CORE BREACH+

01 / QUICK START

BEGIN THE INCURSION

1. From Home, choose Learn to Play, New Game, or Continue Run. The center plate, C3, is already revealed.
2. While traversing, open Configure Loadout, choose four distinct modules, and set each rank from I through V.
3. Tap an unlocked plate. Empty plates reveal a three-by-three area; enemy plates begin combat immediately.
4. In combat, read the enemy intent, let hydraulic charge build, and fire an equipped module when its cost is available.
5. Recover the keycard, then use the perimeter gateway to enter the next sector.

On keyboard, use Tab to move focus and Enter or Space to activate a control. Keys 1 through 4 fire equipped module slots when legal. Escape opens the paused system menu. The Ⅱ Help button pauses combat and opens the guided tutorial, including an energy practice drill that never changes your real run.

02 / OBJECTIVE

DESCEND WITHOUT LOSING THE CHASSIS

Each new sector is a deterministic five-by-five machine grid. The initial seed determines its layout; combat uses readable intent queues rather than random mid-fight rolls. The central entry point starts revealed. Explore, acquire the keycard, and use the gateway on the outer perimeter. New layouts reserve a cardinal route between entry, keycard, and gateway. Deeper sectors add threats from ten authored chassis depth bands. Older imported runs retain their historical layout and enemy timing.

There is no online progression service, leaderboard, account, or cross-device sync. Closing the app, opening a pause dialog, or hiding the page holds simulation time. A defeated chassis ends the run until you reinitialize with the same seed or deploy another seed.

03 / ATB COMBAT

READ THE MACHINE CLOCK

Hydraulic charge runs from 0.00 to 5.00. The nominal rate is 1.00 unit per second and heat slows it:

effective charge = base rate × (1 − heat / 200)

At 80 heat, a base 1.00 rate becomes 0.60. The enemy intent panel names the next attack, remaining time, damage, and heat payload. Enemy routines are fixed queues; use that visibility to choose a response.

The red bar is the enemy’s attack timer: the hostile strikes when it fills. Your amber bar is energy. Click a lit module or press 1–4 to activate it once. You may use several modules during one enemy attack cycle as long as energy, casts, cooldowns, and heat allow. There is no automatic player attack and no benefit to clicking a disabled control. Servo Lock uses the highlighted final interrupt window; Relay Breaker can interrupt without waiting for that window.

Four equipped modules

The combat dock holds exactly four distinct modules. Change them only while traversing: select a slot, then an unlocked catalog item, or drag an item onto a slot. The draft changes immediately. Apply Loadout saves without closing, so you can keep editing. Done saves any remaining changes and returns to the game. Close / Discard Unsaved abandons only changes since the last Apply. A duplicate swaps with its current slot instead of creating a second copy. Every new profile begins with Ram Spike, Barrier Patch, Signal Scrambler, and Coolant Injector at rank I, while all 24 modules are unlocked.

Ranks I–V increase the module's bounded power by 10% for every rank after I. They do not alter the displayed charge cost or base heat. On activation, charge and base heat apply immediately; a module with a staged payload then remains busy until its deterministic clock deadline. The dock shows its heat projection and charge requirement before activation.

Disruptors delay, drain, or interrupt hostile charge. Kinetic and Thermal modules deal immediate or staged damage. Defensive modules create timed barriers or remove heat. Some effects have deliberate conditions: Phase Jammer refunds only after a meaningful drain, Intent Spoofer refunds only in the hostile's interrupt window, and Countermeasure Rig refunds only against a high-charge hostile. Refunds cannot exceed the charge cap.

The loadout editor shows comparative Offense, Defense, Control, and Efficiency scores for individual modules and the whole deck, plus the change from your saved loadout. These readings summarize authored power, charge cost, and heat at the current depth and rank; they do not add hidden combat attributes or promise equal effectiveness against every enemy.

Heat, barriers, and exact timing

Passive cooling removes 3.3 heat per second when the chassis is not channeling a delayed module. Heat is capped at 100. Reaching 100 applies 12 direct structural damage, starts a 1.75-second thermal lockout, and vents the system. The thermal penalty bypasses barriers. Barriers reflect 40% of absorbed hostile attack damage, bypassing the enemy barrier. Successful interrupts open a 3-second stagger window for 1.5× damage, including reflected damage; ordinary delays do not. Each encounter adds 2% enemy damage at 34 seconds and every 4 seconds afterward.

Barrier Patch, Ablative Screen, and Fortress Field provide timed barriers. A barrier expires at its timer boundary before that millisecond's enemy attack resolves. A staged module resolves before hostile charge progress in the same millisecond; if it eliminates the current hostile, its remaining target stages are cancelled rather than spilling into the next encounter.

04 / SECTOR OPERATIONS

PLATES, CLAMPS, AND LOOT

Empty plate

Reveals itself and all neighbors in a three-by-three scan.

Enemy plate

Starts an encounter. A revealed living hostile clamps all eight adjacent plates, including diagonals. Defeat it to release its clamps unless another revealed hostile still owns the same plate.

Field cache

Repairs 22 structural integrity, up to maximum integrity.

Coolant

Removes 35 heat, down to zero.

Hazard

An uncleared steam vent, arc mine, or coolant leak stored with the plate. Probing it once applies its direct damage through any active barrier, adds its listed heat, then clears it.

Keycard

Arms the gateway requirement for the current sector.

Gateway

Located on the perimeter. It requires the keycard and then creates the next deterministic sector while retaining your chassis.

A locked plate cannot be probed. Scan around clamps, clear active hostiles, and use caches or coolant when their revealed position gives a safe route. Entering an enemy plate is a commitment: the grid view is held until the current encounter resolves or the chassis is defeated.

05 / SAVE AND RECOVERY

KEEP THE RUN

The active run, local run history, and local meta-progression are stored in this browser's IndexedDB for this site. A validated local-storage emergency mirror protects lifecycle saves and becomes the durable fallback if IndexedDB is blocked in private browsing or by policy. Audio/reduced-motion preferences are local browser settings. The run saves automatically during normal play, on ordinary lifecycle transitions, and before a service-worker update reload. Browser storage is not a backup system.

1. Open the system menu with the top-right menu control or Escape.
2. Select Export Run before clearing browser data, moving devices, changing profiles, or testing a reset.
3. Keep the downloaded JSON file in a suitable backup location.
4. Use Import Run in the system menu to select a previously exported save. Invalid files are rejected without replacing the current run.

Reset Chassis requires a second confirmation press and replaces the current run with the entered unsigned integer seed. Save & Return Home keeps your active run paused and available through Continue Run. New Game asks for a second press before replacing an active run. After structural failure, choose Replay Same Seed, Play New Seed, or Return Home. A run does not progress while the app is offline, closed, hidden, or paused.

06 / OFFLINE, INSTALL, AND AUDIO

OPERATE DISCONNECTED

Visit the game once through HTTPS or localhost and wait for the footer to report offline readiness. The service worker then caches the complete application shell. Use the system menu's install control when supported, the browser install command, or the platform add-to-home-screen flow. Installation is optional; a normal browser tab can also run offline after caching.

The first audio gesture unlocks the browser audio context. The global Audio + Haptics Enabled setting and header sound control mute or restore all audio and vibration cues together. Settings has separate background-music and sound-effect sliders; effects default to a gentler 22%. Select Forge, Relay, or Void to change the locally generated score variation without changing your run seed. These are synthesized tracks, not downloaded recordings. Music runs at 128 BPM and changes with heat and structural integrity. It continues in visible menus, the tutorial, and diagnostics; hiding the app suspends it. New-game starts do not play a contact or gateway effect. Browser autoplay policy, device volume, hardware output, reduced-power modes, and vibration support can limit what is heard or felt.

If offline use fails, reconnect once, confirm offline readiness, and avoid clearing this site's storage. Private browsing, storage restrictions, low device space, browser policy, or clearing site data can remove the cached application or save. There is no cloud fallback.

07 / ACCESSIBILITY AND CONTROLS

CONTROL THE TERMINAL

Controls are focusable and the primary game actions have descriptive labels. Use Tab and Shift+Tab to navigate, Enter or Space to activate focused controls, and Escape to open the system menu. The game exposes meter labels for integrity, heat, and charge; combat reveals a named hostile intent and its timing.

Enable Reduced Machinery Motion in the system menu to remove panel recoil, moving machinery, and particles. The game is designed for portrait orientation. On short or narrow screens, the console and manual scroll so controls remain available. The game does not provide a color-only signal for a required tactical state; read the text labels on plates, module controls, and the intent panel.

08 / OPTIONAL DEVELOPER FEATURES

NOT PART OF NORMAL PLAY

Press F2, use the DEV launcher, or open the game with ?debug=1 to enter the diagnostic sandbox. It pauses a detached run, records bounded tick history, supports exact rewind, player mutations, seed changes, enemy-intent injection, and explicit branch commit or restore. Autosave is suspended during the sandbox. Choose Restore run & exit to discard experiments or Use branch & exit to save the selected state.

The CoreScript workbench runs ten laboratory bytecode abilities against an isolated combat fixture, separate from the active module loadout. The balance matrix displays the ten chassis profiles and 24 tactical entries; it is read-only and does not equip a loadout. The music lab is also separate from gameplay: open the music lab to control the same music engine with seed, heat, and HP values. These workbenches do not change your normal saved run. Full engineering guides are included in the project documentation.