Hold The Flood — The Pack

Owner decisions, 2026-09-17: (1) the inventory is a Backpack Hero style grid with shaped items; (2) the pack can be opened whenever no enemy is around, and it opens when a new item is gained; (3) the bag should have plenty of ways to grow; (4) keep it simple: every item is written like the owner's example card below; (5) the detector's range is 15 metres; (6) adjacency has a range, 1 by default, and some items have range 2. Everything else on this page is a proposal. Where this page and older wiki text disagree, this page wins. A first version was built on 2026-09-17 when the owner said "build it"; the section "What is built" says exactly what.

The owner's example, which is the template for every item

Simple FoF detector: 1x1 object. Self-activates 1 per second. When active: if an enemy unit exists within 15 metres, all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown: 1 second.

The owner first wrote the range as 500, then set it to 15 in the game's own unit, metres.

Every item in the game is described the same way, in one line: size · how it gets activated · what it does when active · cooldown. An item that acts on its neighbours has an adjacency range of 1 unless its card says otherwise.

How it works

The pack is a grid of squares. Every carried thing is a shape on it. You place each one by hand and can turn it.
Every square works. There is no separate "switched on" area and no limit on how many items run at once, other than the room in the bag.
An item gets activated in one of three ways: by itself on a timer, by a neighbour, or by the player's button.
When an item is activated it does its one thing, then cools down. An item that is cooling down ignores being activated. That is the whole system.
Adjacency has a range (decided). The default is 1: only squares that share an edge with the item count, so corners do not. Some items have range 2, which reaches one step further and so goes around the corner: it catches the diagonal squares and the square beyond a neighbour. Range counts steps from square to square, whatever lies in between. For a 1x1 item X:

. . 2 . .
. 2 1 2 .      1 = reached at range 1
2 1 X 1 2      2 = also reached at range 2
. 2 1 2 .
. . 2 . .

Where you put things is the only wiring. A detector next to a gun makes an automatic gun. The same detector next to a shield makes an automatic shield. Next to both, it drives both.
The floor strip. Beside the grid is a strip showing whatever lies within reach. Drag out to put something down, drag in to pick it up. If a find does not fit, you rearrange, leave something on the floor, or leave the find. Nothing is ever discarded for you.
When the pack opens (decided): whenever no enemy is around, and by itself when a new item is gained. The world is paused while it is open. Aboard the ship it is always available.
Death and return. Everything in the pack comes home, in the same arrangement.

The items, in the owner's format

The first three cards are the owner's. The rest are my conversions of the existing parts, to be corrected.

Simple FoF detector (owner's card): 1x1. Self-activates 1 per second. When active: if an enemy unit exists within 15 metres, all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 1 second. Adjacency range 1.
Oxygen Tank (owner's card, 2026-09-17): 3x1. Good for 5 minutes. While it lies in the pack it feeds the suit by itself; there is nothing to click. With several tanks the emptiest goes first, so a full one stays full for whoever needs it. A tank on the floor feeds nobody.
Service Gun (owner's card, 2026-09-17): L tromino, three squares. Fires every 0.2 second at the nearest target for 5 damage. Ammo 8. Auto reload: 1 second. Built as: self-activates every 0.2 second; it fires only when it can see an enemy within 15 metres (the range is my assumption: the card gives none); with nothing to shoot at it spends no ammunition; after the eighth shot it reloads by itself for one second.
Pulse Projector: 1x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: fires one shot at the nearest enemy it can see. Cooldown 0.6 seconds.
Trigger button: 1x1. Activated by the player's button, click or Space. When active: all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 0.2 seconds.
Barrier Plate: 1x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: raises a shield in the direction the astronaut faces for 1.2 seconds. Cooldown 1.5 seconds.
Relay (the Fork Relay): 1x1. Activated by a neighbour. When active: all adjacent items get activated. Cooldown 0.2 seconds. It passes an activation along, so a detector can reach items it does not touch. It is still the part the Cargo Turn service board needs.
Arc Emitter: 2x2. Activated by a neighbour. When active: lightning jumps from the nearest enemy through up to six bodies standing close together. Cooldown 3 seconds.
Isolation bridge: 1x4 bar. Does nothing in the pack. It is cargo, and it is awkward on purpose.
Scrap and other loot: 1x1 up to odd shapes of five or six squares. Does nothing in the pack. Loot is where the awkward shapes live.

The starting bag

Four by four, sixteen squares. Owner decision, 2026-09-17: "for now, the inventory should only start with the following items": the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun. They use six squares, so ten are free for what the station holds.

T T T .      T Oxygen Tank (3x1)
G G . .      G Service Gun (L tromino)
G . . .
. . . .

Ship storage starts empty. (Until 2026-09-19 two more Oxygen Tanks waited there for the old rescue; they went when the owner emptied the station to design its rooms himself, see Rooms.) The detector, the button, the Pulse Projector and the Barrier Plate still exist as items with cards, but nobody is given them at the start any more. The ship screen has a New game button, because a save made before this decision still carries the old kit; starting over keeps the old save under a dated name.

The suit still has its own six minutes of air on top of the tank. The tank empties first, so the screen shows one number, the air left, with the tank and the suit behind it.

The bag grows, in plenty of ways

(Decided: it grows, in many ways. The list is proposed.) Each gain is a small piece of new bag that the player attaches anywhere along the outline, so every bag ends up a different shape.

Ship assemblies installed aboard each add a strip of squares.
People you bring home each add something in their own style. Yeva stitches a side pouch.
Frames and pouches found in the station, each with its own outline.
Home projects, later.
What the alien languages unlock: a long, odd carrying rail nobody human would have designed.
A few temporary squares earned by fighting, gone on return like every other temporary upgrade.

What is built

Built on 2026-09-17, in the game as it runs today:

The grid pack with shaped items that turn, a four by four starting bag, and the starting layout shown above.
Every item card on this page, with the numbers on it. The detector reaches 15 metres in every direction; it has no facing.
Neighbours by step distance with an adjacency range on every card. No shipped card uses range 2 yet, but the rule is tested.
The pack screen: drag to move, R or right click turns the held item, a green or red ghost, a card on hover that also says what the item sets off and what sets it off, and a strip on the right for the floor in the station or ship storage aboard.
The pack opens on I when no enemy is around, meaning nothing has noticed you and nothing stands within ten metres in plain sight. Taking anything opens it by itself. The world waits while it is open. Aboard it lies open beside the ship panel.
Three of the ways to grow: fitting the isolation bridge aboard earns a strip of four, bringing Yeva home earns her pouch of four, and a Tune can be spent on a spare pocket of two squares for that trip. Each piece is dragged against the bag's edge by the player.
A small picture of the pack on the HUD whose squares flash as items activate, with a note when the pack is strapped shut.
Old saves are converted: carried things are laid into the new pack and the player is told.
A picture on every item (owner, 2026-09-17: "look for free icons for the items"). The eleven pictures come from game-icons.net under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, which is free to use and asks that the artists be credited: Lorc, Delapouite and Caro Asercion. The credits file sits beside the pictures in the project, and the game's credits must name them when it has a credits screen.
A picture is made to its item's shape (owner, 2026-09-17: the Oxygen Tank and the Service Gun "don't use their sprite correctly with their tiles. it makes it look awkward"). A square icon shown at one square's size never matched a three-wide tank or an L-shaped gun. Rule: every item's picture is a canvas exactly as wide and as tall as the item's squares, the drawing lies only on squares the item has, the pack stretches it over those squares and turns it with the item. The tank is one scuba tank with its valve laid along the three squares; the gun is the ray gun drawn across the whole L with its grip in the square under the barrel; the isolation bridge is a resistor with wires out to both ends of its bar. Still only centred in their largest plain block, to be made to shape when they matter: Pulse Projector, Barrier Plate, Navigation coupler. The build script in the project (tools/item-art) refuses a picture that lies on a square the item does not have.

Not built yet: frames and pouches found in the station, home projects, the alien carrying rail, and item cards for the later parts.

What falls away

Making it this simple removes these things from the older design. I read the owner's example as asking for that; say so if any should stay.

Arrows, ports and the journal's list of links. Placement is the only wiring.
The limit on how many parts can be switched on at once.
The ship's power supply number, heat, and "charge" passed between parts. A part's only brake is its cooldown.
The Fork Relay as a splitter. A detector already activates every neighbour, so the Fork becomes a plain relay.
The rule that one old "carrying unit" is four squares. Each item now simply has the size written on its card.
Timed mounting in the station. The pack only opens when it is safe, so nothing needs a timer.

What the screen looks like

The grid sits left of centre, the floor strip to its right. Each item is drawn as its object, filling its squares.
Dragging shows a ghost: green where it fits, red where it does not. Right click or R turns the held item.
Hovering an item shows its card, in the same one-line format as above, and highlights the neighbours it would activate.
When an item activates in play, its square flashes on the HUD thumbnail of the pack, so the player can watch the chain run.
A closed strap on the thumbnail means enemies are around and the pack cannot be opened.

Open questions for the owner

Is a four by four starting bag right?
Which ways to grow do you want, and should the player choose where each new piece attaches?
Which items should have adjacency range 2? None of the cards above has it yet.
The Service Gun is very strong against the present enemies. A body has 3 health and a shot does 5, five times a second. A scripted careful player clears the 22 standing bodies of the Cargo Turn in under ten seconds untouched, the gun starts killing through the open doorway from the Dock Mouth, and a player who walks into the crowd now lives (at about 70% health) where the old kit killed them. Enemy health and numbers were tuned for the old kit and want the owner's eye.
Should the suit keep its own six minutes, or should the tank be the only air?