---
title: "Deferred Asset Classes"
description: "Formal deferral note — lamp posts, barns, TVs, billboards (T-1051), and cars (Q-067) — not briefed this batch"
type: design
status: active
ticket: "T-1051"
decision_refs: [D-166, D-235]
author: "Araminta"
created: 2026-07-25
updated: 2026-07-25
---

# Deferred Asset Classes

This is the formal deferral record for five asset classes named in the T-750
epic description that do **not** get a one-page brief this batch: **lamp
posts, TVs, billboards, barns** (T-1051's four classes) and **cars**
(Q-067). This note is what lets T-1051 close as delivered-by-deferral (its
own acceptance criterion — "author briefs, **or record formal deferral**" —
is satisfied by this file) and records the rationale so a future re-scope
pass doesn't have to re-derive it.

---

## The four T-1051 classes: lamp posts, TVs, billboards, barns

**Rationale.** Phase 4's cascade deliverable is "deterministic walkable-world
data + per-layer Atlas maps + asset catalog" (`CLAUDE.md` cascade table).
Outside-in generation (D-166) needs building **exterior templates** — the
D-235 wall/roof/facade/street axes — to make districts/blocks walkable and
Atlas-legible. None of these four classes are a wall/roof/facade/street axis
token:

- **Lamp posts** (street furniture) and **TVs/billboards** (signage/screens)
  are set-dressing objects that populate an *already-walkable* exterior or
  interior — they read as Phase 6 "detail coloring / room-level population"
  (cascade table), or at best late-Phase-4 polish once exteriors exist to
  place them against.
- **Barns** are a rural *building type*, not a material/form/rhythm/surface
  axis token — D-235's vocabulary describes what a wall/roof/facade/street
  looks like, not what kind of building a set of walls forms. A barn's walls
  and roof would draw from the same `rural-walls.md` brief's tags
  (`timber_wall`, `rammed_earth_wall`) plus a roof tag; there is no separate
  "barn" asset class to brief independent of that.

**No partial work is lost by deferring.** T-1049's own 2026-06-12 audit
matrix confirms zero repo hits for any of the four beyond the T-750 epic
description text — no ticket, no brief, no produced asset, no style-guide
mention. There is nothing to protect or unwind by waiting.

**Disposition.** Formal deferral, not a story. No brief is authored for any
of the four this batch.

**Note on axis completeness.** This register's exterior-texture examples in
`station-walls.md`/`rural-walls.md` cite the D-235 **wall** axis only — that
is deliberate scoping to this batch's two briefed classes, not a claim that
roof/facade/street are also deferred. `RoofForm` (7 tags), `FacadeRhythm`
(8 tags), and `StreetSurface` (7 tags) are the other three D-235 axes and
are **not** unbriefed set-dressing in the sense the four classes above are —
they are building-exterior surfaces that ride the **same** naming/generation
convention the wall briefs establish (`<object_tag>_<map_type>.png` per
`conventions.md` §3, `palette.md` §3.2–§3.4's register rows already exist
for all three). They are a natural follow-on brief/story within the
building-exterior asset-class family once station-walls/rural-walls prove
the pattern out — not named as their own class in T-1049's per-class list,
and not deferred for the exterior-not-walkable-yet reason the four classes
above are. No new brief is authored for them this batch; the accounting
above is complete once this note is read alongside the wall briefs.

## Cars (Q-067)

**Rationale, same shape, one added layer.** Cars are also set-dressing/
transport infrastructure that presupposes walkable exteriors — same Phase-4-
vs-later argument as the four above. Cars additionally carry a genuinely
**open design question**: Q-067 ("Vehicle physics for in-world transport")
has not decided whether the game needs driveable vehicles, NPC-only traffic,
or neither, nor whether vehicle movement is client-side physics or
server-authoritative. A car asset brief would have to assume an answer to a
question that is explicitly still open — Q-067's own audit note (2026-06-12,
S-47) already flagged this: "Scope for v0.2: probably not" (and v0.2 is
dropped per `CLAUDE.md`), recommending the phase question be answered before
any car brief is written.

**Distinction from the T-1051 four, in degree not kind.** The four above need
no open question resolved — their deferral is a pure scope/sequencing call
(exteriors first). Cars need Q-067 resolved *in addition to* that same
sequencing call. Only vehicle artifact today: `spikes/3dpipeline/models/
props/vw_beetle.glb` (a spike binary, untracked per D-241 — not production
prior art).

**Disposition.** Formal deferral. Blocked on Q-067 resolution in addition to
Phase-4 exterior-generation completion.

---

## Revisit trigger

**Revisit all five classes when Phase-4 exterior generation is complete** —
i.e. when the tile/chunk/block cascade is producing walkable districts/
blocks with building exteriors drawn from the D-235 axes (the point at which
set-dressing has something real to populate). For cars specifically, revisit
is additionally gated on **Q-067 resolving** to a driveable-vehicles-in-scope
answer; if Q-067 resolves "no vehicles" or "NPC-traffic-only, no player
asset," the car brief may never be needed in the form this note anticipates.

## Precedent

This deferral treatment mirrors the **Q-067 precedent already established**
in T-1049's refinement history: file a scope note now, do not write a brief
against an undecided mechanic or an unwalkable world, and let the phase
cascade (D-166) — not a milestone label — be the thing that reopens the
question when its gating condition is met.

---

## Cross-References

- T-1051 — the ticket this note satisfies ("author briefs, or record formal deferral")
- T-1049 — parent refinement ticket; "Lead ratification" note ratifies this deferral disposition
- Q-067 — open question, vehicle physics/mechanic scope
- D-166 — outside-in generation cascade (geo → economic/exterior → building templates → door contracts → Phase-6 interiors)
- D-235 — building-exterior visual grammar (wall/roof/facade/street axes; barns/lamp-posts/TVs/billboards are not axis tokens)
- `docs/assets/briefs/rural-walls.md` — barns' actual wall/roof material draws from this brief's tags, when barns are eventually built