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research/current_model.md

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 # Current Preference Model
 
-Status: **updated after Experiment 008's under-length first run; corrective revision 2 is validated and ready**
+Status: **updated after completed Experiment 008; Experiment 009 is ready to test capability-sensitive consequence**
 
 The leading long-term theory remains that fun may come from learning a compact set of consistent laws, constructing a system from them, and discovering consequences that create further self-directed questions. Experiment 000 did not provide positive evidence: its permissive abstract observations were solved in about three minutes, produced no voluntary experimentation, and did not make phase, timing, or cyclic behavior perceptible or necessary.
 
@@ -100,7 +100,25 @@ The intended test is not whether more modules or enemy types are more entertaini
 
 The first 008 run did not provide enough mature-build exposure to answer that question. The player selected three different builds but reports little planning; Conduit-first was a misunderstanding. More importantly, each fourth selection was followed by only one field. Complete builds existed for about 7 seconds in Shoal, 20 seconds in Bastion, and 22 seconds in Brood. The player repeatedly began to see something cool emerge just as the expedition ended.
 
-This is a structural measurement failure, not evidence against the compositional model. Compared with 007, the module vocabulary and populations grew more complex while mature-build observation time did not. Corrective revision 2 adds three fields to every expedition without changing the four-choice budget or module mechanics. The four selections still occur after fields one through four, and the completed build now persists through fields five through eight. Only after this sustained observation can replay, adaptation, universal cores, or obvious counter-loadouts be interpreted.
+The first run's structural measurement failure was corrected in revision 2. Mature fields made choices easier to evaluate, produced distinct full builds, and allowed slight movement-strategy refinement. However, the player believed nearly any combination—or even no catalysts—could complete the expeditions. Baseline sufficiency meant every choice was a benefit but no exclusion mattered, so the four-slot limit created no felt tradeoff.
+
+The updated model is:
+
+> Causal composition creates curiosity and power expression, but strategic choice requires the environment to distinguish capabilities. A slot limit alone is meaningless when every included effect helps and every omitted effect is unnecessary.
+
+Do not respond by merely inflating enemy health in the same three expeditions. That could make throughput compulsory without creating new reasoning. The next high-information test should combine 007's exact qualitative growth with a single escalating run whose changing capabilities eventually exceed baseline fire. Continued choices should let the player author a response and reach spectacular power, while telemetry/report distinguish valued build anticipation from survival-driven persistence.
+
+The final 008 report sharpens this further: the player explicitly called the building enjoyable but meaningless. This establishes the first positive statement about construction itself in the project. It also shows why prior quality gradients and slot limits failed: a choice has no weight if the environment is insensitive to its omission.
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+The leading model is now:
+
+> Fun can arise from building a causal capability, discovering how components amplify one another, and expressing that understanding as visible power. For the activity to remain meaningful, problems must distinguish capabilities through consequences, while still admitting multiple causal routes.
+
+The next probe should be one escalating run rather than three labeled ecology tests. Exact choices should continue so a build can mature and specialize. Later enemies should introduce capabilities—such as re-forming wards, regeneration, and spawning—that baseline fire cannot comfortably answer, but which several combinations can address through hit generation, burst, kill chains, or secondary-hit conversion. Local wave restart should make failure informative rather than erase the run.
+
+Experiment 009 implements this as Catalyst Ascent: one ten-field run, with exact choices after the first seven fields and the mature build retained through the final three. It reuses the six known catalysts so novelty comes from consequence rather than a larger menu. Wards reset partial shield damage unless eight hits land within a short window, while Focus ruptures and Conduit lances breach them; Renewal bodies continuously regenerate; Broods continue to produce Motes. Mixed later fields allow hit density, focused rupture, secondary conversion, kill chains, and amplification to overlap rather than assigning one named counter.
+
+This is deliberately not a generic difficulty test. The key result is whether the player anticipates, notices, and revises a capability relationship—and whether doing so makes the already-enjoyable building feel consequential. Longer play, deaths, clearing all fields, or selecting the textual counter do not answer that question. A possible failure is that pressure merely compels throughput as in 002; another is that the shooter objective remains emotionally meaningless even when construction affects success.
 
 ## Methodological Guardrail: Reports Are Evidence, Not Ground Truth