Spare Ribs

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Spare Ribs

Type	Vending Machine
Family	Map Furniture (Interactive)
Brand	Catastropop™ (Endtimes Bottling Co.)
Product	Spare Ribs™ (Bone Broth Cola)
Tagline	“Put more health in your health.”
Interact range	16 units
On-screen prompt	Press [E] to upgrade max health for {cost}
Interact time	Instant
Cooldown	None
Cost formula	clamp(25 * (uses+1), 25, ∞)
Rounding	round(cost / 25) * 25 (to nearest 25)
Scaling vars	Uses; Luck (affects amount gained)
Effect	Increases Max HP by a random amount; heals for the same.
Effect expression	_amount = irandom(uses + luck); max_hp += _amount; hp += _amount
Limits	None (no explicit cap)
Stacks?	Yes (each use increases Max HP further)
Sounds	sndBuy, sndPowerDrink
System hooks	Consumes Score; references oPlayer.luck
Appears on	All current maps
First appearance	DEAD (v1.0)
Notes	Higher Luck improves the expected HP gain per purchase.

Spare Ribs

“Put more health in your health.”

Overview

The Spare Ribs vending machine dispenses Catastropop’s Bone Broth Cola, granting the player a permanent increase to Max HP along with an immediate heal equal to the same amount. It’s the only vending machine that permanently upgrades your health pool.

Mechanics

• Interact range: 16 units (proximity check).
• Prompt: Press [E] to upgrade max health for {cost}.
• Interaction time: Instant.
• Effect: Randomly increases both Max HP and current HP by the same amount.
• Audio: Plays sndBuy and sndPowerDrink on purchase.

Cost

• Base formula:

 `cost = clamp(25 * (uses + 1), 25, ∞)`  

• Rounding:

 `cost = round(cost / 25) * 25` → always a multiple of 25.  

• Scaling:

 Cost grows linearly with the number of times the machine has been used.

Health Gain

• Formula:

 `_amount = irandom(uses + luck)`  

• The random gain increases with both uses (more upgrades bought = higher potential) and the player’s Luck stat.
• Both Max HP and current HP increase by this rolled amount.

Strategy

• A long-term investment — expensive in early rounds but snowballs with luck.
• Players running high-luck builds can maximize value from Spare Ribs.
• Useful before high-round runs or bosses, since permanent HP helps against attrition.
• Unlike the healing machine, Spare Ribs retains value even if you’re already at full HP.

Trivia

• Internally nicknamed “The Meat Machine” during development.
• The Bone Broth Cola gag was inspired by early dev discussions about “hipster apocalypse health drinks.”
• One of the only machines whose benefit scales positively with repeated use rather than diminishing.