Quintine
9f1f783be4
Connect the optional named-weapon question before skill posture and faction powers. Every accepted question waits for the same target-owned private card-show action, preserving held/absent privacy; matching cards are compulsory, otherwise the owner selects a fallback. Keep cards in hand and retain historical observations only for the questioner and target, without binding later plans. Support actual controls, inspectors, all four AI profiles and saved JSON/SQLite continuation. Normal activation remains disabled pending the user's uniform-response UX exception. The private flag is neither projected nor writable through actions. Legacy battles remain unchanged. Empty hands skip with an explicit unavailable receipt and no invented answer. Source and unresolved boundaries are documented, with a compact current-status dashboard preserving all goal, Git, subagent, usage and saved-game requirements. Independent review passed privacy, custody, sequencing and preview gating. Twenty-two focused tests cover canonical card roles, exact-match/fallback symmetry, target-only controls, captured lower-only behavior, stale/duplicate requests and concurrent SQLite writes. Typecheck, lint, 4605 offline tests, production build and 43 HTTP tests passed with stable source. The first broad run retained one outdated Mentat card-copy assertion; update it to verify private disclosure, custody, optional question and subsequent concealment. Gameplay source was unchanged by that test-only correction. Two genuine-setup sample games deliberately deal Mentat via a controlled initial skill shuffle. Basic: 100 actions, 3 JSON restores, turn-one Harkonnen win. Advanced: 507 actions, 14 restores, turn-five Harkonnen win. Each has one private observation, subsequent Atreides Prescience and no rejected candidate. These bounded force/skill custody samples do not establish general card-custody coverage, calibration or full module acceptance. After the reported outage all 665 opening rooms and original seat/recovery/receipt records were preserved (699 after integration). A fresh 666-room backup preceded checks; database integrity and foreign keys pass. The existing localhost server was reused; its live lock prevented a duplicate start. Existing Ecaz and Ixian browser seats restored their same hands and pending choices. A separate conserved staged Mentat preview restored its private history and posture, then legally concealed its leader before subsequent faction powers. Human/browser paths are distinguished from genuine-setup simulations. No database reset, recurring automation, public activation or publication. Verified source tree: 297ae06e0764d7cad525a802fe383a84971c3e9c5d6362c8cd0b79c5c3977caf Final source tree: 177c98415098ea42174a860d8b1fac4f7c7dd6c3e67c93b18330d1d0fc4edf0e The only post-verification edit removed one surplus newline at the end of the new developer document; its exact before/after content and fingerprints are retained privately. Staged diff checking caught this whitespace issue before commit. No application or test code changed.
102 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
102 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
# Mentat before Battle Plans
|
||
|
||
13 September 2026. This developer preview adds the normal Mentat question to
|
||
the existing lower-band strength bonus. It requires an explicit private preview
|
||
opt-in while the user decides whether to accept the uniform card-show step.
|
||
Ordinary Leader Skills starts do not activate it. Leader Skills and public mode
|
||
acceptance remain partial. [Common skill rules](LEADER_SKILLS_RULES.md) govern assignment,
|
||
capture, death and the right to conceal a skilled leader.
|
||
|
||
## Source contract
|
||
|
||
The physical card permits asking the battle opponent about one **specific named
|
||
weapon**, such as Crysknife or Poison Tooth. If held, the opponent must show that
|
||
card; otherwise they choose another Treachery Card to show. The card says “show
|
||
you”, which makes the answer private to the questioner, not a public reveal.
|
||
The [archived physical face](https://cdn.anyfinder.eu/assets/NQOmfvkJitFsQncGJ73kLzv7aC1w7Jp1kQAyy5CJ0pOoj8RlSEN3veAO6wBnw8wV?height=768)
|
||
and [designer Jack Reda's walkthrough, 17:37–18:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT_azRVLq_0&t=1057s)
|
||
agree. The persistent source archive and provenance are listed in the common
|
||
skill contract; no inaccessible image text was reconstructed.
|
||
|
||
The question is optional, and an accepted question requires a truthful answer.
|
||
The shown card stays in the opponent's hand and need not appear in their plan.
|
||
The owner may ask first, then conceal the same Mentat for possible selection.
|
||
Skills precede faction powers: the printed example specifically puts Mentat
|
||
before Atreides Prescience. [GF9 CHOAM & Richese, pp. 9 and 12](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CHOAM-Rulebook-low-res.pdf)
|
||
|
||
A named weapon uses its held/default category, not every role it could take in a
|
||
future Battle Plan. Weirding Way defaults to a weapon; Chemistry defaults to a
|
||
defense. Heroes, Worthless cards and unrelated Specials are not named weapons.
|
||
If the weapon is absent, the fallback may be any held Treachery Card.
|
||
[GF9 November FAQ, p. 5](https://www.gf9games.com/dune/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Dune-FAQ-Nov-2020.pdf#page=5)
|
||
|
||
## Boundaries and continuation
|
||
|
||
Offer the question for a living, native face-up Mentat against its actual battle
|
||
opponent before skill posture and faction powers. A captured Mentat has only its
|
||
lower +2 bonus. Resolve the selected question and its compulsory disclosure as one
|
||
saved sequence, then restore the ordinary posture choice. Do not reopen older
|
||
battles that have already passed this boundary.
|
||
|
||
Use canonical weapon names without consulting the opponent's hidden hand to
|
||
construct the questioner's choices. After naming, show only the required matching
|
||
card, or let the opponent choose a fallback from their own hand. The public record
|
||
may identify the question and named weapon; it must never disclose the answer's
|
||
physical identity, fallback choices or an extra private hand snapshot.
|
||
|
||
The observation records what was shown at that time. Later play, transfers or a
|
||
leader's death do not turn it into current hand knowledge or require that card in
|
||
a plan. Retaining already learned information after death is a persistence
|
||
necessity, not a new skill benefit or an additional publisher ruling.
|
||
|
||
The sources give no fallback when the named weapon is absent and the opponent
|
||
has an empty hand. The prototype leaves asking unavailable with an explicit reason
|
||
and automatically skips that unavailable opportunity so battle can proceed.
|
||
It records no answer. This is an unfinished case, not a
|
||
printed ban. No new Karama counter to the skill or public disclosure is inferred.
|
||
|
||
The pending naming/disclosure sequence must retain exact decision ownership and
|
||
battle identity across JSON/SQLite restoration. Invalid, stale or competing
|
||
requests must not repeat an observation, change card custody, bypass posture or
|
||
start faction powers early. Optional hand-changing actions wait for this short
|
||
sequence to complete; that serialization is an explicit implementation boundary.
|
||
Every accepted question uses the same target-owned private card-show step,
|
||
including an exact match or a sole fallback. Automatically completing only some
|
||
answers would reveal held/absent information through different public stages.
|
||
Target controls alone receive the eligible physical cards; public decision shape,
|
||
logs and number of response steps stay the same across equal-size hands.
|
||
|
||
That uniform step is an exception to the user's preference to omit forced
|
||
confirmations. The user has been asked to approve it or leave the ability disabled
|
||
pending another design. No answer has been applied. Private QA can exercise the
|
||
reviewable preview; normal activation and any claim of approved UX remain pending.
|
||
|
||
## Preview evidence and remaining acceptance
|
||
|
||
Independent review and 22 focused tests cover the common question/answer sequence,
|
||
all four AI profiles, private projected controls, exact-match versus fallback
|
||
privacy, canonical weapon roles, captured lower-only behavior, saved ownership,
|
||
stale/duplicate rejection and competing SQLite writes. Ordinary Basic/Advanced
|
||
base and CHOAM skill games stay unactivated; actions cannot set the private flag.
|
||
|
||
Two complete base-faction samples use genuine Basic/Advanced skill setup, with a
|
||
controlled initial skill shuffle to include Mentat. They do not stage hands,
|
||
forces or phases. Basic completed 100 actions with three JSON restorations at
|
||
turn one; Advanced completed 507 actions with fourteen restorations at turn five.
|
||
Each produced one private observation and then reached Atreides Prescience;
|
||
neither rejected a candidate. All four profiles participated. These are targeted
|
||
preview paths with force/skill custody checks, not general card-custody coverage,
|
||
AI calibration or complete module certification.
|
||
|
||
An isolated browser QA room uses genuine skill setup followed by an explicitly
|
||
staged, conserved battle. Naming Lasgun led to the same target-owned private step,
|
||
then a Crysknife observation and the ordinary leader posture choice. The owning
|
||
seat restored its hand, resources, observation and pending posture after the
|
||
reported power failure. The observed card inspector was readable, and the leader
|
||
could move behind the shield after asking. Production SQLite tests separately
|
||
verify that the opponent and questioner alone retain the observation.
|
||
|
||
The checkpoint's source-bound broad results are recorded with its Git commit.
|
||
Normal activation still awaits the uniform-response UX answer; empty hands and
|
||
other module combinations remain unfinished. No mode or publication gate opens.
|