station-master/docs/StationMaster-Rules-v0.4.5.md

Station Master — Rules

First-draft rules reference for v0.4.5
Authority: observed v0.4.5 code paths and tests. Where a card face, prototype document, and executable behavior differ, this document reports executable behavior and marks unimplemented material.

1. Overview and background

Station Master is a railroad-operations game set in the timetable-and-train-order era. Each player operates an Office Area on a shared east–west Division. The local work is building rail, switching cars, moving passengers and freight through facilities, and keeping the Office clear. The shared work is dispatching scheduled trains across the Division. The player holding the Superintendent’s Fedora decides whether to clear a following train into an occupied Subdivision; an unsafe decision can cause a collision.

Revenue is the score. Passenger boarding and detraining, freight loading and unloading, completed runs, collisions, and victory conditions are all resolved by the rules configured when the game is dealt.

This book is divided as follows:

1. overview and scope;
2. definitions;
3. creating, saving, replaying, and configuring games;
4. the shared basic game mechanics;
5. the implemented solitaire game;
6. the implemented multiplayer/engine status; and
7. FAQs and implementation limits.

The companion references are Mainline deck, Home deck, and components.

2. Definitions

Term	Meaning in v0.4.5
A/D track	An Office arrival/departure capacity. A Whistle Post has 1; Depot, Station, and Terminal have 2, 3, and 4.
Card location	A square in an Office Area grid. A train may end a switching Move only on Operational Rail.
Classification Yard	The holding yard for used rolling stock. It refills the Division Yard only when that yard is completely empty.
Control Point	A Depot, Station, or Terminal. It breaks the shared Mainline into Subdivisions. A Whistle Post is not one.
Crew Tray	An engine plus up to four coupled rolling-stock cars. The engine itself does not count as a car.
Department pile	One of three shared face-up card stacks. Draw and discard affect only the top card.
Division Point	The western or eastern end of the shared Division, where trains enter and leave it.
Division Yard	The active source of rolling stock.
Expedited train	A train with the expedite rule. It performs Load/Unload at an Office after arriving, then attempts to depart at the end of that same Stage.
Facility	A Passenger Facility at an upgraded Office or a Freight Facility at an industry.
Freight Agent	The Local Operations option that stocks one outbound box, clears one inbound box, unjams one load, or ends without acting.
Limits	The two signs defining an Office Area’s Running Track. They move outward when that track is extended.
Local Operations	The first player-driven phase of a Stage. A player chooses one: switch, draw, or Freight Agent.
Mainline	The shared cards between Offices and Division Points.
MEN | AT | WORK	A three-box freight pipeline. Any load on it locks its industry track.
Operational Rail	A card on which a train may finish a Move. Turnouts are pass-through only; a locked industry is not usable at all.
Running Track	The east–west track between an Office Area’s Limits, including its Office.
Secondary Track	All local rail inside the Limits that is not Running Track.
Stage	One of twelve turns in a Day. Its phases are Local Operations, New Train, Mainline, Load/Unload, and Shift Change.
Subdivision	Mainline between Division Points or Control Points. Clearance checks look through the whole next Subdivision.
Superintendent	The player with the Fedora. The role decides same-direction clearances and rotates every three Stages.
Timetabled train	A numbered train card scheduled to one of the 12 Stage slots, then due at that slot each Day. Odd numbers go west; even numbers go east.

3. Create, save, replay, and game configuration

3.1 Starting a new game in the shipped client

The v0.4.5 browser page creates a one-player solitaire Standard game. Select New game, then choose:

1. a numeric seed, or leave it blank for a fresh browser-generated seed;
2. a starting hand;
3. passenger, freight, and train-transit Revenue rates.

The browser writes those choices into the URL. A particular game is defined by the seed plus these house rules, not the seed alone.

The three starting-hand choices are:

Choice	Setup result
Three random cards	Default. Deal three cards from one shuffled deck.
Six random cards	Deal six cards from one shuffled deck. The player begins over the normal hand limit and must play/discard down before ending the first Draw turn.
Three random track and three random non-track cards	Shuffle track and non-track piles separately for the opening deal; then recombine and shuffle their remainders for all later draws.

The three Revenue values are independently rounded and clamped to 0–5:

• passenger Revenue per coach, paid on boarding and again on detraining;
• freight Revenue per load, paid on completion of an outbound load and again on completion of an inbound unload; and
• train Revenue per transit, paid to every player when a train leaves the Division.

Defaults are 1 / 1 / 0. Zero turns that revenue source off; it does not prevent the underlying operation.

3.2 Deterministic setup and the seed

The engine uses one seeded random stream for shuffles, Mainline selection, opening D12 rolls, timetable rolls, and automatic Heavy Grade orientation. Given the same seed, configuration, player names/order, and accepted action history, it reconstructs the same state.

At setup it creates each Office Area as Limit — Whistle Post — Limit, makes the Division Yard, creates players + 3 Crew Trays, turns up three Department cards, and constructs the shared Division.

In a multi-player engine game, every player receives two seeded D12 rolls:

• The division roll orders seats from low west to high east; equal results put the lower player index farther east.
• The Superintendent roll gives the initial Fedora to the first player tied for highest.

The opening deal starts at the Superintendent’s seat and proceeds left (eastward in the engine’s seat ordering).

3.3 Saving, resuming, and replaying solitaire

The local save format is JSON containing the seed, the accepted intent history, and the house rules. It does not serialize mutable game state. Loading recreates the game from the seed and replays every action through the rules engine. If an old history reaches an action that is no longer legal, replay stops there instead of forcing an invalid state.

The browser also stores the current local game and resumes it automatically when the page opens without an explicit seed in the URL. A downloaded save is named station-master-seed<seed>-day<day>.json.

Undo is solitaire-only. It removes the final accepted intent and rebuilds the game from the earlier history. Random outcomes are not rerolled: replaying the same action consumes the same seeded result. Undo can therefore change the player’s decision after seeing an outcome, but cannot fish for a different timetable die roll.

3.4 Engine game modes and endings

The engine defines Solitaire, Competitive, and Co-op modes. The browser exposes only Solitaire.

Length	Target	Days
Short	10	3
Standard	20	5
Campaign	45	10

With firstToTarget, competitive mode ends when any individual reaches the target; co-op uses target × player count and total Revenue. With highestAfterDays, competitive mode requires the table’s combined Revenue to reach 3 × players × days; otherwise everyone loses. If that floor is met, the highest individual score wins. Solitaire and co-op win only if their score reaches their target at the end of the length.

Competitive mode also ends in a collective loss after three collisions in one Day.

The configuration contains four optional-rule flags. Only two have engine effects: Reduced Visibility gives five rather than six switching Moves in Stages 1, 2, 3, 11, and 12; Emergency Toolbox initially sets the Red Flags hand-limit status, allowing four cards. Sister Trains and Employee Rotation are represented in configuration/state design but are not executed by v0.4.5.

3.5 Multiplayer setup status

There is no multiplayer lobby, room creation flow, remote server, invitation flow, or network session in v0.4.5. The engine can be called with multiple player names (and rejects a Solitaire configuration with more than one), but the delivered page always calls it for one local player. See section 6.

4. Basic game mechanics

4.1 The Stage sequence

Each of 12 Stages follows this sequence:

1. Local Operations — each player, starting with the Superintendent and proceeding left
2. New Train — make up due timetabled trains, then queued second sections and Extras
3. Mainline — automatic train movement in numeric order
4. Load/Unload — each player, starting with the Superintendent and proceeding left
5. Shift Change — expedited departures, clocks/workers, and possibly the Fedora

At a Shift Change, Laborers and Porters reset. The Fedora moves after Stages 3, 6, 9, and 12. At Day end, dispatch-device use resets, collision count resets, the Day and Stage roll over, and victory is checked.

4.2 Local Operations: choose one option

On a player’s Local Operations turn, choose exactly one available option.

Switch. Select any Crew Tray currently in that player’s Office Area. It gets six Moves, or five under Reduced Visibility on the listed night Stages. A Move travels any connected distance in one direction and must end on Operational Rail. Reversing is a separate Move. A train may pass through a turnout but cannot stop on it. It may not share or pass through another train except through an Office with a free A/D track.

Standing cars couple automatically when the train reaches them; it may not pass them, and the resulting consist may not exceed four cars. Coupling forward places cars ahead of the engine; coupling while backing places them behind it. Setting out cars does not spend a Move, but the cut must come from an outer end of the consist and may not be left on the Office. A Small Yard can reorder a consist for one Move. Flying Switch spends one Move to roll a tail cut into a connected Freight Facility.

Draw. Take one card from the face-down Home Office or the exposed top of one Department pile. During this option, play eligible cards and/or discard cards to Department piles, then finish at the hand limit. Track, facilities, offices, modifiers, enhancements, and train cards have the placement or scheduling rules in the deck references. Mainline modifiers are played from this option as well.

Freight Agent. Make one of these operations, then the turn ends: stock one green outbound box from a matching loaded Division Yard car; clear one red inbound box to the Classification Yard; unjam one outbound, inbound, or MEN | AT | WORK load to the Classification Yard; or explicitly end without acting. Freight can be stocked only when an unclaimed empty matching car is already spotted at that industry. Passengers may wait in a green Office box without a train present.

Implementation note: card.discard is accepted by the v0.4.5 engine during Local Operations without checking that Draw was chosen. This unusual implementation behavior is not a separate published turn option.

4.3 Track, switching, and local safety

The Running Track cannot be broken by a curve or other card lacking its east–west through route. Local branches use turnouts and 45° curves. Cards that touch vertically connect only if their 45° legs share the correct diagonal; mere adjacency is not rail connection.

An industry’s track is locked while any load is on its MEN | AT | WORK pipeline. Trains cannot enter, cross, pick up from, or set cars out there. When it is unlocked, an industry track is ordinary Operating Rail and holds up to four cars, the same as any other non-turnout, non-Limits card: a crew may set out one, two, three or four cars there, whatever it is carrying. An industry’s green and red boxes are how much work it can hold, not how much rail it has, and a Modifier beside it adds a box without adding room for a car.

Train-card restrictions also apply while switching. No-switching trains cannot move, set out, or sort locally. Trains 3/4 share a one-freight-car budget for pickup or setout at each grid location. Trains 7/8 cannot set out their coach. X13 cannot pick up, and X22 may pick up empty cars only.

4.4 New Train phase

At the Stage shown on the timetable, the engine makes up the matching timetabled train if a Crew Tray is free. It starts at the Division Point appropriate to its direction. A train may receive matching loaded or empty cars from the Division Yard until its listed maximum consist is reached or no suitable car remains. It is permitted to leave under-strength.

A Second Section order on the due train creates another identical timetabled train behind it when a free tray is available. A played Extra is made up after timetabled trains and Second Sections when a tray is free; v0.4.5 automatically sends every Extra east from the Western Division Point.

4.5 Mainline movement and Office arrival

Mainline movement is automatic and processes lower train numbers first; a timetabled train outranks an Extra with the same number. A train at a Division Point, at an Office A/D track, or already crossing a Mainline card attempts its applicable movement.

Crossing time comes from the Mainline card and train speed. On a normal card, a train must check the entire next Subdivision before entering it:

• an opposing train normally blocks entry;
• a following same-direction train asks the Superintendent to allow or deny clearance;
• Red Flags or ABS Signals hold the follower automatically; and
• passing cards allow entry without this occupancy check.

An Office arrival normally takes a free A/D track. If the Office is full, the inbound train collides and the local Office player loses 5 Revenue; Interlocking instead holds it at the Limits. A coachless inbound train may divert to a Yard Office. Cars fouling the Running Track at the Office also cause a collision.

An expedited train remains available for this Stage’s Load/Unload work after arriving, then attempts to depart at Shift Change. A non-expedited arrival waits until a later Mainline phase. A train departing an Office must be correctly made up: engine at one end, caboose at the far end if present.

When a train leaves the far Division Point, its cars are returned to yards, its Crew Tray becomes free, and each player receives the configured train-transit Revenue (zero by default).

4.6 Passenger work

Passenger work occurs during Load/Unload, at a Depot, Station, or Terminal. Each Porter may take one action per Stage.

• Board: replace an empty coach on an eligible train at the Office with a loaded coach from a green outbound box. The removed empty coach goes to the Classification Yard. Earn configured passenger Revenue.
• Detrain: replace a loaded coach on an eligible train with an empty coach from the Division Yard, placing the loaded coach into an available red inbound box. Earn configured passenger Revenue.

Crack Limited trains permit passenger work at Terminals only. Military Train and Director’s Private Car permit no passenger work. A Whistle Post has no Porters.

4.7 Freight work

Freight work also occurs during Load/Unload. Each Laborer can take one action per Stage. Every freight facility has MEN, AT, and WORK boxes.

For an outbound load, first use the Freight Agent to put a matching loaded car into the green box, with an unclaimed empty matching car spotted on the industry track. A Laborer starts the load on MEN, then advances it to AT, then WORK, then onto the empty car. Completing the last step changes that car to loaded, sends the replaced empty car to the Classification Yard, and earns configured freight Revenue.

For an inbound unload, a matching loaded car must be spotted at an inbound-capable industry and the Division Yard must contain a matching empty car. A Laborer replaces the spotted loaded car with that empty car and starts the load on WORK. Laborers move it backward through AT and MEN into a free red inbound box. That final placement earns configured freight Revenue. Clearing the red box later with the Freight Agent pays no additional Revenue.

5. Solitaire

The implemented game is solitaire: one named player, one Office Area, local browser execution, Standard length, highest-after-days victory, and the default house rules unless changed in New Game. The game has no AI opponent. “Multiplayer” gameplay does not occur locally by simulating other players.

Solitaire-specific features are:

• a local browser save, automatic resume, and JSON download/load;
• unlimited step-by-step Undo back through accepted action history; and
• a seed/rules URL suitable for sharing or reproducing a game.

The active deck removes all 22 opponent-directed cards. Therefore, the defensive cards whose only purpose is to answer them (Facing Point Locks and Water Column) can be placed but have no opportunity to fire; Overpass has no effect at all. The game still includes shared-rail mechanics such as Mainline clearance, but with one player no other player can occupy the Division.

To win the default game, finish Day 5 with at least 20 Revenue. A result below 20 is a loss. Train-transit Revenue defaults to zero, so the default score must principally come from passenger and freight work.

6. Multiplayer

6.1 What the engine supports

The engine has player, seat, score, Office Area, Director/Division, phase-order, co-op, and competitive-mode data for multiple named players. It deals each player a hand, creates one Office Area per seat, starts acting order at the Superintendent and proceeds left, and models the following multiplayer-specific outcomes:

• the D12 seating and Superintendent rolls described in section 3;
• individual Revenue in competitive play and shared total Revenue in co-op;
• a competitive collective loss after three collisions in one Day;
• a collective Revenue floor for competitive highest-after-days games; and
• train-transit Revenue awarded to every player, if that revenue setting is nonzero.

The engine’s setup checks only that there is at least one player and that Solitaire has exactly one player. It does not enforce a maximum player count, although the test and design material exercise two through four players.

6.2 What is not delivered in v0.4.5

There is no implemented multiplayer game setup for end users: no server, lobby, invitation, room code, player join flow, authoritative remote state, or remote Session. The browser page creates a local single-player session only. Accordingly, there is no supported procedure for resuming a multiplayer game, and no multiplayer Undo.

The 12 space-use cards and 10 action cards are not dealt in competitive or co-op either. The engine rejects attempts to play either category. Thus, no card can currently be played on another player. This includes Derail, Broken Coupler, Railroad Crossing, score-penalty cards, Vandalism, Hotbox, Outlawed, and all table-space cards. Facing Point Locks and Water Column are implemented only as dormant defences for these unavailable effects.

6.3 Difference from solitaire, if a multi-player engine session is created

Players have separate local districts, hands, and scores, but they share the Home Office deck, Department piles, yards, timetable, Mainline, and traffic consequences. Turn order is sequential; one current actor acts at a time. The Superintendent role is attached to a player while Offices are attached to fixed seats. Employee Rotation is not active, so players do not actually change seats in v0.4.5.

The deck is still 213 cards and still excludes opponent-directed content. Therefore multi-player engine mode changes shared traffic, scores, turns, and win/loss evaluation—not card attacks or a remote user experience.

7. Frequently asked questions

Is the same seed always the same game?

Only with the same house rules, player configuration/order, and action history. The seed drives all engine randomness, but the starting hand and Revenue settings also change the game.

Why can’t I end my draw turn?

Your hand exceeds three cards, or four when the Red Flags hand-limit status is active. Play or discard down to the limit.

Why can’t my train move onto a turnout?

It may move through a turnout but cannot end a Move there because turnouts are not Operational Rail.

Why can’t a train enter my industry?

Its MEN | AT | WORK pipeline contains a load, which locks the track; the rail geometry does not connect; another train occupies it; mandatory coupling would exceed four cars; or four cars are already standing there, which is as many as any card holds.

Why won’t an industry accept a new outbound load?

The green box may be full, the Division Yard may lack a matching loaded car, or there is no unclaimed empty matching car already spotted on that industry’s track.

Why does an inbound freight unload require an empty car in the Division Yard?

The engine immediately replaces the spotted loaded car with a matching empty car. It will not create a new car from nothing.

Why did an arriving train collide instead of wait?

The Office had no free A/D track and no Interlocking. A full Office is an automatic local collision. An Interlocking holds the arrival at the Limits.

Why is a train held at an Office even though the Mainline is clear?

It may be on Secondary Track rather than the Office, or be badly made up: its engine is between cars or its caboose is not at the far end.

Why did an expedited train leave after passenger/freight work?

Expedite means it departs in the Stage it arrived, but v0.4.5 waits until Shift Change so it remains present for that Stage’s Load/Unload phase.

Can I choose the direction of an Extra or a Heavy Grade?

Not in v0.4.5. The engine launches Extras eastbound from the Western Division Point. Heavy Grade orientation is seeded automatically at setup.

Can I use an Interchange to reorder a train?

No. The card is catalogued with a sorting concept, but there is no implemented Interchange sorting action. Small Yard is the available local sorting mechanism.

Can I play attack cards on another player?

No. All action and space-use cards are excluded from every dealt deck in v0.4.5 and their play is rejected.

Is multiplayer playable?

No. Multi-player state and rules-engine support exist, but the lobby, server, remote client, and opponent-directed card mechanics are not implemented.