Sands v0.1.35 - Ecology, Water Reserves, and Spice Expeditions

One Connected System

Prepare land to grow water, spend water to risk spice, use spice to empower the sietch.

This release brings forth the first macro loop of Sands. You prepare the land. Prepared land feeds the sietch with water. Water funds spice expeditions. Spice becomes long‑term strategic capital. Every action now ladders into the next layer of Arrakis’ survival economy.

In short: Terraform a little. Earn more communal water. Spend that water to send better‑risked spice teams. Return spice to use for quests and abilities.

🌱 Ecology

“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.” ~ Liet-Kynes

The world is no longer a static backdrop. Desert and Deep Desert levels now participate in a shared, trackable greening effort:

• Multi‑stage site progression: Bare → Prepped → Seeded → Sprouting
• Living clusters emerge: soil anchors, probes, pumps, sprout beds, dark soil patches
• World map integration: dot + panel readouts (stage counts + weighted overall progress)

These sites aren’t just visuals, their maturity directly drives the water economy below.

💧 Communal Water Reserve

“A man’s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe.” ~ Fremen Saying

The sietch now holds a shared water stockpile that grows daily based on how far your ecology has advanced:

• Per‑stage daily income (Prepped < Seeded < Sprouting)
• HUD Water line now shows personal + communal reserve inline
• Ring conversions now draw from the living reserve
• A soft cap balances growth, you can plan long-term, but unchecked stockpiles won’t spiral endlessly.

🌀 Spice Expeditions

“The spice, it’s in everything here—the air, the soil, the food” ~ Paul Atreides

Spice becomes the macro resource you risk water to gain. Managed via the Naib:

• Three risk profiles: Cautious (safer, lower yield), Standard, Bold (higher yield, higher fail chance)
• Water cost gating + duration timer with single‑fire resolution on return
• ±15% yield variance + risk multipliers for early tension
• Failure chances scale by tier

🛠 Player Tools

• Soil Anchor Kit → site stabilization (Prepped)
• Seed Pouch → biological seeding (Seeded)
• Moisture Surge Kit → moisture injection for late transitions (Sprouting)

🧭 Feedback & Interface

• HUD now tracks: Sietch Water, Sietch Spice, Expedition Count
• Ecology percent shown on map for strategic context (with per‑stage counts + overall %)
• Map panels: Ecology Legend + dynamic progress summary
• Naib dialog: launch tiers, withdrawal, active expedition ETAs, slot availability

📦 New / Updated Assets

• Ecology infrastructure: soil anchors (framed & tensioned), moisture probe stake, moisture pump, sprout clusters, dark soil
• Item icons: anchor kit, seed pouch, moisture surge kit
• NPC: Ecology Steward
• Refreshed intro background art

“A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That’s why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.” ~ Liet-Kynes