-check
The twelve objectives are cross-listed content, not twelve isolated production stacks. Objective 6 reuses the Language Expedition's runs/pairs, Traps' Breath Bank, a route crowd, the catalogue's Dynamo, one ship assembly, and a conditional survivor consequence. Objective 9 is the existing regulator-gallery chain rather than a new second-language system. Objectives 3 and 12 reuse the same face/join vocabulary at different depth. A room, scene, chain, encounter, reward, or assembly hosted by one objective is counted once in its owning inventory.
Self-check: all twelve rows name a player action, entry/defer rule, useful return/later use, pressure or capacity tradeoff, and durable state versus knowledge. Both orders contain all twelve objectives without a circular gate. Builders' runs and visitor pairs each support a physical prediction and correction path; the second-language utterance register remains a relationship to settle, not a third guaranteed language. Fork, Stride, Dynamo, Nozzle, Barrier, Capacitor, and Arc behavior stays within current catalogue rules. At least Fork, Stride, Dynamo, and Nozzle change possible actions rather than add a stat tier. Carried property returns on death; consumed or installed state does not duplicate. Rescue is one short crossing; no person, treatment, whole-station connection, final departure, or story interpretation is mandatory here.
First-pass planning envelope: Systems authoring 10–16 role-hours, focused review 3–5, response 2–4; 15–25 total. This advances the outline's 4-region/12-objective topology row and reuses existing language, equipment, trap, rescue, and connection contracts rather than adding their full estimates. A later detailed SMALL regional specification—actual placed objective variants, access constraints, state combinations, rewards, and cross-order checks—needs 40–68 author hours, 8–14 review, and 4–7 response; 52–89 total. It excludes room-layout production, full cast/scenes, language-chain prose already owned elsewhere, equipment/trap definition, UI, implementation, assets, simulation, testing, and TARGET/STRETCH expansion.
Remaining dependencies are the actual shift/placement constraints; selected cast and survivor outcome rules; acquisition model; final content band; exact ship functions and departure/credits behavior; leading story/corruption direction; final connection mechanism and full-station consequence; oxygen/capacity tuning; and evidence that the sequence is readable, varied, feasible, or supports any playtime ambition. None is answered by this paper map.