Vessel VFX

Vessel VFX is the effect group for Vessel Margins rooms. On 1 November the user approved the rule that "monocytes stay, as a visible countdown". This group makes that countdown readable.

How it works#

• The track. Hollow 6×6 pips sit on the vessel lumen's centre line, one per round of lead, ending at a hollow 8×8 gate pip. A pip that every bead has passed turns solid cream.
• A surge is one pale-lilac bead sitting on the pip equal to its rounds left. The hollow pips still ahead of it are its rounds left.
• Each End turn, every bead hops one pip in whole steps. A new surge slides in from upstream. A surge seen early through foresight is a dotted outline only. There is no charge-up flash at the gate.
• Adhesion. Where a monocyte sticks, it takes the pose whose contact edge faces the wall. On adhered poses the contact edge is the dark rim, on purpose.

The monocyte is Character sprites' approved sprite (Monocyte v2). It has its own cream outline over a dark rim, so the code draws no outline of its own.

Colours#

The user approved the behaviour but called the first colours "too hard to see against everything". The fix was a two-tone cream core with a dark rim. General later asked for the rim to clear 3:1 contrast against the pale-floor grid border. The rim moved to the sprite's own #373c59, which measures 3.90:1 (47238f226).

Development#

• Blind rounds: round 3 scored adhesion 4 and the countdown, passes and near-miss 2. After the fixes, the final round scored adhesion 4 and the others 3, and testers read the five clips as one story.
• Rules: Claude A's Vessel Margins rooms supply the wall sides, lumen tiles and centre-line points.
• In the alpha: the encounter host pins e8e25d23e, and the lead's UPDATED-PINS.json overrides it with the reviewed 47238f226.

Gallery#

See also#

• VFX
• Vessel Margins
• Character sprites

Sources#

1. 47238f226:docs/vfx/groups/vessel.mdcopy
2. b89f778c2:src/main-game/game/UPDATED-PINS.jsoncopy
3. b89f778c2:src/main-game/alpha/public/encounter/src/skills/turns/.pinned/vfx/vessel-turns.PIN.jsoncopy
4. docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-01-claude-workstreams-todo.md (working copy, not in Git)