Jesse.Markowitz
e255076b5c
The 0.6.2 change, ported to the playtest line. Three from the v0.4.9e gameplay-testing round — Gitea#4 extras did not start where the player said, #6 train cards could be discarded, #7 four train cards had the wrong coach counts — plus two bugs found underneath #4. Gitea#2 is diagnosed but NOT fixed; it needs a ruling, and the reasoning is in TODO.md. GITEA#4 — AN EXTRA STARTS WHERE THE PLAYER PUTS IT. Both Division Points are offered now, and the START decides the direction rather than the number: an odd westbound Extra placed at the WEST end would otherwise leave the Division on its first move having crossed nothing and be paid for the run. At an Interchange or a Control Point the player picks the direction. The Interchange start is a YARD, off the running line, which is what makes the Superintendent clause work — placing an Extra there can never force a collision, a guaranteed one holds it for another Stage, and a potential one is the Superintendent's to rule on, which are §8.1's two existing answers. Where an Extra may start is a new setting in the New Game dialog, defaulting to what the engine already did so this build does not change under its testers mid-line. FOUND UNDERNEATH IT, both already shipping: an Extra started away from a Division Point could never be given a consist and ran empty, so the Control Point start has been broken since it was added; and collide left destroyed trains' transits on the Mainline card, permanently poisoning that card for every later train. THE MAINLINE CARDS ARE DEALT FROM THE PRINTED DECK NOW, without replacement. They were drawn from the nine types with replacement, so a Division could hold two Interchanges — and "an Extra may start at the Interchange if one is on the board" only reads as a rule if the board holds at most one. This re-deals every seed, so both published replays were retired and re-recorded. GITEA#6 — A TRAIN CARD IS NEVER DISCARDED, Timetabled and Extra alike. No forcing mechanism was needed: nothing discardable plus a hand over the limit leaves exactly one legal way to end the turn, and playing a train is unconditionally legal, so a hand of four cannot trap anyone. The hand panel says so on the train, and the blocked end-turn button changes its wording. GITEA#7 — COACH COUNTS. 1/2 Crack Limited 3 -> 2, 5/6 The Sparrow 2 -> 3. WHAT DIFFERS FROM THE MAIN LINE. The car-placement round rotation test that accompanies #7 there arrived with the 0.6 multiplayer work and does not exist here, so there was nothing for the coach-count change to follow. src/web/main.ts and test/web.test.ts needed hand-resolution: this line's New Game dialog has neither the mode radios nor the victory dials, so only the Extra-start parts were taken. The content.ts comment pass came across whole; main's TODO documentation item did not, since this line keeps its own TODO. 623 tests pass, tsc clean, site builds.
5.6 KiB
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.
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.
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.
The card does not itself determine which player owns the adjacent Office. It is part of the shared Division.
Physical card inventory in Mainline Cards.pdf
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.
| Physical card | Copies in the PDF |
|---|---|
| Plains | 2 |
| Curves | 1 |
| Hilly | 1 |
| Heavy Grade | 1 |
| Double Track | 1 |
| Uncontrolled Siding | 1 |
| Tunnel | 1 |
| Trestle | 1 |
| Interchange | 1 |
| East Division Point | 1 |
| West Division Point | 1 |
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.
Implemented Mainline card reference
| 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 requires the player to select its uphill direction; v0.4.5 instead selects that direction from the game seed during setup. 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. |
PDF/code mismatch — CORRECTED
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.
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.
Heavy Grade modifiers
These cards come from the Home Office deck and are 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. |
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 finite draw pile, player choice, or physical placement interaction for Mainline cards; setup selects their types automatically from the seeded random stream.
- 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.
- Heavy Grade orientation is seeded automatically rather than chosen by a player. The implementation needs a player-selection step to match the card.