Dead Reckoning v0.2.77 — The Endgame Deck, a Reshaped Survival Curve, and a Full Editorial Pass
The first store build since v0.2.74. It folds three tagged-but-unshipped versions (0.2.75–0.2.77) into one push, so it is a large release: a new late-run event arc, a rebuilt research readout, a reshaped survival curve, a full editorial pass over every line of event writing, and a stack of bug fixes — several from playtester reports.
New content: the endgame deck (Act I + Act II)
Twenty new events that fire late in a run, once the ship has gone long and started to come apart. Act I is ten "clinical horror" events; Act II is ten "dark cluster" events. The register is deliberately bleak and dry. Trigger windows are tuned so they land across the survivable stretch of a run rather than all detonating at once. (First half of a planned 50-event deck; Acts III–IV are specced and coming.)
The research readout, rebuilt
Selecting a technology now shows its full consequence up front — before/after values, inline drift rates, and threshold warnings. Ongoing rates are honest absolute "per year" figures, and the headline figure is labelled net (of population consumption), so the research card and the live readout finally agree.
A reshaped survival curve
The early "cliff" is gone. A run declines slowly and then collapses. The darkest give-up outcomes — cannibalism among them — are pushed later and made to depend on more than one failing system, so they read as an endgame, not an early shock.
A full editorial pass on the writing
Every event pool went through a line-level "de-slop" pass (1,000+ edits): scripted (189), chains (143), cultural-policy/faction (39), good-news (116), disasters (158), interesting-finds, and settled/colony events, plus a 219-edit blend-voice pass. It also surfaced real bugs — leaked success-logs, a %% typo, wrong-branch outcomes, and three sim bugs.
Localization
Act I–II endgame events translated to de/fr/it/es, and the four event tables re-synced to the latest English — accent- and placeholder-strict. Two i18n-gap events leaking raw pronoun tokens were fixed.
Fixes
- #124 — research effect ×100 unit error (+0.15/yr showed as "+15%/yr"); rates unified to "/yr".
- #125 — "Return to Event" could re-open a decided decision and double-apply effects; now read-only + guarded.
- #126 — trapped on the descent screen after CONFIRM LANDING; added a "RETURN — RECONSIDER THIS WORLD" back button.
- #127 — founding drift display refreshed all-at-once; now per step.
- bug-1019 — founding-directive loop could block the colony phase (game-breaker); LOG mid-founding no longer re-triggers it.
- bug-1017 — name-substitution tokens now resolve in cultural-policy/faction/transit events.
- bug-1020 — cryo hearing no longer claims deaths the manifest lacks.
- bug-1059 — archive.json no longer spams a parse error on empty/partial saves.
- Early-landing "Earth memory" first-dawn prose now reflects whether founders knew Earth.
Known issues
- #128 (bug-1055) — a rare, non-deterministic render-flush crash (CowData::get OOB, mainly under Spanish), only ever reproduced under synthetic render stress; 0/50 real-build QA runs on this baseline. Shipping as a known, accepted edge case. Pinning it requires a symbol-rich engine build. Open.
What's next
- Endgame deck Acts III–IV + new non-arrival endings (specced).
- Survival & agency (#115) — more pacing/event work on top of this rebalance.
- Research tab readability (#53) — fuller panel pass to follow.
- Demo pruning (#73) — focused first 30–40 minutes.
- Steam Deck (#72/#75) — Playable re-verify + performance pass.
- bug-1055 root cause — symbol-build trace.