Jesse.MarkowitzandClaude Opus 5
517238a727
A second-digit bump, deliberately. 0.8.1 had been reserved for the seatless display table; that work is getting more thought, and this table pass over v0.8.0.17 earned the number on its own. Six reports: one was a rules question, one a wording complaint with a real bug underneath, four straightforward. A CAR CLEARED FROM A RED INBOUND BOX CAME BACK STILL LOADED. Reported as wording — "technically accurate but doesn't make any sense" — and the wording was the visible half. `inboundCleared` pushed `pooled(e.stock)` under a comment reading "a car back in a yard is back in the common supply, carrying nothing", and `pooled` does not do that: it strips the load's origin stamp and keeps `loaded` ON PURPOSE, because a train can retire at a Division Point with freight aboard. So the comment described an intention the call never carried out, and every car the Freight Agent cleared reached the Classification Yard carrying a load already delivered and already paid for. It bites hardest on coaches: `passengersDetrained` takes `coach && !loaded` out of the Division Yard and §2.2 refills that yard from Classification, so a cleared coach came back as stock that could never unload another passenger. Measured over five three-Day solitaire games: 18 loaded coaches in Classification against 6 empty. The red box is where a journey ENDS; clearing it sends the passengers out of the station, or the delivered load into the industry, and returns the CAR, empty. The option says that now instead of describing the counter that moves. SCOPED TO THE RED BOX ON PURPOSE. `retireTrain` also returns loaded cars and is left alone: that is what `pooled`'s own documentation describes, and a loaded car in a yard is pre-loaded cargo rather than dead stock — it can be made up and delivered, and a loaded coach can still detrain. Only the red box's contents had already finished their journey. GAMES IN PROGRESS DO RESUME, MEASURED RATHER THAN ARGUED. Yard contents change, so the worry was real. All twelve saves on the test server were pulled and replayed through `tryResumeSession` — the server's own boot check — against this build. Six resume, six refuse, and the six refusals are the SAME six, at the same moves, with the same codes, that 0.8.0.17 already logged. Nothing new was stranded. That pre-install replay is a better check than reading the next boot log, because it answers before the install rather than after. THE HISTORY SAID "Mainline card 7" and left the reader to remember what card 7 was — with two Plains dealt, which is why the slot is kept beside the name rather than replaced by it. A second fault sat one word to its left and nobody reported it: the name was built as `e.key.replace(/([A-Z])/g, ' $1')`, so `absSignals` printed as "abs Signals" while the action list directly above said "ABS Signals". `narrate` takes `mainlineAt` and `enhancementName` beside the `facilityAt` it already had, and `simpleCardName` is exported so the log reads the same table the buttons do. `mainlineModified` had both faults and is fixed with it. LEAVING A RUNNING GAME WAS A DEAD END. `enterSeating` hides the choice section and only the lobby's own two leave paths put it back; leaving a running game is a third route, so the lobby came back holding nothing but "Games you are in" with both doors on the page at display:none and no control able to reveal them. Reset in `runLobby`, which is the one function every route onto that screen goes through — which is exactly why the two paths that did it themselves missed a third. THE LOBBY'S ACTION BUTTONS CARRY THE BOARD'S AMBER. A list of the actions rather than `#lobby button`: the settings form under Create is a field of inputs, and amber on all of it would say everything is a move and so say nothing. A disabled Start game drops back to chrome. THE DEPARTMENT REFILL IS A RULE AND IS NOW WRITTEN DOWN. §6.2 — "if any of the Department decks is empty, draw a Home Office card and place it in the empty spot" — firing only when the draw actually empties the pile. Kept as implemented (Jesse's ruling) and stated in rules.md and home-deck.md, neither of which had ever mentioned it. A rule implemented from the prototype and never written down is a rule that surprises the table. 1016 fast tests and 35 sim tests pass. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01MUizFYCMHRWhbWwXhp7WPR
160 lines
9.3 KiB
Markdown
160 lines
9.3 KiB
Markdown
# Station Master — Home Deck
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**Describes the game as built at v0.8.1.0** (2026-09-22). These references are kept current with
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every release rather than versioned as editions, so there is no version in the filename: this file
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is always the latest, and the build it describes is stated here.
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**Scope:** the Home Office deck — how it is dealt, drawn, discarded and reshuffled, and what the
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rules are for playing each kind of card out of it.
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> **Per-card facts live in [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md)**, which is GENERATED from
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> `src/engine/content.ts` and checked by `test/card-reference.test.ts`, so it cannot disagree with
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> the game. Read it for every card's name, effect, placement and whether its printed effect actually
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> resolves yet. This document is how the deck WORKS; that one is what is in it.
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>
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> **No card counts appear here, deliberately** (TODO #15a, Jesse's call 2026-08-22): counts move
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> with play balance, so a document printing them is answering a question that has a different answer
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> after the next retune. Where a count matters it is rendered as a yes/no — whether the deck deals
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> the card at all — which is a fact about the design. This page used to print a full counts table
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> and it was wrong for a month before anyone noticed.
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## The piles
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- **Home Office deck** — face down. The pile a Draw comes from.
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- **Three Departments** — face-up discard piles. A discard goes onto one, which is precisely so a
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rival may take it; a Draw may take the top card of a Department instead of the deck. **Taking the
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last card off a Department refills it immediately** from the Home Office deck (§6.2), so there
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are always three piles to choose from; see the Rules.
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- **Salvage Yard** — where a played-out card ends up. An Extra's card goes here after its run.
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When the Home Office deck runs out it is rebuilt from the Salvage Yard and **all three Departments
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in full**, reshuffled from the seeded stream. A **spent timetabled train** is not collected — its
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number is on the timetable and it cannot run twice — but a *discarded* train was never played and
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is still runnable, so it comes back.
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## Hand and turn
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The hand limit is **three**, or four while you hold a Red Flag. You may not end a turn over the
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limit: play a card or discard one to a Department. Some cards cannot be discarded at all — an Extra
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never can, and a timetabled train cannot when the `discardTimetabled` house rule is off — so a hand
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of nothing but those has exactly one way forward, which is to play one.
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The opening deal is a house-rule choice made when the game is dealt. The default (`threeRandom`) is
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three cards from one shuffled deck; `threeTrackThreeOther` deals three track and three others from
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two separately shuffled piles, deliberately over the hand limit, so the first turn is spent choosing
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which district you can afford to build.
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Drawing is one of the three Local Operations options — see [Rules](rules.md)
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§4.2. Taking the option lets you draw **and** play or discard within the same turn.
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## Track cards
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Track cards are ordinary Home Office cards, not a separate personal supply.
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- A placed card must **connect to existing rail**: at least one neighbour must join it.
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- The **Running Track** is the row from Limit to Limit. A card placed there must carry an east–west
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through route, or it breaks the main.
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- Placing track **on a Limit sign** extends the Running Track and moves that sign outward. The sign
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is a physical card, so it moves rather than being left stranded mid-track.
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- **Nothing may be placed outside your Limits** — track, industries and, since v0.8.0.14, Modifiers
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too. Your district ends at its sign.
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- Curves and turnouts are printed left- or right-handed. A card may be turned 180° but never flipped
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over, so its 45° leg never changes diagonal.
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- A **turnout may upgrade** an existing straight, or a curve whose arc is exactly the turnout's
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diverging arc. Not if the card holds standing cars or an enhancement. Every other occupied square
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is unavailable.
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- A turnout may be **run through but not stopped on**: it is not Operational Rail, so a Move may not
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end there.
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## Office cards
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Every player begins at a **Whistle Post**, which is not drawn from the deck: one A/D track, no
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Porters, no passenger slots, and not a Control Point.
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Office cards are **upgrades in strict sequence** — Whistle Post → Depot → Station → Terminal — and
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each upgrades the Office in place rather than replacing its card or its attached track. Modifiers
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already beside it are preserved. Each tier adds an A/D track, a Porter, and an outbound and inbound
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passenger slot; a Depot and above is a Control Point and a Passenger Facility.
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An upgrade takes no placement: the Office is where it already is.
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## Freight facilities
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An industry is placed on a connected straight **stub off the Running Track** — never on the Running
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Track itself, and never outside the Limits. A Facility carries its own rails, so placing one places
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track.
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Each begins with one Laborer and a three-box **MEN | AT | WORK** pipeline. No Office Area may hold a
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duplicate industry, or both ends of a lockout pair — a producer and the consumer of the same
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commodity cannot be built in one district.
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**An industry track holds four cars, like any other card.** It is *not* sized by the industry's box
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count. That distinction was a real bug: box count is how much WORK an industry can hold, not how
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much RAIL it has, and conflating the two invented a printed siding no industry card carries.
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## Facility modifiers
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A Modifier sits on an empty square among the **nine spots around its host Facility** — and, since
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v0.8.0.14, **inside your Limits**, like everything else. It may not stand in the Running Track row.
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One of each kind per Office Area.
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**A Modifier adds a BOX, never room for a car.** A Truck Dock beside a Grocer's Warehouse gives it a
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second red box — somewhere for one more arriving load to be cleared to — and changes nothing about
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how many cars may be spotted there.
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**A grant the host cannot use does nothing**, and the game says so rather than pretending. An
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outbound bonus beside an inbound-only facility, or the Truck Dock's inbound bonus beside the
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outbound-only Packing Sheds, is discarded — the latter leaving that card with no effect at all.
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Passenger modifiers beside a **Whistle Post** add Porters but create no outbound slot until the
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Office becomes a Passenger Facility; the panel reports that as DORMANT rather than claiming the
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facility "only receives", which was wrong in both directions.
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## Train cards
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Playing a **timetabled** train rolls the seeded D12 and puts its number in the first open timetable
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slot at or after the result, wrapping around the 12-slot chart. It then runs at that Stage **every
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Day**.
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Playing an **Extra** queues it; it is made up when a Crew Tray comes free, and **the player who
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played the card chooses where it starts and loads it as they choose** (§7). Where it may start is a
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house rule — `divisionPointsOnly`, `ownOffice`, or `anyOffice` (the default) — and the Interchange is
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also available, because it is the one Mainline card with a yard. An Extra runs once and its card
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goes to the Salvage Yard.
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> The v0.4.5 behaviour of launching every Extra eastbound from the Western Division Point was
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> replaced in v0.6.2. The number no longer decides an Extra's direction; the start does.
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The listed consist is a **maximum, not a minimum**. A train may depart with fewer cars, but not with
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more, not of the wrong category, not with a car behind the caboose, and not with the engine buried
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among its own cars. A Crew Tray holds four pieces, and a caboose counts toward the four.
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A train made up short of what its card calls for is reported as such, with what it wanted and why
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the yard could not supply it — see Rules §4.4.
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**Per-train consists and printed rules: [`rules/as-built.md`](rules/as-built.md) § Trains.** It
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carries the `empties only`, `reefers only`, `drop only` and `pick up empties only` restrictions,
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every one of which the engine enforces.
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## Enhancements, Mainline modifiers and Maneuvers
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- **Enhancements** are played into your district and change what a square does — the **Small Yard**
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(re-order a consist for one Move), **Interlocking**, **Yard Office** and the rest. `as-built.md`
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marks each one `live`, `dormantSolo` or `unbuilt`, which is the part only the implementation
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knows.
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- **ABS Signals is the exception, and it matters.** It is dealt as an Enhancement but is **not
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played into your district**: it goes onto a **Mainline card** — any one of them — and stops
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trains there rear-ending each other. It takes no square and is not part of anybody's Office
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Area. See [Mainline deck](mainline-deck.md).
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- **Mainline modifiers** are played onto a Mainline card: the Heavy Grade helpers and Realignment.
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See [Mainline deck](mainline-deck.md).
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- **Maneuvers** are held and spent: **Red Flags** and **Flying Switch** have their own actions.
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Poling is catalogued but its effect is recorded as "TBD in the source", so there is nothing to
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implement.
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## Opponent-directed cards — not dealt
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The **Action** and **Space-use** categories are opponent-directed and are **excluded from every
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dealt deck**, because their play rules are not implemented. They are catalogued in
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`as-built.md` so the composition is on record, and `check` refuses to play one. This is deliberate:
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silently accepting them would make a card look playable while doing nothing.
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