When Another Crew Finishes the Job

The building was finished, but the order was not

A Crew is a player-directed expedition unit. A Construction Site is the unfinished world object that holds delivered materials and remaining work until it becomes a commissioned Facility. Each Crew spends its own Action Points, or AP, when it contributes work; there is no pooled workforce or automatic team action.

An earlier build exposed an awkward case. Crew A began a Storage Yard, contributed one of the three required units of work, ran out of AP, and retained an explicit Continue Construction order for the next Workday. Crew B then arrived and completed the same Site. The Storage Yard appeared correctly, but Crew A still tried to continue work on a Site that no longer existed. Because that old order also blocked a replacement command, Crew A could neither continue nor do anything else.

The problem was larger than a stale line of text. If construction progress effectively belonged to the first worker, assigning a second Crew to help could turn ordinary cooperation into a deadlock the player had to repair.

The Site owns the shared progress

The construction rule now treats remaining work as part of the Site's world state. Crew A's first contribution immediately changes that shared total. Crew B can stand at another valid work position, spend its own AP, and contribute to the same total. The second Crew does not borrow Crew A's AP, inherit its command, or perform hidden automatic labor.

If Crew B only adds some of the remaining work, Crew A's Continue order stays available and points to the new total. If Crew B finishes the Site, the Facility is commissioned once and every retained construction order aimed at that Site is resolved as already satisfied by the changed world. No duplicate work is performed and no acknowledgment screen is required before the original Crew can act again.

A concrete three-step scene

The recorded sequence starts with Crew A at 1 / 3 work and 2 remaining. Crew A has no AP left, so its panel offers Continue on a later Workday. Crew B supplies the remaining contribution, and the same map location becomes Storage Yard #1 with a Complete outcome. The final frame selects Crew A again: the construction order is gone, and a new Move Order has been accepted immediately.

For the player, this makes labor allocation a spatial and timing decision instead of an order-cleanup chore. A nearby Crew with spare AP can finish urgent construction while the original worker is exhausted, without reserving the Site for one actor or risking a trapped unit afterward.

This behavior remains in the current development line. Construction balance, interface wording, and final visual treatment are still in development.