Pneumatic tube

The Pneumatic tube is a vertical glass tube in the station of Threadway. It is the only way between the street and the upper station deck. From the deck you can walk on to the Quiet District.

How it works#

1. Walk to the station at street level and press E.
2. The lower doors open. Your cell rides visibly up the shaft, then arcs out onto the upper deck.
3. On the deck, press E at the tube to ride back down.

• The ride starts only when you press E close to the tube on the same floor. There is no walking shortcut between the two levels.
• Pausing the game freezes the ride, and the doors follow the same ride state.
• At the top, the camera tilts to 30°, widens to a 24-unit view and looks ahead along the deck, so both the tube mouth and the tract porthole are in frame. The overhead canopy is removed from view.
• The upper deck is level with the porthole of the Neural Highway tunnel.

In the brain#

The tube is town infrastructure, not a biological structure.

Development#

• History: the depth-walk fixture (31 October) had a station lift with call, board, ride and open phases. A user test found its 10-pixel boarding radius too small to click, and the lead fixed it to walk to the landing first. In the P24 scene, environment art replaced the lift with the pneumatic tube (2 November).
• Lead work (2 November, uncommitted on main): a fixed-step tube ride with measured landing stops. The lead reports that the Threadway browser tests cover a round trip, pause and the arrival camera.
• Alpha: in Placeholder 69c7b5470 the tube works both ways. The lead's release browser test walks Threadway → tube up → Quiet District → Threadway → tube down. Saved positions on the upper deck load into the correct navigation piece.

See also#

Threadway · Quiet District · Neural Highway · Travel and movement

Sources#

1. b89f778c2:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-lead-reconciled-game-integration.mdcopy
2. 69c7b5470:src/main-game/threadway3d/final-preview.jscopy
3. 5ed726064:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-environment-art-threadway-live-scene.mdcopy
4. f41e21b2a:docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-10-31-lead-depth-walk-implementation.mdcopy
5. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-lead-threadway-movement-ui-tube.md (working copy, not in Git)
6. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-02-lead-threadway-viewport-station-pace.md (working copy, not in Git)
7. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-10-31-claude-codex-todo.md, section C6 (working copy, not in Git)