Rescue Shift Proposal
Status: an independent design proposal for review, not an owner decision. This resolves the R-3 first rescue's death/abort/shift boundary with a concrete local contract. It changes the physical crossing described in First Survivor; it does not silently extend to Dorn's damaged refuge or settle whether survivors elsewhere can die. No implementation or playtest is represented here.
The decision to make
For the first rescue, resolve a protected return to R-3 before applying a death-triggered station shift. If the survivor was already physically aboard, keep them aboard instead. A death never completes a pending delivery.
Adopt this only together with an authored, protected return lane. Merely writing “the survivor gets back before the shift” leaves the hardest problem unsolved: enemies, a closed door, lost power or insufficient travel air could prevent that return.
The proposed player-facing promise is simple: “If the crossing stops, return to the ward. You are aboard only after you have entered the ship.” The astronaut must still prepare the route, obtain consent and complete one short exposed control action.
What the current pages leave open
| Source | Established direction or current proposal | Gap this proposal addresses |
|---|---|---|
| Owner Brief | Death shifts the station; carried property returns; cooperative rescue must stay short; the journal pauses the game | Does not select the rescue/shift order or a survivor-loss rule |
| First Survivor | R-3 has an intact door, a short personally traversed route and a proposed return to R-3 on abort | Explicitly assumes the survivor gets back before rearrangement without establishing how |
| Rescue Rules | Requests and movement are not Sent; Dorn's local example uses stocked abort refuges | Its death-during-transfer row promises a refuge outcome while its opening still marks shift ordering unresolved |
| Death and Persistence | People are not cargo; completed work and carried property persist on their own terms | Defers an unsent person's outcome to the rescue rules |
| Survival and Loadout | Gas and item transfers preserve completed changes; survivors have no cargo state | Correctly refuses to invent a survivor result |
| Player Information | Shows the last confirmed rescue state; present location is unconfirmed after an unresolved transfer | Needs a defined physical outcome and a separate rule for when the player learns it |
These are the source positions inspected on 2026-09-08. The proposal below supplies a candidate resolution, not a claim that those pages already agree.
A crossing that can actually abort
Keep the existing short arrangement: R-3, one junction and the ship airlock. Add a partitioned personnel lane through that junction, with a ward-side return path and an externally operated forward gate. This is a proposed layout requirement, not an extra district, a new permanent room connection or an equipment-sleeve large enough to carry a person.
The survivor walks under their own power inside the lane. The astronaut operates the forward gate from the exposed junction panel. Ordinary hordes threaten the astronaut and their ability to remain at the panel; the lane shields the traveller. Leaving the operating position, explicit cancellation, disabling displacement or death starts the return routine. Damage alone follows the existing staged-action rule and does not automatically cancel.
The panel requires presence, not repeated button presses or a mandatory held input. The survivor can refuse departure or request abort from their own controls. Once the return begins, it finishes before another departure is offered; requests cannot oscillate the survivor between gates.
The layout must make all of the following true:
- From every allowed traveller position before delivery, there is a continuous protected route back to R-3. The astronaut cannot stand in and block it.
- The closing forward gate cannot cut that return route or trap someone halfway through a threshold.
- A mechanically stored emergency reserve operates the return interlocks after loss of external power. Ordinary enemies in this scene cannot enter or destroy the return lane.
- Travel-air readiness includes the entire outward attempt and the longest possible retreat. The survivor confirms supply through an actual gauge; quantities and margins still require design.
- R-3 reseals after return. Its existing bounded waiting convention resumes without a hidden deterioration countdown.
- Airlock recovery never opens both pressure doors simultaneously. If interrupted inside the chamber before delivery, the outer route back to the lane is restored before retreat.
This explicitly protects this survivor during this crossing. It trades direct danger to the traveller for danger to the astronaut and the attempt's completion. If that trade is unacceptable, reject this candidate; do not keep its guaranteed refuge result while removing its protective geometry.
Preparation is refused with a visible reason when a return-path, interlock or air-supply condition is missing. It is not enough to discover a broken abort mechanism after departure. No arbitrary later trap may violate these local conditions without redesigning the rescue.
Exact event order
“After each death” need not mean “before any emergency mechanism can move.” This proposal places a short, non-interactive safety resolution between the lethal event and rearrangement. That timing is an additional proposed rule requiring acceptance.
- Settle completed actions at the lethal instant. Record the actual carried manifest, consumed resources, installed items and completed work. Determine whether delivery already occurred.
- End the astronaut's expedition actions. No queued operation, rescue request or unfinished task completes merely because it was started.
- Resolve the survivor. Already aboard stays aboard. Still in R-3 stays there. An active crossing reverses through its protected lane into R-3; it cannot finish inward delivery.
- Confirm the local physical state. The survivor is inside R-3 and its door has resealed, or they were already aboard. Only the armed rescue safety routine receives this special completion; unrelated unfinished station work does not advance under it.
- Apply the station shift once, preserving other committed state under the applicable rules, then return control to the revived astronaut aboard.
The safety resolution is finite and autonomous. It cannot wait for new player input, another fight, a supply delivery or discovery of a route. Its duration is bounded by the short authored lane; no numerical duration is claimed here. The death transition can conceal the survivor's movement without relocating them instantaneously in the fiction.
An ordinary living abort uses the same return routine and causes no shift. Opening the journal while alive pauses the crossing, threats, oxygen and interlocks along with everything else. It neither completes delivery nor skips the return. Journal pause does not reopen an expedition after death.
Delivery boundary
For this scene, Sent requires both the survivor to have crossed the ship's inner threshold and the station-facing airlock door to be closed. The normal airlock cycle closes the outer door before allowing that inner crossing.
A radio acknowledgment, entry into the airlock chamber or a requested final gate opening is insufficient. If both physical conditions already hold at the lethal instant, the survivor is Sent. Otherwise death takes precedence and the return routine runs. There is no post-death grace interval in which remaining forward motion earns delivery.
State and interruption contract
| State when interrupted | Survivor outcome | Shift and next attempt |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting; preparation incomplete | Remains in R-3 | Death shifts the station; living cancellation does not |
| Prepared, not departed | Remains in R-3; already handed-over supplies remain theirs | Any death invalidates the old route check |
| Crossing, astronaut cancels or leaves the panel | Returns physically to R-3 and reseals it | No shift; reassess supplies and controls |
| Crossing, external power fails | Emergency return interlocks operate; survivor returns | No shift unless the astronaut also dies |
| Crossing, astronaut dies | Protected return finishes before rearrangement; not Sent | One shift, then a new route must be personally checked |
| Inside airlock chamber, not across inner threshold, astronaut dies | Airlock reverses safely toward the return lane; survivor returns | Same single-shift sequence |
| Delivery already committed, astronaut dies | Remains aboard | Station shifts; colony membership stays |
| Journal opens during a living crossing or return | Holds the current state without consuming air or progressing machinery | Resume that same operation on closing the journal |
| Repeated abort request during return | Continues the one return already underway | No duplicate movement, gas debit or reserve allocation |
The proposed pre-death “protected return available” indication states readiness, not success. After an abort the physical simulation can know the survivor is in R-3 while the astronaut has no current confirmation. That distinction matters after revival.
Supplies: one ownership change, actual consumption
Keep the sleeve's existing commitment boundary: the completed deposit inside the sleeve removes the canister from carried capacity. Before deposit commits it remains carried; after commit but before collection it is a station item inside the sleeve; after collection it is with the survivor. Death preserves that exact state. A sleeve deposit alone does not establish travel-air readiness: the survivor must take the supply, connect it and confirm flow. This prevents both a duplicate aboard and an imaginary full tank on the survivor.
Only gas actually breathed or explicitly used by a mechanism is spent. An interrupted attempt does not erase the remaining gas or demand a replacement vessel as an abstract retry fee. A new attempt may require replenishment because the remaining supply cannot cover its outward-and-return margin.
R-3's intact, pressurised refuge uses its existing waiting convention. This candidate does not import Dorn's separate reserve-canister requirement for a vented refuge. Dorn needs his own compatible physical design before this resolution could apply there.
Illustrative accounting, using arbitrary gas units solely to expose duplication:
| Property before death | Events already completed | Result after protected return and shift |
|---|---|---|
| Astronaut's carried spare contains 4 units | No transfer from it | Same vessel and 4 units aboard |
| A second canister was deposited in the sleeve | Deposit committed; survivor has not collected it | Remains in the sleeve, not aboard and not yet part of confirmed travel air |
| Survivor's handed-over supply contains 8 units across their tank and vessel | 2 units breathed outward, 1 during retreat | 5 remain with the survivor; each container retains its actual remainder |
| Fork Relay installed in a station fixture | Installation completed | Still in that fixture's region; an old route to it is historical |
| Record of Yeva's wall | Capture completed | Record retained |
| Second wall capture | Interrupted before commitment | No new record |
| Survivor halfway through crossing | No delivery commitment | In R-3 after retreat, never on the carried manifest |
No oxygen quantity in this example is a balance recommendation. Returning by deliberate death uses exactly this accounting.
One complete player trace
The astronaut finds a short route to R-3 in the current arrangement, checks the lane and return interlock, and passes over travel air. The display separately shows “Travel air confirmed” and “Return to R-3 available.” Yeva agrees to leave. Her decision about recording the wall remains the narrative choice from First Survivor.
At the junction, the astronaut occupies the panel and starts forward movement. A crowd arrives. They can hold position with their build or step away and abort. An overpowering build may make the crossing easy; no bespoke enemy is spawned solely to defeat it.
Suppose the astronaut is killed while Yeva is partway along the lane. The panel releases; the forward gate closes without cutting her wardward path. She retreats under her own power, her remaining travel air pays for that movement, and R-3 reseals. The station then shifts and the astronaut revives with their actual carried property.
The journal says “Last confirmed: crossing interrupted. Current contact unavailable.” It does not present the offscreen outcome as a fresh observation. On hearing Yeva identify herself and report over the radio, it can show “Yeva reports: inside R-3; door sealed.” A pressure bearing alone cannot confirm her identity, location within the room or condition.
The previous route is historical. A new short route might be available, but is not promised. If none is present, the rescue waits while other expeditions proceed. Once the player finds and personally walks a new short route, they replenish only the actual missing travel supply and try again. They cannot turn the interruption into a long escort.
Stress cases and accepted limitations
Deliberate death just before arrival. Fails delivery and returns the survivor to R-3. It can request a station shift but cannot extract a person as cargo. The astronaut retains carried loot as required; no punishment is added.
Holding the station still. The player cannot indefinitely delay a death-triggered shift: after death the finite return runs without their input. An active lane creates no persistent bind, contributes nothing to the whole-station connection roster and does not keep those rooms adjacent after the shift.
Permanent-join interaction. Already selected permanent joins still persist. The rescue lane is usable only across the currently traversable short arrangement. Its local hardware remains with its owning regions; after a shift its former continuation is not assumed. How reusable lane sections meet across an eligible arrangement is an explicit level-design obligation.
Repeated aborted attempts. Preserve real remaining supplies and completed records. They cost world time, breathed oxygen and lost opportunity, not escalating trust deductions or compulsory new canisters.
Blocked return, destroyed ward or absent emergency reserve. These are authoring counterexamples that disqualify the encounter from this contract. Never repair them by silently teleporting a survivor, marking Sent or hanging the shift forever.
Unbounded wait for the next short route. Still unresolved. This proposal fixes interruption ordering, not the station's distribution of useful adjacencies. A complete first-rescue design must bound or otherwise address that wait through its separately chosen shift/content rules.
Alternatives and recommendation
| Candidate | Strongest case | Consequential cost |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate shift, survivor outcome left uncertain | Preserves an immediate rearrangement and makes loss of contact a real event | Needs a whole survivor-location, survival and rediscovery system; can turn the first short rescue into an extended recovery mission |
| Delay shift until an ordinary exposed retreat finishes | Smallest textual change to First Survivor | Does not establish what happens if enemies, air loss or gates prevent retreat; the delay can become unbounded |
| Protected return before shift — recommended locally | Gives a physical, finite outcome with exact supplies and no automatic delivery | Requires new local interlocks/layout and makes this traveller safe during transit; the horde threatens completion through the astronaut |
The recommendation is bounded to R-3. It preserves a vulnerable astronaut, meaningful preparation and a survivor who acts, while avoiding an unchosen permanent-loss system at the first rescue. It does not prove emotional impact, fun or implementation feasibility.
Integration if this candidate is accepted
| Owning page | Concrete change needed |
|---|---|
| First Survivor | Replace the unsupported pre-shift return assumption with the protected-lane geometry, readiness conditions and exact delivery boundary; retain both character alternatives |
| Rescue Rules | Scope its death-during-transfer guarantee to encounters with an established physical abort contract; keep Dorn unresolved until his vented-refuge layout satisfies one |
| Death and Persistence | Add the local safety-resolution-before-shift exception without changing carried-property return or globally guaranteeing survivor survival |
| Survival and Loadout | Distinguish carried, committed in sleeve and collected by the survivor; retain its existing conserved gas/container accounting |
| Player Information | Distinguish armed return capability, interrupted crossing, last confirmed state and later survivor testimony; do not label an offscreen return as direct observation |
| Shifting Station Options / Connecting The Station | State that the temporary rescue lane is neither a persistent join nor a contribution to station-wide completion |
Decision requested from the design owner: accept or reject the first rescue's guaranteed protected retreat together with the brief pre-shift safety resolution. Accepting only the timing sentence does not accept a workable contract.
Remaining design work is specific: one R-3 lane layout proving return access from every traveller position, the airlock reversal sequence, travel-air margins, and a policy for finding another short route after interruption. Later authorised player observation must assess whether protecting the traveller weakens the human stake, whether the forward-control action feels like cooperation, and whether abort/readiness feedback is understood. These are outstanding tasks, not work claimed complete by this proposal.