From 5d645e64521f3f1ff499d7ec6a6d1d7795f69c73 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: JesseMarkowitz <JesseMarkowitz@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2026 21:53:03 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Make standing cost money to keep, in both settings
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Each pack declares a lifestyle tier, bought on the second rung and charged for
every cycle after: Corporate Ladder's car and address, the Frontier's bay and
the room over the Ellis place. Falling behind what the job expects costs
standing, in steps that steepen as standing rises. A Dispatch coordinator
keeping up fully nets -21 a week and earns the difference out of the days. No
engine change; the only interface change is a tier display format.

Sized by measurement, not feel (DECISIONS #36): a -2/week penalty is invisible
against Dispatch's standing gains, and a player who chases standing every turn
beats any flat penalty — 99 standing while buying nothing, and $2,245 richer
than one who kept up. Hence the top step.

Two defects fixed on the way. The conformance suite excluded debt from the
economic baseline by matching /debt|owed|loan/i on path names, which would have
counted every lifestyle tier into it; packs now declare tuning.baselineExcludes.
And 'the promotion leaves a player better off' pooled end balances across
archetypes that do not spend alike, so it measured the mix — it is now derived
from the upkeep arithmetic.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RxdJFbLq1rBKsUeticGV1g
---
 README.md                                  | 13 ++--
 content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js | 59 +++++++++++++++
 content/corporateladder/index.js           | 83 +++++++++++++++++++++
 content/frontier/events/deputy.js          | 60 +++++++++++++++
 content/frontier/index.js                  | 71 ++++++++++++++++++
 docs/DECISIONS.md                          | 47 ++++++++++++
 package.json                               |  2 +-
 src/ui/components.js                       |  4 +
 src/ui/format.js                           |  6 +-
 test/conformance.test.js                   | 20 ++++-
 test/content.test.js                       | 85 +++++++++++++++++++++-
 test/frontier.test.js                      | 72 +++++++++++++++++-
 12 files changed, 507 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index b3e0aac..c9f45fa 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -114,10 +114,12 @@ Open questions, in the order they are likely to matter:
   evidence that was not enough the last two times. It needs a session before its
   numbers are believed.
 
-- **Money stops mattering late, and it should not.** A careful player ends
-  around $8,300 over 200 turns. The direction is set: standing should cost
-  money to keep — a better car, a better place to live, better clothes — so
-  expenses climb as the player rises. Not built yet.
+- **Standing now costs money to keep, and nobody has played it.** Each setting
+  has a `lifestyle` tier bought on the second rung and charged for every cycle
+  after — and a standing penalty, steepening as standing rises, for lagging
+  behind what the job expects. A Dispatch coordinator keeping up fully runs at
+  -$21 a week and has to earn the difference. It is measured (DECISIONS #36)
+  and, like everything else here, unplayed.
 - **Dispatch is eleven events against the mailroom's nineteen.** It passes the
   variety guard, but it has had far less play than the mailroom. Waits on more
   playtesting.
@@ -126,7 +128,8 @@ Open questions, in the order they are likely to matter:
   Waits until the Frontier has been played.
 
 Settled, and not open: Corporate Ladder's negotiation gate stays as it is, and
-the feedback widget stays as it is (DECISIONS #35).
+the feedback widget stays as it is (DECISIONS #35). Money mattering late is
+built rather than open (DECISIONS #36).
 
 ## Layout
 
diff --git a/content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js b/content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js
index 1e7cef4..33bf17f 100644
--- a/content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js
+++ b/content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js
@@ -485,6 +485,65 @@ export const dispatch = [
       },
     ],
   },
+
+  {
+    // The cost of standing, offered rather than imposed. Buying nothing is
+    // always playable and always cheaper; it is Dispatch's weekly "looking the
+    // part" charge that makes it a real decision instead of a shop.
+    id: 'the_car_lot',
+    stage: 'dispatch',
+    weight: 45,
+    cooldown: 6,
+    requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 }],
+    description:
+      'Marlene mentions, not quite to you, that the coordinator before last ' +
+      'drove something with a roof rack, and that people noticed when he ' +
+      'stopped. There is a lot on Ninth with a sign about payments.',
+    options: [
+      {
+        id: 'buy_the_car',
+        label: 'Put money down on the car.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 0 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 450 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'It is four years old and the radio only gets one station, and on ' +
+          'Monday two people who have never spoken to you ask about it.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -450 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 3 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Bought a car with a roof rack.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'trade_up',
+        label: 'Trade up, and take the lease on the better side of the park.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 900 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'The address is two stops closer and four hundred a month dearer. ' +
+          'Nobody says anything about it, which is the entire point of it.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -900 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 2 },
+          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 5 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Moved to the better side of the park.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'keep_the_bus_pass',
+        label: 'Keep the bus pass. The bus is fine.',
+        result:
+          'The bus is fine. You read two chapters a day on it, which is two ' +
+          'more than anybody on Ninth manages.',
+        effects: [{ path: 'skills.logistics', op: 'add', value: 1 }],
+      },
+    ],
+  },
 ];
 
 export default dispatch;
diff --git a/content/corporateladder/index.js b/content/corporateladder/index.js
index eb43d84..4561bc1 100644
--- a/content/corporateladder/index.js
+++ b/content/corporateladder/index.js
@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
     'reputation': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.negotiation': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.logistics': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
+    // What standing costs to keep. Nothing forces a player to climb this, but
+    // Dispatch charges standing for staying at the bottom of it — see the
+    // "Looking the part" entries in upkeep, and DECISIONS #36.
+    'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
     'flags.took_loan': { initial: false },
     'flags.holds_the_envelope': { initial: false },
     'flags.covered_for_trevor': { initial: false },
@@ -96,6 +100,76 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
       effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 1260 }],
     },
     { label: 'Rent', every: 7, offset: 7, effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -455 }] },
+    // What the job expects of you, and what meeting that expectation costs.
+    // Dispatch nets +49 a week; a coordinator with the car is +19, and one
+    // with the car and the address is -21 and has to earn the difference out
+    // of the days themselves. That is the answer to "money stops mattering
+    // late": it stops mattering only if standing is free to keep.
+    {
+      label: 'Car payment and parking',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -30 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'The better address',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -40 }],
+    },
+    // The pressure that makes the spending a choice rather than a vanity. Both
+    // are gated on Dispatch: the mailroom pays too little for this to be
+    // anything but a trap, and "later in a career" is the point.
+    {
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // Standing above sixty-five is a thing you are seen to be, and being seen
+      // to be it runs on a better address than a coordinator's first one.
+      //
+      // Sized by measurement, not by feel. At -2 a week this was invisible:
+      // Dispatch hands out standing several points at a time, so a coordinator
+      // who bought nothing still finished pinned at 100 and the charge may as
+      // well not have existed. At -6, with the entry above, a non-buyer settles
+      // in the low seventies while somebody keeping up finishes at 100 — the
+      // ceiling is real and money is what lifts it.
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 65 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -6 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // The top step, and the one that makes the whole thing a choice rather
+      // than a tax on carelessness. Without it, a player who spends every turn
+      // chasing standing simply out-earns the charge: measured, they held 99
+      // while never buying anything, and finished $2,245 richer than a player
+      // who kept up — so the lifestyle was a pure loss to anybody paying
+      // attention. With it they plateau in the low eighties. What money buys
+      // up here is the last fifteen points, which cannot be worked for.
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 80 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
+    },
     // The service charge steps up with the size of the debt, so the spiral
     // tightens instead of flattening out. A step function in data costs the
     // engine nothing; a percentage would have needed a multiply operation.
@@ -132,6 +206,9 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
       mailroom: [-45, 5],
       dispatch: [5, 125],
     },
+    // Upkeep gated on these is excluded from that baseline: both are states a
+    // player opts into, and the baseline is the floor underneath everybody.
+    baselineExcludes: ['debt', 'lifestyle'],
   },
 
   // How the interface names and formats this pack's state. The UI reads only
@@ -142,6 +219,12 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
     'reputation': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
     'skills.negotiation': { label: 'Negotiation', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
     'skills.logistics': { label: 'Logistics', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
+    // Hidden until it is bought: a mailroom associate has no lifestyle to
+    // speak of, and a row reading "The bus" from day one is noise.
+    'lifestyle': {
+      label: 'Lifestyle', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
+      labels: ['The bus', 'A car', 'The address'],
+    },
     // Kept out of the header, and out of the ledger too: `notable` is the
     // retrospective's own list, and "Notable — changed" tells nobody anything.
     'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
diff --git a/content/frontier/events/deputy.js b/content/frontier/events/deputy.js
index b66e7a9..64305c0 100644
--- a/content/frontier/events/deputy.js
+++ b/content/frontier/events/deputy.js
@@ -579,6 +579,66 @@ export const deputy = [
       },
     ],
   },
+
+  {
+    // Corporate Ladder's car lot, in Cold Fork's terms and at its scale. Same
+    // structure deliberately: an offer, never an obligation, with the weekly
+    // charge for falling short of it sitting in upkeep instead.
+    id: 'the_sale_barn',
+    stage: 'deputy',
+    weight: 45,
+    cooldown: 6,
+    requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 }],
+    description:
+      'The sale barn has a bay with four good years in him and a price on ' +
+      'him. Ward says nothing about it, except that the county pays mileage ' +
+      'on a horse a man owns and nothing at all on a hired one.',
+    options: [
+      {
+        id: 'buy_the_bay',
+        label: 'Buy the bay.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 0 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 70 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'He is a better animal than the livery has ever put under you, and ' +
+          'the whole street watches you ride him down it once.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -70 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Bought the bay out of the sale barn.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'take_the_room',
+        label: 'Take the room over the Ellis place, with the stove.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 150 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'A door that locks, a stove, and a window over the street. The ' +
+          'Cordwood does not hold it against you; the Cordwood holds nothing ' +
+          'against anybody who pays up.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -150 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 2 },
+          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the room with the stove over the Ellis place.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'ride_the_livery',
+        label: 'Ride what the livery gives you.',
+        result:
+          'A different animal every week, and you learn something about each ' +
+          'one of them in the first mile.',
+        effects: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 }],
+      },
+    ],
+  },
 ];
 
 export default deputy;
diff --git a/content/frontier/index.js b/content/frontier/index.js
index 2fb53cf..7a18675 100644
--- a/content/frontier/index.js
+++ b/content/frontier/index.js
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@ export const frontier = {
     'standing': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.nerve': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.trade': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
+    // The same shape as Corporate Ladder's lifestyle, in this setting's own
+    // terms and at this setting's own scale: what the office expects a man to
+    // turn up on, and what keeping that up costs. See DECISIONS #36.
+    'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
     'flags.carries_iron': { initial: false },
     'flags.owes_the_store': { initial: false },
     'flags.covered_for_dutch': { initial: false },
@@ -112,6 +116,66 @@ export const frontier = {
       requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' }],
       effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 38 }],
     },
+    // What the star is expected to arrive on, and what that expectation costs
+    // to meet. The office nets +18 a run; a deputy on his own horse is +11,
+    // and one with the horse and the room is +4 and makes the rest on the
+    // days. Money is meant to keep mattering after the promotion — but the
+    // first pass charged 9 for the room and left a keeper's median balance at
+    // $8 after 200 turns, which is not pressure, it is the debt trap this pack
+    // was tuned twice to avoid.
+    {
+      label: 'Feed and shoeing',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'The room over the Ellis place',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
+    },
+    // Gated on the office for the same reason Corporate Ladder gates its
+    // equivalent on Dispatch: a hand cannot afford any of this, and being
+    // charged standing for that would be a trap rather than a choice.
+    {
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 65 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // The top step, for the reason Corporate Ladder's has one: without it a
+      // man who plays for standing every single day holds a hundred of it on a
+      // livery horse, and the bay is money thrown away. With it he settles in
+      // the low eighties and the last stretch has to be bought.
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 80 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
+    },
     // Store credit costs more the deeper in you are, the same step function
     // Corporate Ladder uses for its loan — a shape, not a setting.
     {
@@ -149,6 +213,9 @@ export const frontier = {
       hand: [0, 12],
       deputy: [10, 30],
     },
+    // States a player opts into, excluded from the baseline above: the floor
+    // is what a man faces owing nothing and keeping nothing.
+    baselineExcludes: ['owed', 'lifestyle'],
   },
 
   display: {
@@ -157,6 +224,10 @@ export const frontier = {
     'standing': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
     'skills.nerve': { label: 'Nerve', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
     'skills.trade': { label: 'Trade', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
+    'lifestyle': {
+      label: 'What you keep', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
+      labels: ['The livery horse', 'Your own horse', 'Horse and a room'],
+    },
     'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
     'flags.carries_iron': {
       label: 'The scattergun', hidden: true,
diff --git a/docs/DECISIONS.md b/docs/DECISIONS.md
index 498411f..cdcd4a3 100644
--- a/docs/DECISIONS.md
+++ b/docs/DECISIONS.md
@@ -547,3 +547,50 @@ ends around $8,300 over 200 turns, and money stops being a constraint. The
 direction is that rising standing brings rising expenses — the car, the place to
 live, the clothes a position expects. Upkeep entries are already gated
 conditions over state, so this is content work, not an engine change.
+
+## 36. Standing costs money to keep
+
+Built in both packs, with no engine change, exactly as #35 predicted.
+
+Each pack declares a `lifestyle` tier — Corporate Ladder's car and address, the
+Frontier's own horse and the room over the Ellis place — bought at a second-rung
+event and charged for every cycle thereafter. Dispatch nets +49 a week; with the
+car +19; with both, **-21**, so a coordinator keeping up has to earn the
+difference out of the days themselves. The Frontier runs the same shape at its
+own scale: +18, +11, +4 a run.
+
+**The charge that makes it a choice is levied in standing, not money.** A player
+whose lifestyle lags behind the job loses standing every cycle, in steps that
+steepen as standing rises. Both are gated on the second stage: the first rung
+pays too little for any of this, and charging a mailroom associate for a car
+would be a trap rather than a decision.
+
+Three things were measured rather than guessed, and all three changed the design:
+
+- **At -2 a week the charge was invisible.** Dispatch hands out standing several
+  points at a time, so a coordinator who bought nothing still finished pinned at
+  100. The step had to reach -4/-6 before ordinary play settled in the seventies.
+- **A player who chased standing every turn beat it anyway** — 99 standing while
+  buying nothing, and $2,245 richer than one who kept up. The lifestyle was a
+  pure loss to anybody paying attention, which is the opposite of the intent.
+  The top step (-14 above 80 standing) puts that player's ceiling at 82, so the
+  last fifteen points are bought rather than worked for.
+- **The Frontier's first numbers left a keeper on $8 after 200 turns.** That is
+  not pressure, it is the debt trap this pack was tuned twice to avoid; the room
+  went from 9 a run to 7.
+
+**Which upkeep counts as the baseline is now the pack's to declare.** The
+conformance suite used to exclude debt-gated entries by matching
+`/debt|owed|loan/i` against path names — the generic suite guessing at content's
+vocabulary, which #31 exists to prevent, and which would have silently counted
+every lifestyle tier at once into a baseline that is supposed to mean "the floor
+a player faces having opted into nothing." Packs now name those paths in
+`tuning.baselineExcludes`, and the suite fails if one is not declared state.
+
+**And a test that had passed for two releases was measuring the wrong thing.**
+"The promotion leaves a player better off" compared the end balances of promoted
+and unpromoted players pooled across archetypes — but which archetypes get
+promoted is not independent of how they spend, so the comparison mostly measured
+the mix. It inverted the moment there was something to spend money on. It is now
+derived from upkeep arithmetic, and the lifestyle's effect is tested with two
+players who differ in exactly one habit.
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 28fb522..ac63a7d 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "theladder",
-  "version": "0.3.1",
+  "version": "0.3.2",
   "private": true,
   "description": "A turn-based career simulation game. Engine is theme-agnostic; settings are content packs.",
   "type": "module",
diff --git a/src/ui/components.js b/src/ui/components.js
index b4019fb..4b8a808 100644
--- a/src/ui/components.js
+++ b/src/ui/components.js
@@ -117,6 +117,10 @@ function deltaText(pack, change) {
   if (typeof change.to !== 'number' || typeof change.from !== 'number') {
     return typeof change.to === 'boolean' ? (change.to ? 'now true' : 'no longer true') : 'changed';
   }
+  // A tier moved: "+1" says nothing, the name of the step says everything.
+  const rule = pack.display?.[change.path];
+  if (rule?.format === 'tier') return rule.labels?.[change.to] ?? String(change.to);
+
   const delta = change.to - change.from;
   const money = pack.display?.[change.path]?.format === 'money';
   const magnitude = money
diff --git a/src/ui/format.js b/src/ui/format.js
index 2ee6c68..5d04b4c 100644
--- a/src/ui/format.js
+++ b/src/ui/format.js
@@ -34,7 +34,11 @@ export function labelFor(pack, path) {
 /** Money is written as money; everything else is a plain number. */
 export function formatValue(pack, path, value) {
   if (typeof value === 'boolean') return value ? 'yes' : 'no';
-  if (displayFor(pack, path)?.format === 'money') return formatMoney(value);
+  const rule = displayFor(pack, path);
+  if (rule?.format === 'money') return formatMoney(value);
+  // A tier is a number the player should never see as one: a pack declares
+  // what each step is called and the interface reads the name off the list.
+  if (rule?.format === 'tier') return rule.labels?.[value] ?? String(value);
   return String(value);
 }
 
diff --git a/test/conformance.test.js b/test/conformance.test.js
index 22d0d8d..4558a7e 100644
--- a/test/conformance.test.js
+++ b/test/conformance.test.js
@@ -48,16 +48,22 @@ function randomRun(pack, runSeed, turns) {
  * on where the last rent lands — Corporate Ladder measures -19 a fortnight over
  * 280 turns and -42 over 560, and only one of those is the steady state.
  *
- * Entries gated on a debt path are excluded: the baseline is what a player
- * faces owing nothing, which is the floor the pack is designed around.
+ * Entries gated on a path the pack calls elective are excluded: a debt it took
+ * on, a lifestyle it bought. The baseline is what a player faces having opted
+ * into none of them, which is the floor the pack is designed around.
+ *
+ * Which paths those are is the pack's to name, in `tuning.baselineExcludes`.
+ * This used to be a regex over path names — /debt|owed|loan/i — which is the
+ * generic suite guessing at content's vocabulary, exactly what DECISIONS #31
+ * says it must not do. It also silently missed anything named otherwise.
  */
 function baselinePerCycle(pack, stage) {
   const cycle = pack.calendar?.cycleLength ?? 1;
-  const debtish = (path) => /debt|owed|loan/i.test(path);
+  const elective = new Set(pack.tuning?.baselineExcludes ?? []);
   return (pack.upkeep ?? [])
     .filter((entry) => {
       const gate = entry.requires ?? [];
-      if (gate.some((c) => debtish(c.path))) return false;
+      if (gate.some((c) => elective.has(c.path))) return false;
       return !gate.some((c) => c.path === 'stage' && c.value !== stage);
     })
     .reduce((total, entry) => {
@@ -90,6 +96,12 @@ for (const pack of packs) {
       assert.ok(pack.stages[stage].title, `a title for stage "${stage}"`);
       assert.ok(pack.tuning.baselinePerCycle[stage], `a baseline for stage "${stage}"`);
     }
+    // A typo here would not fail: the entry simply would not be excluded, and
+    // the baseline would quietly become a number nobody meant.
+    for (const path of pack.tuning.baselineExcludes ?? []) {
+      assert.ok(path in pack.state,
+        `baselineExcludes names "${path}", which the pack does not declare`);
+    }
   });
 
   test(`${where} no content is dead: every event fires and every option becomes available`, () => {
diff --git a/test/content.test.js b/test/content.test.js
index 70580d8..1c6b820 100644
--- a/test/content.test.js
+++ b/test/content.test.js
@@ -19,16 +19,40 @@ import { test } from 'node:test';
 import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
 import { corporateLadder as pack } from '../content/corporateladder/index.js';
 import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../src/engine/game.js';
+import { check } from '../src/engine/conditions.js';
 import { play, sweep, median } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
 
+/**
+ * Net money from upkeep per week for a player in a given position: at a stage,
+ * at a lifestyle tier, owing nothing.
+ *
+ * Derived rather than simulated. Comparing simulated end-balances between
+ * promoted and unpromoted players looks like the obvious test and is
+ * confounded: which archetypes get promoted is not independent of how they
+ * spend, so the pooled medians mostly measure the archetype mix. It passed for
+ * two releases and then inverted the moment there was something to spend on.
+ */
+function netPerCycle(position) {
+  const state = { debt: 0, lifestyle: 0, reputation: 0, ...position };
+  const cycle = pack.calendar?.cycleLength ?? 1;
+  return (pack.upkeep ?? [])
+    .filter((entry) => check(state, entry.requires).passed)
+    .reduce((total, entry) => total + entry.effects
+      .filter((e) => e.path === 'money' && e.op === 'add')
+      .reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0) * (cycle / (entry.every ?? 1)), 0);
+}
+
 test('the promotion is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () => {
   const { byStrategy } = sweep(pack, { seeds: 12, turns: 200 });
 
   const promoted = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'dispatch');
   const stayed = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'mailroom');
   assert.ok(promoted.length > 0 && stayed.length > 0, 'both outcomes should occur');
-  assert.ok(median(promoted.map((s) => s.money)) > median(stayed.map((s) => s.money)),
-    'the coordinator wage should leave a player better off');
+
+  const mailroom = netPerCycle({ stage: 'mailroom' });
+  const coordinator = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch' });
+  assert.ok(coordinator > mailroom + 40,
+    `dispatch nets ${coordinator} a week against the mailroom's ${mailroom}`);
 
   // A player actually pursuing it should get there mid-run, not at the very
   // end — the mailroom is a career, not a tutorial.
@@ -44,6 +68,63 @@ test('the promotion is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () =
   assert.ok(typical > 40 && typical < 90, `promotion landed at turn ${typical}`);
 });
 
+/**
+ * Play to `turns` chasing standing, buying the lifestyle or refusing to.
+ *
+ * Two players differing in exactly one habit. The archetype sweep cannot
+ * answer this question: which archetypes get promoted is not independent of
+ * how they spend, so its pooled medians compare populations, not policies.
+ */
+function chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp, turns = 200 }) {
+  const buys = (r) => (r.option.effects ?? []).some((e) => e.path === 'lifestyle');
+  const gain = (r) => (r.option.effects ?? [])
+    .filter((e) => e.path === 'reputation' && e.op === 'add')
+    .reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
+
+  let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `standing-${seed}` });
+  for (let t = 0; t < turns; t++) {
+    const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
+    const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
+    const buy = available.find(buys);
+    const chosen = (keepUp && buy)
+      ? buy
+      : [...available.filter((o) => keepUp || !buys(o))].sort((a, b) => gain(b) - gain(a))[0]
+        ?? available[0];
+    state = takeTurn(pack, state, chosen.option.id).state;
+  }
+  return state;
+}
+
+test('standing costs money to keep, and the top of it cannot be worked for', () => {
+  // Derived: each tier is a real weekly charge, and a coordinator keeping up
+  // fully is running at a loss on upkeep alone. That is the answer to "money
+  // stops mattering late" — it stopped mattering because standing was free.
+  const plain = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch' });
+  const car = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch', lifestyle: 1 });
+  const address = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch', lifestyle: 2 });
+  assert.ok(car < plain - 25, `the car costs ${plain - car} a week`);
+  assert.ok(address < car - 35, `the address costs ${car - address} a week`);
+  assert.ok(address < 0,
+    `a coordinator keeping up nets ${address} a week and has to earn the difference`);
+
+  // Simulated, controlled: the ceiling. Without the top step a player who
+  // chased standing every turn held 99 while buying nothing, which made the
+  // whole system a tax on inattention rather than a choice.
+  const never = [];
+  const keeps = [];
+  for (let seed = 0; seed < 8; seed++) {
+    never.push(chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp: false }));
+    keeps.push(chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp: true }));
+  }
+  const standing = (runs) => median(runs.map((s) => s.reputation));
+  assert.ok(standing(never) <= 90,
+    `a coordinator who buys nothing reached ${standing(never)} standing`);
+  assert.ok(standing(keeps) >= 95,
+    `a coordinator who keeps up reached only ${standing(keeps)} standing`);
+  assert.ok(median(keeps.map((s) => s.money)) < median(never.map((s) => s.money)),
+    'and the difference is paid for out of the balance');
+});
+
 test('hard times is uncommon for a careful player and real for a careless one', () => {
   const countHardTimes = (strategy) => {
     let days = 0;
diff --git a/test/frontier.test.js b/test/frontier.test.js
index f5c5044..d13aba9 100644
--- a/test/frontier.test.js
+++ b/test/frontier.test.js
@@ -10,8 +10,27 @@ import { test } from 'node:test';
 import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
 import { frontier as pack } from '../content/frontier/index.js';
 import { startGame, currentTurn, takeTurn } from '../src/engine/game.js';
+import { check } from '../src/engine/conditions.js';
 import { play, sweep, median } from './fixtures/strategies.js';
 
+/**
+ * Net money from upkeep per run for a player in a given position: at a stage,
+ * at a lifestyle tier, owing the store nothing.
+ *
+ * Derived rather than simulated, and for a reason worth keeping: comparing the
+ * end-balances of promoted and unpromoted players pools archetypes that do not
+ * spend alike, so it measures the mix rather than the wage.
+ */
+function netPerCycle(position) {
+  const state = { owed: 0, lifestyle: 0, standing: 0, ...position };
+  const cycle = pack.calendar?.cycleLength ?? 1;
+  return (pack.upkeep ?? [])
+    .filter((entry) => check(state, entry.requires).passed)
+    .reduce((total, entry) => total + entry.effects
+      .filter((e) => e.path === 'money' && e.op === 'add')
+      .reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0) * (cycle / (entry.every ?? 1)), 0);
+}
+
 test('the calendar is a four-day run, not a week', () => {
   // The point of this pack, structurally: the engine derives a cycle from
   // whatever length the pack declares, and nothing anywhere assumes seven.
@@ -57,8 +76,11 @@ test('the star is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () => {
   const sworn = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'deputy');
   const stayed = Object.values(byStrategy).flat().filter((s) => s.stage === 'hand');
   assert.ok(sworn.length > 0 && stayed.length > 0, 'both outcomes should occur');
-  assert.ok(median(sworn.map((s) => s.money)) > median(stayed.map((s) => s.money)),
-    'deputy pay should leave a player better off');
+
+  const yard = netPerCycle({ stage: 'hand' });
+  const office = netPerCycle({ stage: 'deputy' });
+  assert.ok(office > yard + 10,
+    `the office nets ${office} a run against the yard's ${yard}`);
 
   // The yard is a career, not a tutorial: the offer is gated at turn 40 and
   // should land somewhere in the middle of a run rather than at the very end.
@@ -74,6 +96,52 @@ test('the star is worth taking, and reachable by a deliberate player', () => {
   assert.ok(typical >= 41 && typical < 90, `the star landed at turn ${typical}`);
 });
 
+/** Play to `turns` playing for standing, buying what the star expects or not. */
+function chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp, turns = 200 }) {
+  const buys = (r) => (r.option.effects ?? []).some((e) => e.path === 'lifestyle');
+  const gain = (r) => (r.option.effects ?? [])
+    .filter((e) => e.path === 'standing' && e.op === 'add')
+    .reduce((sum, e) => sum + e.value, 0);
+
+  let state = startGame(pack, { seed: `standing-${seed}` });
+  for (let t = 0; t < turns; t++) {
+    const turn = currentTurn(pack, state);
+    const available = turn.options.filter((o) => o.available);
+    const buy = available.find(buys);
+    const chosen = (keepUp && buy)
+      ? buy
+      : [...available.filter((o) => keepUp || !buys(o))].sort((a, b) => gain(b) - gain(a))[0]
+        ?? available[0];
+    state = takeTurn(pack, state, chosen.option.id).state;
+  }
+  return state;
+}
+
+test('the star costs money to wear, and the top of standing cannot be worked for', () => {
+  // The same mechanism as Corporate Ladder's, at this pack's scale and in its
+  // own vocabulary — which is the whole claim the second setting exists to
+  // make. No engine code is involved in either.
+  const plain = netPerCycle({ stage: 'deputy' });
+  const horse = netPerCycle({ stage: 'deputy', lifestyle: 1 });
+  const room = netPerCycle({ stage: 'deputy', lifestyle: 2 });
+  assert.ok(horse < plain - 5, `the bay costs ${plain - horse} a run`);
+  assert.ok(room < horse - 5, `the room costs ${horse - room} a run`);
+  assert.ok(room > 0,
+    `a deputy keeping up nets ${room} a run; the yard's own floor is barely above water`);
+
+  const never = [];
+  const keeps = [];
+  for (let seed = 0; seed < 8; seed++) {
+    never.push(chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp: false }));
+    keeps.push(chaseStanding({ seed, keepUp: true }));
+  }
+  const standing = (runs) => median(runs.map((s) => s.standing));
+  assert.ok(standing(never) <= 90, `a deputy on a livery horse reached ${standing(never)} standing`);
+  assert.ok(standing(keeps) >= 95, `a deputy keeping up reached only ${standing(keeps)} standing`);
+  assert.ok(median(keeps.map((s) => s.money)) < median(never.map((s) => s.money)),
+    'and it is paid for in money');
+});
+
 test('hard times is uncommon for a careful player and real for a careless one', () => {
   const countHardTimes = (strategy) => {
     let days = 0;