Changelog — tap-to-command: world, building, shelter, power, food

Everything below is live on the production domain and was built and verified over the last few days. This is the changelog for the tap-to-command prototype: the mobile-first, indirect-control branch of Orbit2D. The keyboard platformer build still sits at orbit2d.co/build/, untouched. The prototype now lives at the root: orbit2d.co, with the same file mirrored at /lab/env/ and the first tap-to-command sketch preserved at /lab/tap/.

1. The world

• 420 × 168 tile world, 15 materials, strata down to slate at roughly 44 m.
• Five regions with their own palettes, ores, flora, weather and base temperature: Rime Shelf, Ash Flats, Fungal Basin, Crystal Fault, Signal Ridge.
• Five landmarks to find: the Crash Pod, the Rime Geyser, the Spore Grove, the Derelict Hauler and the Signal Monolith.
• Brine and magma pools that run when you cut into them, cave worms tunnelling the deep layers, a 200-second day, weather that actually bites, and a flood-filled light field with bloom, glowing ores and crew headlamps.
• Survey minimap, and automatic access-shaft planning: tap buried rock and the crew tunnels to it rather than shrugging.

2. Placement

Twelve pieces the crew can place, paid for out of the same hold that mining fills. Costs are reserved the moment a build is queued, so the queue can never overdraw, and salvaging a piece refunds it.

• Stone wall (2 basalt) · Packed earth (2 regolith) · Ladder (1 basalt + 1 ferrite, climbable) · Pane (2 crystal, solid but passes daylight) · Lumen lamp (2 lumen + 1 ferrite) · Beacon (2 alloy + 2 crystal, shows on the survey map).
• Heater (2 ferrite + 2 sulfur) · Craft bench (3 ferrite + 2 basalt + 1 alloy) · Hatch (2 ferrite + 1 basalt).
• Generator (3 ferrite + 2 alloy + 1 basalt) · Planter (2 fungal + 2 crystal + 1 ferrite) · Galley (2 ferrite + 2 basalt + 1 alloy).

Build mode is a toolbar toggle with a palette, ghost previews and drag-to-place. Pieces must attach to ground, rock or another piece — including pieces still queued, so you can plan a whole structure in one sweep. Pathing understands ladders and hatches.

3. Shelter and warmth

A hole in the ground is not a home. A room only shelters the crew if it is sealed: a flood fill from inside must never reach open sky, and must stay under 220 cells, so an open trench or a cathedral-sized cavern shelters nobody. Sealed rock does most of the insulating; heaters and lamps finish the job. In the Rime Shelf that is the difference between −63°C outside and a few degrees above zero inside.

The suit has a warmth meter. Cold costs it speed and dig rate, and at zero it stops taking orders, keeps its queue, walks itself to the nearest heated room or back to the crash pod, warms up and resumes exactly where it left off. If nothing warm can be reached it huddles in place at a reduced drain until the drone digs or builds it out. There is no freezing death.

4. Crafting

The craft bench fits crew-wide permanent upgrades as a normal queued task: Drill bit II and III (28% and 55% faster digging), Insulated liner (cold drains 45% slower), Lamp cell (longer headlamp reach), Servo legs (22% faster movement), Fuel governor (generators burn 40% slower) and Grow spectrum (planters grow 35% faster). Materials are reserved on queue and refunded on cancel, exactly like building.

5. Power and food

This is the part that turns a shelter into a base you have to keep alive.

• A generator burns sulfur — one unit is 30 seconds of full output, drawn from the hold automatically. It powers four machines within 16 tiles, nearest first.
• Lamps, heaters, planters and the galley all need that power. Without it they are drawn dark and cold, emit no light and add nothing to a room’s insulation. Cut the fuel in a Rime shelter and the inside falls from +2.5°C back to −32°C. Beacons and the bench run on their own.
• A planter grows produce every 50 seconds, but only powered, sealed and above −6°C — and it tells you which of those it is missing.
• A galley cooks 2 produce into 1 ration. The crew gets hungry over about seven minutes, works worse when it is, and walks off to eat without being asked. No galley, no rations? It warns, works slowly, and carries on. As with cold, hunger does not kill.

What it plays like now

One finger, no keyboard. Tap ground to send, tap rock to dig, sweep to drag out a seam, Build to place, Craft to fit upgrades. Then seal a room, power it with sulfur, and grow and cook to stay fed. Every number above was measured in an automated run rather than eyeballed — including one unattended session that dug a pocket in the shelf, built the hatch, ladders, lamp, heater, generator, planter and galley, and had the crew living in it at +2.5°C against −52.6°C outside.

Next on the list: threats that make walls defensive, and porting these systems into the main build.