v0.6.1 — five of six playtest bugs: one button per train, and a load that has to go somewhere

Gameplay testing on 0.4.9d returned six reports. Five are fixed; the sixth could not be
reproduced and is written up in TODO.md with the two questions that would pin it down.

TWO TRAINS AT ONE PLATFORM ANSWERED TO ONE BUTTON. `porter.board` and `porter.detrain`
carried no tray, so there was one button per platform however many trains stood at it and
the reducer filled the first empty coach on the A/D tracks. `check` and the reducer were not
even asking the same question: `check` skipped a train whose card refuses passenger work and
the reducer did not. Both intents now carry an optional `trayId`, one function resolves the
train and the coach for check/execute/reduce alike, `legal.ts` offers one candidate per train,
and the label names it.

A LOAD COULD BE MADE AND BROKEN WITHOUT GOING ANYWHERE. A Freight House could unload the
boxcar it had just loaded; a platform could detrain the passengers it had just boarded. Full
Revenue at both ends for a movement that never happened. Jesse's rule: a load made anywhere in
an Office Area may not be broken anywhere in that Office Area, ever — it has to be carried to
another district. The load carries the seat that made it (`RollingStock.origin`), stripped by
`pooled` at every yard push. Measured at -0.60 +/- 0.10 Revenue a game (t = -6.1) over 400
paired deals: 78 worse, 3 better, 319 unchanged — free Revenue coming off the board, not a nerf.

THE GROCER'S WAREHOUSE SHIPPED AND THE REFINERY RECEIVED. Both were `flow: 'both'` on the
reading that "Freight House" was a collective term for exactly those two, and therefore what
§9.3 described. The engine has dealt a Freight House CARD since before v0.4.9, so §9.3 names
it and the argument goes. The card set agrees: all three Refinery modifiers grant +1 outbound.
Refinery outbound-only, Grocer's inbound-only, Freight House the one two-way industry — which
leaves exactly the one same-district pairing the rule above refuses.

NOT REPRODUCED: cars left behind when backing up over them. Five layouts tried, including cars
spotted at an industry; every one couples the lot. Three are pinned in `apply.test.ts`. One way
to create such cars was closed anyway — `flyingSwitch` wrote its cut past `carsOn`.

Both published replays that had gone dead were re-recorded; a rules change retires a save, and
`harness.test.ts` is what catches it.

The same change ships as v0.4.9e on the 0.4.9 line, branched from the v0.4.9d commit — the engine
files these fixes touch are identical across the two lines, so the patch applied cleanly both ways.

Also carries the two "Queued 2026-08-22, from playing on StartOS" TODO items that were staged
before this work started (Games in Progress readability, and getting back into a game after
losing a browser). They are notes, and items 9-12 below them are numbered against them.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_011nbvwWMef8CuEP6t5cgkTv
This commit is contained in:
Jesse.Markowitz
2026-08-21 23:54:24 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 40f07b0710
commit 83a5450866
25 changed files with 2853 additions and 1811 deletions
+21 -11
View File
@@ -42,14 +42,14 @@ Operational Rail wheel icon, an industry track of the stated length, Laborer ico
| --- | --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| Mine Tipple | Hopper | Outbound only | 3 | 3 | — | 4 | 2 |
| Produce Shed | Reefer | Outbound only | 2 | 2 | — | 3 | 2 |
| Grocer's Warehouse | Boxcar | Both | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Oil Refinery | Tank car | Both | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Power Plant | Hopper | Inbound only | 3 | — | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Grocer's Warehouse | Boxcar or reefer | Inbound only | 1 | — | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Oil Refinery | Tank car | Outbound only | 1 | 1 | — | 4 | 3 |
| Power Plant | Hopper or tank car | Inbound only | 3 | — | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Freight House | Boxcar | Both | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | 6 |
Directions follow the commodity: coal originates at a Mine Tipple and is consumed at a Power Plant;
produce ships out; a warehouse and a refinery do both. This gives §9 all three of its cases —
outbound-only, inbound-only, and both.
produce ships out; a warehouse receives. This gives §9 all three of its cases — outbound-only,
inbound-only, and both — with the **Freight House the one card that does both**.
**"Freight House" IS a card** (corrected v0.5.0) — a sixth industry, dealt 6 copies, one Laborer and
one slot each direction. An earlier pass here read §9.3/Appendix A's "Passenger Facilities and
@@ -57,6 +57,15 @@ Freight Houses permit cars to move each direction" as meaning "Freight House" wa
*collective term* for the Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery, never a card of its own — that
reading was wrong; the engine deals it as a real sixth industry (`content.ts`'s `freightHouse`
profile) and this table follows the engine.
**The Grocer's Warehouse and the Oil Refinery are ONE-WAY** (corrected v0.4.9e). The Direction column
read "Both" for both of them, and that was the *other half* of the same mistaken reading: if "Freight
House" named those two, §9.3 had to be describing them, so they had to be two-way. Once the Freight
House is its own card the argument evaporates, and playtesting settled it — "Grocer's Warehouse
should be receive only, does not ship anything out"; "Refinery: only ships out tanks, does not
receive anything" (Jesse). `StationMaster-Home-Deck-v0.4.5.md` prints both that way, and the modifier
set agrees: all three Refinery modifiers (Pipelines, Oil Depot, Viscosity Breakers) grant **+1
outbound**, which would be an odd card set for a facility that receives half the time.
<!-- TODO v0.5.0: Mine Tipple, Produce Shed and Power Plant above (3/3/4, 2/2/3, 3/3/4) were NOT
re-verified against the engine in this pass — only Grocer's Warehouse, Oil Refinery and Freight
House were. `mineTipple` and `powerPlant` in `content.ts` are also base 1/1/1, same as the three
@@ -91,9 +100,10 @@ deliberately slower industries, unable to quite keep up with a dedicated player.
That is why Laborer counts track Outbound capacity: Mine Tipple 3/3, Power Plant 3/3, Produce Shed
2/2, Grocer's Warehouse 2/2. The numbers are derived from the action budget, not chosen freely.
The Oil Refinery is the exception at 3 Laborers against 2+2 capacity, and deliberately so: it serves
two flows through one three-box pipeline, so its pipeline stays fuller than a one-way facility's and
the third Laborer is earning its keep.
<!-- The paragraph that stood here explained the Oil Refinery's third Laborer as the price of serving
two flows through one pipeline. It serves one flow (v0.4.9e), so the explanation is gone with the
premise; whether the Laborer count is still right is part of the same unverified block flagged
above and in TODO.md. -->
Even so, Laborers are rarely what limits a player — spotting the empty car and hauling the loaded one
away both cost switching actions from the same budget. See §7.
@@ -269,12 +279,12 @@ with all boxes full:
| Car | Facility demand | Supply | Headroom |
| --- | ---: | ---: | --- |
| Hopper | Mine Tipple 3×2 + Power Plant 3×2 = 12 | 12 | exactly met |
| Tank | Oil Refinery (2+2)×2 = 8 | 8 | exactly met |
| Boxcar | Grocer's (2+2)×2 = 8 | 12 | 4 spare |
| Tank | Oil Refinery 2×2 = 4 | 8 | 4 spare (was "exactly met" while the Refinery was two-way) |
| Boxcar | Grocer's 2×2 = 4 | 12 | 8 spare (same correction) |
| Reefer | Produce Shed 2×2 = 4 | 8 | 4 spare |
| Coach | Terminal 4+4, per Office | 16 | scales with Office count |
Hoppers and tank cars are exactly met in the theoretical worst case, which cannot occur in practice —
Hoppers are exactly met in the theoretical worst case, which cannot occur in practice —
only 10 freight facility cards exist across a 52-card deck shared by all players, and the §2.2
Classification Yard recycle returns stock to the Division Yard whenever it empties. Both are worth
watching in playtesting.