Keep money mattering at the top, and fix the instruments that hid it
Both settings now carry a charge levied by standing itself, which no purchase ends. Corporate Ladder's steps on money (1200/-60, 2400/-120, 3600/-240): a flat charge cannot flatten a slope, since late income scales with how well the player plays, and the flat charge needed to stop an optimiser accumulating put ordinary archetypes below zero for 44% of a run. Stepped, the balance settles around $4,250 and ordinary play comes out better than before it existed. The Frontier's is flat at -4 a run, because its late game never accumulated in the first place. Found in the first two human sessions of this work: - A career saved before a pack gained a stat had no path for it, and conditions compare numbers only, so every event, option and upkeep entry gated on a new stat silently did not exist for that run. Loading now fills those in. - 'Wrap up my career' sat immediately after the last option in tab order, so one Tab too many and Enter read as the game ending at day 31. It goes last, and the retrospective says plainly that it is a summary. - A 181-turn session ran against a stale bundle and the change under test never fired. Every logged turn now records app_version and build. - src/version.js had reported 0.3.0 since 0.3.0, while playtesters were told to check the status bar. A test now holds it to package.json. - 'Put money against the book' was shown locked to a player who owed nothing, six times. Options gated on a state the player cannot choose to enter are now hidden rather than greyed. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RxdJFbLq1rBKsUeticGV1g
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@@ -107,6 +107,30 @@ test('standing costs money to keep, and the top of it cannot be worked for', ()
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assert.ok(address < 0,
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`a coordinator keeping up nets ${address} a week and has to earn the difference`);
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// And the top of the ladder is not a plateau. A 96-turn session bought both
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// tiers, reached 100 standing by turn 84, and from there had nothing left to
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// spend on: every charge was switched off and the balance only climbed.
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// Standing costs money to carry at every tier, with nothing to buy that ends
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// it, so there is no position in this pack where money stops mattering.
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const arrived = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch', lifestyle: 2, reputation: 90, money: 2500 });
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assert.ok(arrived < address,
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`standing itself should cost something: ${arrived} against ${address} a week`);
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// And it steepens with what there is to keep up, which is what stops the
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// balance climbing forever. A flat charge could not: late income scales with
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// how well the player plays, so flattening an optimiser's slope with one
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// meant putting ordinary play 44% of a run below zero.
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const wealthy = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch', lifestyle: 2, reputation: 90, money: 6000 });
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assert.ok(wealthy < arrived,
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`the charge should steepen with money: ${wealthy} against ${arrived} a week`);
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assert.ok(wealthy < 0, `and take a rich coordinator backwards: ${wealthy} a week`);
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// At every tier, not only the top one: a coordinator who bought nothing is
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// already paying for standing in standing, and pays in money besides.
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const plainSomebody = netPerCycle({ stage: 'dispatch', lifestyle: 0, reputation: 90, money: 6000 });
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assert.ok(plainSomebody < plain,
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`standing should cost at tier 0 too: ${plainSomebody} against ${plain} a week`);
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// Simulated, controlled: the ceiling. Without the top step a player who
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// chased standing every turn held 99 while buying nothing, which made the
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// whole system a tax on inattention rather than a choice.
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