Make standing cost money to keep, in both settings
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
This commit is contained in:
JesseMarkowitz
co-authored by
Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5
parent
7f20be83e8
commit
5d645e6452
@@ -485,6 +485,65 @@ export const dispatch = [
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},
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],
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},
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{
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// The cost of standing, offered rather than imposed. Buying nothing is
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// always playable and always cheaper; it is Dispatch's weekly "looking the
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// part" charge that makes it a real decision instead of a shop.
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id: 'the_car_lot',
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stage: 'dispatch',
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weight: 45,
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cooldown: 6,
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requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 }],
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description:
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'Marlene mentions, not quite to you, that the coordinator before last ' +
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'drove something with a roof rack, and that people noticed when he ' +
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'stopped. There is a lot on Ninth with a sign about payments.',
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options: [
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{
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id: 'buy_the_car',
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label: 'Put money down on the car.',
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requires: [
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 0 },
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{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 450 },
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],
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result:
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'It is four years old and the radio only gets one station, and on ' +
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'Monday two people who have never spoken to you ask about it.',
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effects: [
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{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -450 },
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 1 },
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{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 3 },
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{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Bought a car with a roof rack.' },
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],
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},
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{
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id: 'trade_up',
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label: 'Trade up, and take the lease on the better side of the park.',
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requires: [
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 1 },
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{ path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 900 },
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],
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result:
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'The address is two stops closer and four hundred a month dearer. ' +
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'Nobody says anything about it, which is the entire point of it.',
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effects: [
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{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -900 },
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 2 },
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{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 5 },
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{ path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Moved to the better side of the park.' },
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],
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},
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{
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id: 'keep_the_bus_pass',
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label: 'Keep the bus pass. The bus is fine.',
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result:
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'The bus is fine. You read two chapters a day on it, which is two ' +
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'more than anybody on Ninth manages.',
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effects: [{ path: 'skills.logistics', op: 'add', value: 1 }],
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},
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],
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},
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];
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export default dispatch;
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@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
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'reputation': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
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'skills.negotiation': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
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'skills.logistics': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
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// What standing costs to keep. Nothing forces a player to climb this, but
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// Dispatch charges standing for staying at the bottom of it — see the
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// "Looking the part" entries in upkeep, and DECISIONS #36.
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'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
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'flags.took_loan': { initial: false },
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'flags.holds_the_envelope': { initial: false },
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'flags.covered_for_trevor': { initial: false },
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@@ -96,6 +100,76 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
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effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 1260 }],
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},
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{ label: 'Rent', every: 7, offset: 7, effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -455 }] },
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// What the job expects of you, and what meeting that expectation costs.
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// Dispatch nets +49 a week; a coordinator with the car is +19, and one
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// with the car and the address is -21 and has to earn the difference out
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// of the days themselves. That is the answer to "money stops mattering
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// late": it stops mattering only if standing is free to keep.
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{
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label: 'Car payment and parking',
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every: 7,
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offset: 7,
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requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
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effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -30 }],
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},
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{
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label: 'The better address',
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every: 7,
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offset: 7,
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requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
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effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -40 }],
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},
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// The pressure that makes the spending a choice rather than a vanity. Both
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// are gated on Dispatch: the mailroom pays too little for this to be
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// anything but a trap, and "later in a career" is the point.
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{
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label: 'Looking the part',
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every: 7,
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offset: 7,
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requires: [
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{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
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],
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effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
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},
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{
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// Standing above sixty-five is a thing you are seen to be, and being seen
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// to be it runs on a better address than a coordinator's first one.
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//
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// Sized by measurement, not by feel. At -2 a week this was invisible:
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// Dispatch hands out standing several points at a time, so a coordinator
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// who bought nothing still finished pinned at 100 and the charge may as
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// well not have existed. At -6, with the entry above, a non-buyer settles
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// in the low seventies while somebody keeping up finishes at 100 — the
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// ceiling is real and money is what lifts it.
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label: 'Looking the part',
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every: 7,
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offset: 7,
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requires: [
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{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
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{ path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 65 },
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
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],
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effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -6 }],
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},
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{
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// The top step, and the one that makes the whole thing a choice rather
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// than a tax on carelessness. Without it, a player who spends every turn
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// chasing standing simply out-earns the charge: measured, they held 99
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// while never buying anything, and finished $2,245 richer than a player
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// who kept up — so the lifestyle was a pure loss to anybody paying
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// attention. With it they plateau in the low eighties. What money buys
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// up here is the last fifteen points, which cannot be worked for.
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label: 'Looking the part',
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every: 7,
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offset: 7,
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requires: [
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{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
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{ path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 80 },
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{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
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],
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effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
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},
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// The service charge steps up with the size of the debt, so the spiral
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// tightens instead of flattening out. A step function in data costs the
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// engine nothing; a percentage would have needed a multiply operation.
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@@ -132,6 +206,9 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
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mailroom: [-45, 5],
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dispatch: [5, 125],
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},
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// Upkeep gated on these is excluded from that baseline: both are states a
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// player opts into, and the baseline is the floor underneath everybody.
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baselineExcludes: ['debt', 'lifestyle'],
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},
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// How the interface names and formats this pack's state. The UI reads only
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@@ -142,6 +219,12 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
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'reputation': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
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'skills.negotiation': { label: 'Negotiation', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
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'skills.logistics': { label: 'Logistics', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
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// Hidden until it is bought: a mailroom associate has no lifestyle to
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// speak of, and a row reading "The bus" from day one is noise.
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'lifestyle': {
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label: 'Lifestyle', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
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labels: ['The bus', 'A car', 'The address'],
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},
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// Kept out of the header, and out of the ledger too: `notable` is the
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// retrospective's own list, and "Notable — changed" tells nobody anything.
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'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
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