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v0.8.0.15 — the reference documents, and a card that advertised what it cannot do

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The four hand-written references brought up to the game as it actually runs,
ahead of the next testing round, plus a Quickstart to hand a tester who has never
played. They had not been touched since v0.6.2 — a month and two minor versions —
and each now says at the top which build it describes.

ONE LIVE BUG CAME OUT OF THE PASS. mainlineDescription told players "Cars may be
sorted into any new order here" on the Interchange. It is the printed capability
and has never been implemented: nothing reads sortsCars to permit a sort, and its
one live use is marking the card an Extra may be made up on, because it is the
Mainline card with a yard. That sentence is not only documentation — view.ts
renders it as a Mainline card's `what`, so it is what a player reads on the
board, and the generated reference printed a "Sorts cars: yes" column beside it.
A card advertising a button that does not exist sends a player hunting for it and
then concluding the game is broken.

What the documents had wrong, all of it verified against the code rather than
read for tone: the victory model in the Rules book (firstToTarget /
highestAfterDays and the target-bearing length presets stopped existing in
2026-08 — it is a free days count and a combined floor of 3 x players x days);
"there is no lobby, no server, no multiplayer"; crossing time in mph rather than
regions; Extras launched automatically eastbound; the Uncontrolled Siding listed
as a passing card; industry track length taken from the box count; and a
"Sister Trains" optional rule that never existed. The Home deck's counts table
came out under TODO #15a — Jesse's own ruling that counts move with balance —
and it had been wrong for a month, which is the argument made twice.

The Home and Mainline deck references are restructured to explain how a deck is
USED and to defer every per-card table to rules/as-built.md. Duplicating it by
hand is precisely the drift #15a was raised about: as-built needed no correction
beyond the Interchange, because build:cards regenerates it and a test fails when
the checked-in file disagrees. Everything hand-maintained around it had drifted;
it had not.

docs/design.md, the index everything starts from, said v0.4.3, "what is not: the
server", and 493 tests. It now also lists the player-facing references, which it
never has, so the Quickstart is findable at all.

999 fast tests and 35 sim tests pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DmdqqCNoiqE7GBo6wthBnR
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Jesse.Markowitz
2026-09-20 12:13:18 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent a6657241de
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# Station Master — Mainline Deck
**Rules implementation reference: v0.4.5**
**Scope:** the tarot-sized Mainline cards placed between Offices. This is an implementation reference, not a transcription of earlier prototype rules.
**Describes the game as built at v0.8.0.15** (2026-09-20). Previously stamped "v0.4.5", the
prototype rules edition these references were first written against; the filename keeps that stamp
because `src/`, `CHANGELOG.md` and `docs/rules/` all cite this file by name.
**Scope:** the tarot-sized Mainline cards placed between Offices — how the deck is dealt, what a
card does to a train crossing it, and the Home Deck cards played onto one.
> **Per-card numbers live in [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md)**, which is GENERATED from
> `src/engine/content.ts` and checked by `test/card-reference.test.ts`, so it cannot disagree with
> the game. This document explains how the deck is used; that one is the table of record. Where the
> two ever differ, as-built is right.
## How Mainline cards work
At setup the game places one randomly selected Mainline card between each neighbouring pair of Offices and one beyond each end Office, between it and a Division Point. Thus, a game with *N* players has *N + 1* Mainline cards. The implementation selects types with replacement; it does not deal them from a shuffled finite deck.
At setup the game lays one Mainline card between each neighbouring pair of Offices and one beyond
each end Office, between it and a Division Point — so a game with *N* players uses **N + 1** cards.
They are **dealt from a finite deck without replacement** (since v0.6.2), so no Division can hold
two of a card printed once. The two Division Points are the fixed ends of the Division and are not
in the deck: `buildDivision` lays them itself.
A train crossing a Mainline card spends Stages, rather than moving through its printed cells. A 60 mph card costs one Stage and a 30 mph card costs two. A Slow train adds one Stage to every crossing. On Hilly terrain, any train carrying at least one coach uses the passenger rate; a train carrying no coach uses the freight rate. No crossing can take less than one Stage.
A card does not belong to either neighbouring Office. It is shared Division.
The card does not itself determine which player owns the adjacent Office. It is part of the shared Division.
### Crossing time is REGIONS, not mph
## Physical card inventory in `Mainline Cards.pdf`
A card is divided into **regions**, and a train advances **one region per Stage**. Crossing time is
therefore `regions − startRegion`, and nothing else. **The printed mph is scenery.**
The supplied PDF has **ten** tarot-sized terrain cards. Plains appears twice; the other terrain types appear once each. It also includes two Division Point cards.
This is the part most likely to be remembered wrong, because it used to work the other way: mph set
the cost and a Slow train added a Stage to *every* card. It does not. Four things move a train's
start region and nothing else does:
| Physical card | Copies in the PDF |
1. **The card's own back region.** The Uncontrolled Siding and the Interchange print a back region
that is not part of the road, so a train running through begins past it.
2. **A card that prints a Fast and a Slow start — and only Hilly does.** A fast train starts one
region along and crosses in 1 Stage; a slow one takes 2. **No other card reads a train's
Fast/Slow rating at all.**
3. **The permanent Heavy Grade modifiers**, each moving a train one region up the hill.
4. **Occupancy**: arriving to find the card occupied can put a train in the siding, a region behind.
No crossing ever takes less than one Stage.
### Traffic
Only **Double Track** lets two trains stand on one card, so a following train is not held behind a
slower one. Every other card holds one train at a time. The **Uncontrolled Siding** is not a passing
card: arriving to find a train already there puts you in the siding a region behind it — you do not
run into it, and it costs you the extra Stage instead.
Whether a following train may enter an occupied card at all is the Superintendent's ruling (§8.1,
Rules §4.5). Getting it wrong is what causes collisions.
## The deck
Ten drawable cards — Plains twice, the other eight once each — plus the two Division Point cards,
which are not drawn.
| Card | Copies |
| --- | ---: |
| Plains | 2 |
| Curves | 1 |
@@ -26,60 +67,62 @@ The supplied PDF has **ten** tarot-sized terrain cards. Plains appears twice; th
| Tunnel | 1 |
| Trestle | 1 |
| Interchange | 1 |
| East Division Point | 1 |
| West Division Point | 1 |
| East / West Division Point | 1 each, not dealt |
The PDF art labels this card “Yard”; this reference uses the implementation’s correct name, **Interchange**, to distinguish it from the Division Yard, Classification Yard, Yard Office, and Small Yard.
The PDF art labels the Interchange "Yard". This reference uses **Interchange** throughout, to keep
it apart from the Division Yard, the Classification Yard, the Yard Office and the Small Yard — five
different things.
## Implemented Mainline card reference
**Region counts and entry points per card are in [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md).**
| Card | Implemented crossing time and feature |
| --- | --- |
| Plains | 60 mph; one Stage for Fast, two for Slow. The implementation has one Plains *type* rather than the PDF’s two physical copies. |
| Curves | 30 mph; two Stages for Fast, three for Slow. |
| Hilly | Passenger train: 60 mph. Freight-only train: 30 mph. Add one Stage if Slow. |
| Heavy Grade | Starts at 30 mph; two Stages for Fast, three for Slow. The card prints “Player sets orientation”; **the game deliberately overrides that and rolls the uphill direction from the seed** — settled in v0.5.0 and re-confirmed 2026-08-23, see the note below. Grade modifiers can reduce the time, to a minimum of one Stage. |
| Double Track | 60 mph. Printed capability: trains may pass. The traffic-resolution rule is in Rules §4.5. |
| Uncontrolled Siding | 60 mph. Printed capability: trains may pass. The traffic-resolution rule is in Rules §4.5. |
| Tunnel | 30 mph. |
| Trestle | 60 mph. |
| Interchange | 60 mph. A train may be reordered there only through the card’s printed “sort cars” concept; the current engine does **not** provide a Mainline sorting action for it. |
## The Interchange, and what it does NOT do
### PDF/code mismatch — CORRECTED
The Interchange prints a car-sorting capability. **It is not implemented, and never has been.** The
one thing the card's `sortsCars` flag actually gates is that an **Extra Train may be made up and
started here** — it is the Mainline card with a yard, which is why §7 allows it (v0.6.2). An Extra
starting here begins in the back region and takes the extra Stage.
**Was:** `src/engine/content.ts` defines nine `MAINLINE_PROFILES` types: one Plains entry plus the eight other terrain types above. `setup.ts` selected uniformly from that nine-type list, **with replacement**. The second Plains card shown in `Mainline Cards.pdf` was therefore not represented as a duplicate card or as extra Plains weight in setup — and, worse than a weighting error, a Division could be dealt two Interchanges, two Tunnels or two Trestles, none of which the deck contains.
Re-ordering a consist is done at a **Small Yard** in an Office Area, for one switching Move. See
Rules §4.3.
**Now:** `MAINLINE_DECK` in `content.ts` is the inventory table above — ten drawable cards, Plains twice and the other eight once each — and `buildDivision` deals from it without replacement. The two Division Point cards are not in that deck: they are the fixed ends of the Division, laid by `buildDivision` itself rather than drawn.
The Interchange is what forced the correction. §7 lets an Extra be started at the Interchange "if one is on the board" (see `docs/rules/implications.md`, §7), which only reads as a rule if the board can hold at most one.
The executable state represents East and West Division Points as fixed end nodes, not as card records. They are functionally present at the ends of the Division, but are not represented as the two PDF cards in the deck/state model.
> **Corrected 2026-09-20.** Until this pass the card said "Cars may be sorted into any new order
> here" — on the board, in the tooltip a player reads, and in the generated reference. A card
> advertising an action the game will not offer sends a player hunting for a button that does not
> exist. The description now says what the card does.
## Heavy Grade modifiers
These cards come from the Home Office deck and are played onto a Mainline card during a player’s Draw option.
Home Office cards, played onto a Mainline card during a player's Draw option.
| Card | Copies | Placement and actual effect |
| --- | ---: | --- |
| Brakeman | 1 | Heavy Grade only. Reduces a downhill crossing by one Stage. |
| Airbrakes | 1 | Heavy Grade only, and Brakeman must already be on that card. Reduces a downhill crossing by one additional Stage. |
| Helpers | 1 | Heavy Grade only. Reduces an uphill crossing by one Stage. |
| Realignment | 2 | May be played only onto an unoccupied Mainline card. Changes Plains → Double Track, Curves → Plains, Uncontrolled Siding → Double Track, or Trestle → Uncontrolled Siding. It cannot be played on any other card type. |
| Card | Placement and effect |
| --- | --- |
| Brakeman | Heavy Grade only. A **downhill** train starts one region further on. |
| Airbrakes | Heavy Grade only, and **Brakeman must already be on that card**. A downhill train starts one region further again. |
| Helpers | Heavy Grade only. An **uphill** train starts one region further on. |
| Realignment | Only onto an **unoccupied** Mainline card. Plains → Double Track, Curves → Plains, Uncontrolled Siding → Double Track, Trestle → Uncontrolled Siding. No other card may be realigned. |
For the grade cards, “uphill” should be the direction selected by the player when the card is placed. In v0.4.5 it is the seeded `gradeUp` direction because setup has no player-choice step.
## What is not implemented
- There is no player choice or physical placement interaction for Mainline cards; setup deals them automatically from the seeded random stream. There **is** a finite draw pile as of v0.6.2 — the deck above, dealt without replacement, so no Division can hold two of a card printed once.
- Interchange is catalogued as a “sort cars” card, but v0.4.5 has no operation that reorders a train on the Interchange. The Small Yard in an Office Area is the implemented sorting mechanism.
- Interchange now has one player-facing use: an Extra Train may be **started** there, made up in its yard and highballing onto the Mainline when the Subdivision is clear (§7, v0.6.2). Car sorting remains unimplemented.
A Heavy Grade is 3 regions, so it is 3 Stages to climb and 3 to run down before help. Modifiers
never reduce a crossing below one Stage.
## Heavy Grade orientation is settled, not missing
Heavy Grade orientation is rolled from the seed rather than chosen by a player. **This is a decision, not a gap, and it is not awaiting a player-selection step.**
Heavy Grade orientation is **rolled from the seed**, not chosen by a player. **This is a decision,
not a gap.**
The card prints “(Up)” and “Player sets orientation”, which assumes the card has an owner. This one does not: `buildDivision` lays the Division as `DP · Mainline · Office · Mainline · … · DP`, so a Heavy Grade always sits **between two districts**, or beyond an end Division Point next to one — never inside a single player’s own district.
The card prints "(Up)" and "Player sets orientation", which assumes the card has an owner. This one
does not: the Division is laid `DP · Mainline · Office · Mainline · … · DP`, so a Heavy Grade always
sits **between two districts**, or beyond an end Division Point beside one — never inside a single
player's district.
Orientation is not cosmetic: Brakeman and Airbrakes each take a Stage off a train running **downhill**, Helpers takes one off a train running **uphill**, and odd-numbered trains run west while even run east. Turning the card around therefore decides which of those modifier cards are worth anything and which direction of traffic is favoured — permanently, for the whole game. Handing that to one of the two neighbours advantages them over the other, and no player has a fair claim to it.
Orientation is not cosmetic. Brakeman and Airbrakes help a train running **downhill**, Helpers helps
one running **uphill**, and odd-numbered trains run west while even run east. Turning the card
around decides which modifiers are worth anything and which direction of traffic is favoured, for
the whole game. Handing that to one of two neighbours advantages them over the other, and neither
has a fair claim to it.
**Re-opened and closed again on 2026-08-23**, when the option of giving the choice to the Superintendent was considered and rejected. Jesse’s call: v0.5.0’s ruling stands. Rolling from the seed is deterministic, roughly even (51/49 east/west over 400 games), identical for solitaire and multiplayer, and keeps setup non-interactive — the game has no setup phase, so the question would have to interrupt play before the first Local Operations, in the minority of games that deal the card at all (20% at one player, rising to 50% at four).
**Re-opened and closed again on 2026-08-23**, when giving the choice to the Superintendent was
considered and rejected. Jesse's call: v0.5.0's ruling stands. Rolling from the seed is
deterministic, roughly even (51/49 east/west over 400 games), identical in solitaire and
multiplayer, and keeps setup non-interactive — the game has no setup phase, so the question would
have to interrupt play before the first Local Operations, in the minority of games that deal the
card at all (20% at one player, rising to 50% at four).