Chemistry row *Spread* (canon CONCEPT.md § tag grammar): a heated
enemy slammed into another (knockback impact >= threshold, not a
walking bump) spreads its heat on contact and passes momentum, so
chains cascade with decaying force — chemistry feeding chemistry.
Authorship-loud feedback stack per canon: ~80ms hitstop (owned by the
hand, capped so chain procs can't lock the world; rides on top of
freeze/thaw states), the two tag hues meeting at the point of impact
(oriented fx, no proc text), and a per-pair audio sting (procedural
placeholder, _ph-marked per asset policy).
Burster: second enemy type, HEAT-tagged walking bomb (orange base,
literal tag mirror) — self-heats ~0.5/s toward threshold, big
detonation. Every 4th spawn. Detonations are now symmetric: they
damage enemies AND the mech in radius (one grammar on both sides;
heat play prices standing close). Grunt scene exports drive both
enemy types — no subclass.
Smoke gate extended: burster self-heat observed (retry-tolerant),
deterministic staged chemistry proc (heated striker slammed into cold
neighbor outside weapon range -> proc counter, heat spread). 3/3
green on nh3-dev headless 4.7.1. Known cosmetic: 2 ObjectDB instances
reported leaked at exit (constant, exit-order artifact — audio stream
alive at quit), not a runtime leak.
Closing the hand no longer snaps to full speed: time ramps from where
it stood (near-zero out of a freeze, current slow-mo out of a thaw,
x1 out of realtime — depletion force-close gifts no slow-mo) up to x1
over release_thaw_s wall-clock seconds (default 0.5; 0 = snap).
Reopening mid-ramp cancels it. In-band thaw gains an acceleration
curve (thaw_curve, default 2.2): hangs slow longer, then rushes to
full speed, instead of linear.
Smoke gate: release must NOT be at x1 immediately after close (ramp
present) and must reach x1 within 3s; both modes covered. 3/3 green
on nh3-dev headless 4.7.1.
Meter variant (default; M flips to the original unlimited toggle live):
a Freeze charge regenerates while the hand is closed and drains while
open. Level maps to bands — full/high: true pause; mid: thaw slow-mo
ramping back to realtime as it drains; low: realtime card draw; empty:
hand force-closes and will not reopen until regrown past the floor.
Opening with a full meter buys the whole ladder (full freeze before
thaw); empty-meter Space-spam cannot refreeze. Dim overlay depth
telegraphs the band wordlessly; HUD meter bar shows band boundaries
and fill colored by openable band. All rates/bands exported.
Meter runs on the wall clock (Time.get_ticks_msec) — process delta is
scaled by the very time_scale the hand animates, and pause zeroes
physics delta.
Design rationale (KB-grounded, pressure-tested 2026-08-07): prices the
freeze-scout dominant strategy, adds temporal triangularity to chains,
and yields a canon-safe difficulty/accessibility axis (meter size,
regen, thaw length). Playtest variant — canon ratification pending
operator verdict; CONCEPT.md entry lands in the advisor repo after.
Smoke gate extended: band ladder (thaw slow-mo in (0,1), realtime x1,
depletion force-close, empty-reopen refusal), regen while closed,
toggle-mode A/B still hard-freezes. 3/3 green on nh3-dev headless
4.7.1.
Hand (CanvasLayer, PROCESS_MODE_ALWAYS): Space toggles the hand, Q/E
play slot 1/2, charges accrue from auto-fire hits (4 hits/charge, cap
5). KINETIC card: radial shockwave shove + light damage. HEAT card:
paints heat status in a radius; heat accumulates, glows, detonates at
threshold (damage only, no knockback — tag purity). Freeze/dilate is
an exposed knob: [ and ] step dilation 0.0-0.3 live.
Freeze uses SceneTree.paused, not Engine.time_scale = 0: probed on
4.7 headless — time_scale 0 still steps physics with delta 0, so
delta-independent logic (heat thresholds, contact callbacks) kept
firing while nominally frozen. Dilation > 0 uses time_scale slow-mo.
Hand._exit_tree restores pause + time_scale so hull-zero reloads can
never strand a frozen world.
Smoke gate extended: charge accrual from build hits, pause-on-open at
knob 0, HEAT x2 spend + threshold, detonation on release. 3/3 green
on nh3-dev headless 4.7.1.
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