Dune/docs/DISCOVERY_PROTOTYPE.md

Discovery functional prototype

13 September 2026. The connected Discovery batches are Prototyped, with partial rules coverage. It connects physical components, real actions, private controls, AI choices and saved continuation. Normal public Discovery and Advanced start gates, and the publication gate, remain closed.

Source and setup boundary

The component acquisition record identifies the publisher-authored Ecaz & Moritani rulebook, pages 12–13, and the physical card scan used for all six placements. Its verified inventory is seven Spice Cards (six Discovery territory cards and Great Maker) and eight tokens. This prototype uses those identities and effects; it does not treat test outcomes as rulings.

initializeDiscoveryGameForAudit enters real staged setup with two through six ready seats in Basic or Advanced. Fresh classic, selected E1/E2 native families, and standalone Ecaz or Moritani with classic opponents use their original decks and native setup. Canonical unused Tech Tokens may be preserved at three through six seats. Advanced Moritani retains its non-Harkonnen assassination profile; paired/mixed E3, Skills, Strongholds, Homeworlds, Nexus and unrelated previews stay outside this entry.

Discoveries are enabled before components are dealt. The initializer adds the seven cards to the selected original Spice Deck, retaining Ix Sandtrout, and creates each token behind shuffled opaque physical identities. Started games, nonempty native inventories and already-used Tech Tokens cannot be redealt. No ordinary player action or room endpoint bypasses the normal start gate. The existing local starter accepts --profile discovery for these fresh lobbies:

node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile discovery --db PATH --room CODE --version NUMBER --out /private/new-directory

It preserves all seats and other rooms, requires the current version and refuses to redeal a started game. The default ix profile remains available.

Classic Nexus composition — 5 October 2026

Fresh local nexus --discoveries composes classic/base33/all12 Nexus with the original Discovery seven Spice Cards/eight tokens, Basic/Advanced two through six seats. Original unused Tech requires three seats; Strongholds requires Advanced. No Skills, native families, Homeworlds, independent card variants, unrelated previews, public start or played-game conversion is admitted.

node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile nexus --discoveries --db PATH --room CODE --version NUMBER --out /private/new-directory
node --import tsx tools/faction-games.ts --profile discovery-nexus-stronghold-tech --rules advanced --players 6 --out /private/new-directory

The game runner also offers discovery-nexus, discovery-nexus-tech and discovery-nexus-stronghold, without changing earlier defaults or seeds. Original setup and inventories remain authoritative. End-Mentat settles held Strongholds; next-turn free entry precedes Storm. Great Maker finishes ordinary worm losses, then its storm-order vote and physical reserve ride, including typed Fremen and revealed nested destinations. It does not itself deal cards. The original closing Nexus choice occurs only at the end of the entire Spice Blow phase, after both Advanced piles, when a Nexus occurred and an alliance exists. Joining an alliance forfeits a held card; unallied players retain the original keep/draw/replacement and own-faction redraw choices.

Source-clear Emperor extra-three and absent-Fremen ordinary-three revival retain distinct quota/free ledgers and actual Axlotl activity. Absent-Guild borrowed tariffs preserve native identity, physical nested shipment and one card cost; original nested battle retains winner cards and mandatory Tech reward. Existing unresolved mixed-module Fremen Betrayal and other effects remain gated; no universal Great Maker interruption priority is invented.

Affected64, types/lint/build and original runtime programmes pass. Two genuine six-seat Basic Tech / Advanced Tech+Stronghold games finish1,150 accepted actions/1,150 attempts/31 JSON continuations on unchanged tree 761f5ca592af1bd3be766dd0e5654ed18528809855f6139436552428389f5b00. These totals do not claim natural use of every effect.

Actual isolated QA room 3D7SAG45 preserves authenticated seats and original CLI setupv8. Explicit unplayed Spice order/token lottery and43 original actions reach next-turn entryv9. Human Guild enters one Cistern counterv10 without money/reserve/movement cost. Six original actions open Great Makerv11 after actual Emperor losses. Human votesv12–14 create a Nexus; Fremen's actual typed two-counter ridev15 includes one Fedaykin, costs no spice and leaves Guild's protected nested counter intact. Human Advanced blow/alliance controlsv16–26 form Emperor/Fremen's alliance and open Guild's real closing draw. Human drawv27 delivers Richese, decrements the original twelve-card deck to eleven and releases Charity. Refresh fits390px. This is controlled source exercise, not unstaged card history or production verification.

Native setup and original consumers — 5 October 2026

Original Ixian setup keeps the six-counter HMS garrison and seven physical Cyborgs; Tleilaxu keeps its actual private Face Dancers. Next-turn free entry quotes physical normal/elite groups, including Cyborgs and starred Fremen, separately from the HMS and concealed marker presence. Paid shipment, movement, stash and Face Dance retain original force, payment and winner-reward handlers. CHOAM's real five-card hand may draw a sixth from Card Stash before its owned choice discards any held card back to five.

No-Field custody now recognizes the five known nested Discovery IDs at sector zero. This does not open an unrevealed location: declaration/commitment and materialization require the current revealed board. A concealed token is still one effective presence, not physical reserves or a source for free entry. Its original value-zero/three/five reveal materializes only current reserve forces, once. The shipment controls label nested sector zero as inside the location rather than Polar Sink.

Standalone Advanced Moritani retains its original assassination state in the Discovery profile. An actual nested-site battle retains that revealed location in the original opportunity/history, with the same different-opposing-leader restriction, physical Traitor cost and printed bounty. Basic is not converted to the Advanced ability. Ecaz retains its existing Occupy preview and Basic odd-force boundary.

The existing genuine game runner now selects --profile discovery or --profile discovery-tech, with --rules both|basic|advanced and --players all|2|3|4|5|6; Tech requires at least three seats. These profiles use classic, paired E1/E2 and standalone E3 original sample rosters with new 2700/2800 ordinal bands. Earlier profiles, defaults and seeds are unchanged.

node --import tsx tools/faction-games.ts --profile discovery-tech --rules advanced --players 6 --out /private/new-directory

Focused native cases are in tests/discovery-module-profile.test.ts, tests/discovery-native-typed-runtime.test.ts, tests/discovery-native-marker-runtime.test.ts and tests/discovery-native-e3-runtime.test.ts. Fixtures explicitly label controlled unplayed Spice order, placement lottery and conserved counter/card/identity positions; clocks, choices and outcomes use original producers. This does not resolve contested Cistern/Testing Station/Orgiz, shared-payer theft, mixed-dial Jacurutu, complete module strategy or public-start/deployed acceptance.

Bounded runtime evidence

The frozen affected rule union passes 71 tests; final reference checks add 10 passing cases. TypeScript/lint and the actual rule build pass. Original programs prove Ixian free entry of three physical counters, including one Cyborg, without a wallet/reserve debit; Richese pays one spice for a Cistern marker and later materializes three actual reserves. Fresh Ecaz and Moritani original setup both complete with eight tokens and all four minimal legal policies. The actual nested Moritani battle exposed and repaired the static-territory history rejection; its different Guild Traitor pays the printed three-spice bounty.

Four genuine six-seat Advanced Tech samples finish on initial tree 6d6c1849d6da9b1e5c2af04e07303f9bec49ec9dac2d8089ae58c77795f48e57. The original Moritani setup capture then finishes at effective seed 20263765 on corrected tree fe22922e7acdea8aea64b75af8ba29247e37b63a63f461efa930f1a8cd2c049c. Across those completed paths: 1,940 accepted / 1,940 attempted actions and 49 JSON continuations. This is a repaired/resumed study, not five games on one unchanged tree or natural activation of every new effect.

Dedicated actual QA room Q3AWYZWC retains its original ready lobby, actor identities and private setup. Original 45-action program stops at Collection; only four unplayed Spice Card ordering and the token lottery are controlled. Guild's phone inspection/reveal reaches v8/v9. Original 44-action continuation reaches turn-two Richese movement at v10. Its real human five-value marker declaration reaches v11; original Guild Allow shipment settles v12, spice 5→4, reserves 20 and one concealed Cistern presence. Human reveal reaches v13, reserves 20→15, five Cistern counters and no second price. Refresh retains v13 and the phone fits 390px.

The first UI attempt reached the old running QA worker's static No-Field validator and rejected without mutation. Reloading only that isolated worker loaded the corrected build. The fresh sector selector now says Inside location · sector 0, not Polar Sink. The managed tab was released. Other games were not written; no reset, public activation, save conversion or deployed claim.

Classic Leader Skills and Advanced Orgiz — 5 October 2026

An explicit fresh leader-skills --discoveries entry composes classic factions, the original base 33-card deck, all fourteen physical Leader Skills, seven Discovery Spice Cards and eight tokens. Basic/Advanced supports two through six seats; optional unused original Tech requires at least three. The existing skill-first choices, trained-disc posture and original faction setup remain. Native families, Nexus, Strongholds, Homeworlds and separate Banker/Mentat previews are not admitted by this particular entry. It does not redeal a previously initialized Discovery or upgrade a played game.

node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile leader-skills --discoveries --db PATH --room CODE --version NUMBER --out /private/new-directory
node --import tsx tools/faction-games.ts --profile discovery-skills-tech --rules both --players 6 --out /private/new-directory

Physical next-turn entry spends neither the ordinary movement allowance nor spice and does not change the trained disc. Paid nested shipment retains its original invoice. Planetologist movement and the carried Discovery Ornithopter are separate alternatives: the latter replaces one movement with fixed range three rather than adding a skill modifier or action. Original Harkonnen eight-card capacity, owner-selected stash discard, normal/skilled Suk rescue and subsequent original Tech reward use existing producers. A distinct Bureaucrat holder may divert the printed two spice from an eligible five-spice single-payer shipment without changing the payer's invoice or physical arrival. Existing modified-defense, Atreides Suk/KH and private split-source guards remain.

Authorized Advanced Collection wording

The supplied UNOFFICIAL_Revised_Dune_Rulebook_v.2.3_web.pdf, physical page 24, says Orgiz steals one collected spice each time collection occurs in a territory containing spice, rather than the publisher's older per-blow text. For Advanced, the quote maps an original territory's positive Collection to one transfer, even when multiple collected source keys identify the same unique rival payer. A different, missing, contested or shared payer withholds that territory's transfer; other territories and ordinary Collection proceed. An owner's own Collection is not theft. This is the explicit application of the authorized Advanced trigger, not a newly discovered publisher ruling on contested ownership or shared allocation.

Basic retains its recorded provisional one-transfer-per-positive-deposit interpretation. The context requires its existing public advanced boolean: missing mode is not silently treated as either source. Effect location remains one actual deterministic collected key; Advanced notices name the territory. Original collected/desert facts, remaining map spice, bank-income prefix and already-paid phase continuations are not rewritten or replayed.

Original programs with explicitly controlled, conserved counter/spice positions show one rival collecting five spice across three deposits in two territories: Advanced transfers two; Basic transfers three. These are controlled board positions, not naturally produced card history. The trained programme moves three actual Guild counters into Cistern free, then ships one additional reserve there for one spice, reaching four physical counters.

Two genuine six-seat Basic/Advanced Skills+Discovery+Tech games finish 1,578 accepted / 1,578 attempted / 42 JSON continuations on unchanged tree 946335ef77745f086cd9bd07bfa405c46c06785a3aae7a684a8e244ce2da4ee5. That proves original continuation, not natural activation of every new effect, complete Skills/Discovery combinations or strategic calibration. Focused consumers live in tests/discovery-orgiz-advanced-runtime.test.ts and tests/discovery-classic-skills-runtime.test.ts; source cases remain in tests/discovery-collection.test.ts.

Actual human controls and targeted checks

The frozen affected rule/control/reference union passes 75 cases, with TypeScript/lint and the actual build. Named owner-defined quote/driver contracts replace newly encountered concrete-function return-type coupling.

Actual fresh PCDX5J8M v6 starts through the existing backed-up leader-skills --discoveries CLI at v7/setup. Guild's natural physical offers are Warmaster and Prana Bindu Adept; human assignment chooses Warmaster on Staban Tuek at v8. The subsequent original programme retains those already-dealt choices, controlling only four unplayed Spice Cards and the actual token lottery. Human Cistern inspection/reveal reaches v10/v11 while the location remains empty.

Six original phase actions expose turn-two entry at v12, before the storm. Human Move 3 forces inside reaches v13, preserves spice3/reserves12, movement0 and the existing shipment flag, and keeps Warmaster. Twenty-two original controls reach movement at v14: the three Cistern counters survive the storm and ordinary shipment is available. Human reserve shipment plus original Guild Allow shipment reach v16, spice 3→2, reserves 12→11, four Cistern counters and unchanged training. Refresh fits 390px.

Actual FCVCEA3R v6 retains its authenticated Atreides/Guild/Fremen identities. Original setup/inspection/reveal and phase controls plus explicitly conserved counter/spice positions stop before the final movement ending at v7. Human Finish shipment & movement opens automatic Collection at v8: Guild's ordinary five collected spice remain factual; Atreides receives 11→13 and Guild's own view shows 10→8, with two territory-labelled Orgiz notices. Ordinary Fremen stronghold income is still logged. Rival budgets remain masked in other seats; each balance was read from its own controlled QA seat. The expanded rule panel and footer show Advanced territory counting and pending mixed/contested limits. Refresh retains v8 at390px. Managed tabs released.

Only these dedicated QA records were written. The failed throwaway attempt to wait in an empty Battle phase was corrected to stop before the original final movement ending: ordinary automation skips empty battles rather than adding a new confirmation. No clock, wallet, paid quote, public gate or existing-game conversion was fabricated.

Connected behavior

• Great Maker: ordinary worm consequences resolve first. Every faction then votes in storm order; a strict majority creates a Nexus and a tie does not. A previous Nexus in the phase is retained. Fremen may then move any legal number of actual reserve forces to one allowed destination without spending spice, shipment or normal movement. Typed Fedaykin custody and storm/occupancy restrictions apply. Canceling protection of Fremen already in the affected territory does not cancel the separate reserve ride.

• Discovery blows: each of the six cards destroys existing forces and spice in its printed blow territory, including Fremen forces, before placing six spice subject to the ordinary storm exclusion. A random available token of the printed type is placed face down at the card's separate token destination.

• Inspection and reveal: Fremen privately see placed Hiereg faces; Guild privately sees placed Smuggler faces. During Collection, non-advisor forces in a token's surrounding territory may inspect it and then choose whether to reveal it. Other seats do not receive that private knowledge or the token's hidden supply order. An inspected token may remain face down.

• Immediate rewards: Spice Stash pays seven bank spice once. Treachery Card Stash draws one private card before checking the hand limit. Overflow requires an owned discard choice, including the new card; its saved draw/discard receipt prevents replay. Both stashes then retain removed physical custody.

• Carried token: revealing Ornithopter records its owner and acquisition turn. On a later turn, its owner may spend it on one ordinary movement action to give the selected group a fixed range of three. It grants no extra action or shipment. The physical token remains carried through pending movement and arrival interactions, then leaves play once the selected movement commits.

• Nested locations: the five revealed location tokens become separate, initially empty board territories inside their printed surroundings. Public reveal controls admission; a private peek alone cannot create a destination. Ordinary movement uses the parent territory, shipment uses stronghold prices, no more than two factions enter, and occupants are protected from storm and sandworms. Only Jacurutu Sietch contributes a stronghold toward victory.

• Next-turn free entry: before the next Storm phase and Ixian Hidden Mobile Stronghold movement, each eligible faction receives an optional signed choice for a location revealed on the prior turn. It may move any positive subset of ordinary and elite non-advisor forces across eligible sectors of the enclosing territory into sector zero of that location. This spends no spice, shipment or normal movement. Empty, storm-blocked and occupancy-blocked offers skip without holding up the turn. Accepted groups and arrival reactions survive restoration.

• Cistern: during Collection, a sole fighter occupant receives two bank spice after ordinary advisor releases. If two fighters occupy Cistern, the unresolved benefit is withheld without blocking Collection; this boundary does not decide which occupant should receive it.

• Orgiz: during Collection, a sole fighter occupant takes one spice from the unique rival collector of each positive board deposit after ordinary advisor releases. One collected pile is one observable blow even if previous blows stacked there. The transfer occurs after ordinary collection, conserves player spice, appears in the public log, and resumes from saved state without another payment. Unresolved Ecaz shared lots and contested Orgiz occupation withhold their uncertain transfers, not the ordinary Collection phase.

• Jacurutu: winning a battle here automatically grants one bank spice per opposing undialed physical force sent to the Tanks. Winner casualties and pre-existing Tanks do not count. Ordinary and unambiguous Advanced plans are playable. Mixed normal/elite plans with different possible physical counts leave an explicit unpaid gap pending the allocation ruling below.

• Ecological Testing Station: a sole non-advisor occupant receives an owned decrease/keep/increase choice after the ordinary storm-card window closes, before traversal and CHOAM/Fremen protection. The original natural dial/card source, turn, physical station and chosen distance remain bound through saved protection and typed loss continuations. Weather Control bypasses the station.

• Shrine: current non-advisor occupation of the publicly revealed location authorizes Truthtrance as Karama or Karama as Truthtrance in the existing effect paths. Cards retain their physical identity and custody. A committed converted Truthtrance retains its use receipt through departure, answering and discard. This does not implement missing special powers or resolve their pending rules.

Great Maker vote/ride, Discovery token/discard, next-turn entry, station and carried Ornithopter controls use the same private legal choices as the four AI profiles. Token backs expose only permitted information; authorized faces have readable explanations of all eight effects. Busy and autopilot states disable human actions. Those explanations include remaining printed effects and explicitly distinguish them from available play.

Interpretations retained for refinement

The Great Maker text instructs players to treat it as Shai-Hulud with listed exceptions. The prototype consequently applies ordinary first-turn worm skipping and Sandtrout suppression before opening its special vote and ride. Those two interactions are source inferences, not separately confirmed publisher answers or newly approved table rulings. The Discovery-only setup does not itself enable a combined Ix/Sandtrout game.

If the required token type has no physical supply remaining, the blow continues without creating another token. This preserves the eight-token inventory; the empty-supply resolution remains an implementation interpretation to refine, rather than a certified additional rule. Existing unrelated pending rulings in the decision index remain pending.

The printed next-turn entry text specifies neither an order among simultaneous locations and factions nor whether the ordinary source-sector storm restriction applies to this exceptional movement. Processing tokens in reveal order and factions in storm order, while excluding source groups in storm, are source inferences retained for deterministic legal play. They are not publisher answers or newly approved table rulings.

The printed Cistern text names an occupant but permits two factions to occupy a revealed location. The prototype pays an ordinary sole occupant and withholds the contested bonus. The publisher's Ecaz & Moritani rulebook, page 13 says an Orgiz occupant steals one spice of each collected blow. Its bundled Q&A does not define a stacked pile as one or several blows; searches of the publisher/designer and community rules pages found no explicit clarification. Basic's bounded implementation treats each positive board deposit as one observable blow, transfers one spice from its unique collector and does not take spice from the occupant itself. That remains an inference, not an official ruling. Advanced now follows the supplied rulebook's territory-Collection trigger described above. Two fighters occupying Orgiz still withhold theft. An Ecaz shared lot or inconsistent collected payers withholds that territory's transfer; independent territories and ordinary Collection proceed.

The Testing Station's two-occupant case leaves ordering and cumulative adjustment unresolved. The prototype opens only the sole-occupant path and continues an ordinary storm without that contested benefit. Choosing after the ordinary storm-card window is an implementation timing interpretation: the printed source specifies the Storm phase and excludes Weather Control, but does not supply a separate station/card priority order. A legacy pending storm without new source metadata keeps its existing movement; a subsequent naturally produced storm can use the station. No source is inferred from display logs.

Jacurutu's text says opposing undialed forces, not a numeric wheel difference. Advanced combat permits different physical allocations: an Emperor with one ordinary force and one Sardaukar, dial two and one paid support, can dial the supported Sardaukar alone or the supported ordinary plus unsupported Sardaukar. Those choices leave one or zero undialed counters. The existing loser resolution has no physical allocation choice. The user question asks whether the defeated player should select those counters; it remains pending. The prototype records the unpaid gap instead of silently choosing a reward. Source: publisher-authored Ecaz & Moritani rulebook p13, with no clarification in its bundled Q&A.

Evidence and next dependencies

Focused suites cover component inventory and private projection (tests/discoveries.test.ts), genuine setup and Collection effects (tests/discovery-runtime.test.ts), ordered Great Maker continuations (tests/great-maker.test.ts), nested board and admission rules (tests/discovery-board.test.ts, tests/discovery-admission.test.ts), and private human/AI controls (tests/discovery-controls.test.ts). Signed free entry and its engine, saved interaction and human/AI paths are covered by tests/discovery-entry.test.ts, tests/discovery-entry-runtime.test.ts and tests/discovery-entry-controls.test.ts. Cistern composition is covered by tests/discovery-collection.test.ts; carried token selection, delayed spending and disposal are covered by tests/discovery-flight.test.ts. They exercise immutable rejections, physical custody, hidden information and JSON restoration. They do not certify a complete module, all combined routes or difficulty strength ordering. The free-entry/flight checkpoint ab0ab52 passed 4,313 offline tests, build and 40 HTTP tests, preserving all 156 opening rooms (187 after checks).

Browser room CA782FQE began through the genuine Discovery setup with one human and two AI seats, then used a targeted QA state to reach the new controls without playing a full game. It verified a partial one-force free entry into Cistern with no spice or movement cost and a later three-territory Ornithopter move that spent the carried token once. This is targeted browser evidence; it does not represent an unmodified complete-game journey. Refresh restored the same forces, private hand, ten spice, one spent movement and removed token. All 156 opening saved rooms remain part of the preservation baseline. A user-confirmed power outage subsequently stopped the server and verification process. After backing up all 157 current rooms, restarting the absent server restored the same browser seat, forces, private Stunner, spice and spent token. All 157 saved rooms were unchanged. Required broad results are recorded in the checkpoint commit.

SQLite recovery tests (tests/discovery-recovery.test.ts) verify competing reveals pay only once, the private overflow choice survives restoration, and an already committed discard resumes without another card or reward. Independent review regressions bind worm/protection/arrival controls to their original encounter and enforce the stash's mandatory overflow discard. Two deterministic complete-game smoke tests (tests/discovery-playthrough.test.ts, seeds 2026091303 Basic and 2026091304 Advanced) preserve all components through JSON reloads with four AI profiles. These games exercise the current prototype and do not certify its explicitly missing effects.

Browser room 3RJBH26Y completed genuine human Fremen setup. Reordering one existing physical Discovery card to the front of this new QA room's deck let normal Storm and Spice Blow actions draw Hagga Basin and place a Hiereg token at Gara Kulon 8. The owning Fremen view privately identified Shrine, retained it face down, and displayed readable enlarged token and full Spice Card guidance. The room is paused at acceptance of that blow. No other saved room was changed and no server restart was needed. Required broad verification results and the source-bound report are recorded in the checkpoint commit.

The location-effects batch adds focused Jacurutu engine/SQLite tests, Testing Station Basic/Advanced producers, Weather exclusion, saved Fremen losses, private controls, all four AI paths and concurrent SQLite choices. Shrine tests cover ordinary/special card substitution, reserved-card rejection, individual physical-card controls and committed JSON/SQLite continuation. Concurrent declarations preserve one exact physical discard and resume the prior effect. Independent reviews check all three effects and required broad results are recorded in the checkpoint commit and its source-bound report.

Browser room A5EJQ2W4 began as a fresh three-player lobby through the backed-up Discovery starter, then used real setup, reveal and free-entry actions in a focused QA scenario. Its human Atreides occupant chose to increase an ordinary two-sector storm to three; the storm moved from sector six to nine and proceeded to Spice Blow. Refresh restored the same station forces and private Snooper. This is targeted control/recovery evidence, not an unmodified complete game. The 187 opening saved rooms remain preserved; no server restart was needed.

1. Resolve contested Cistern/Orgiz/Testing Station benefits, Ecaz shared-lot Orgiz allocation and Jacurutu's mixed physical dial allocation; complete remaining controls and effects when settled. Basic's per-collected-deposit Orgiz interpretation remains provisional; the Advanced count is source-cut over.
2. Integrate combined modules and complete games, then refine interaction, strategy and presentation coverage before opening normal start gates.
3. Use the existing prototype starter and saved-room verification for further batches. Focused evidence does not establish complete module compliance.