Per canon decisions 2026-08-07 (advisor CONCEPT.md f12cb15, falsifier
response): charges now generate on kills (kills_per_charge, chemistry
chain kills feed the hand; per-hit generation removed). Kills drop
scrap as physical pickups (amber diamond, magnet radius 70, drift to
mech, 20s fade; grunt 1 / burster 3) — collection is the positioning
reward gradient. Cumulative collected scrap gates card levels 1-3
(thresholds 12/30; per-level radius x1.25/x1.5 and power x1.15/x1.5 —
HEAT L3 hits one-cast detonation threshold). HUD: level notches under
slots + scrap counter. Salvage spawn is call_deferred: death can fire
inside a physics signal flush where Area2D setup is blocked.
Smoke gate: charge accrual now kill-fed, salvage drop + collection +
level gating phases added, heat-target selection made retry-tolerant.
4/4 green on nh3-dev headless 4.7.1.
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.
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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