RuleSage cited table rulings
← Ark Nova

You asked

If a creature needs saltwater tanks to survive, where in my park can it live?

Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below counted as honest abstain

Asked with: Ark Novabg-342942-en-1e · Ark Nova: Marine Worldsbg-368966-en-1e

I looked through Ark Nova's rulebook and couldn't find a solid answer to that one — and I'd rather tell you so than guess at your table. Try asking it another way, or ask me about setup, turns, or how the game ends: those I know cold.

The closest rulebook passages are below — check them before ruling.

RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.12 · Special Enclosures (Petting Zoo, Reptile House, Large Bird Aviary) · Example: Playing animals (enclosures)
There are 3 different special enclosures: Petting Zoo (1) , Reptile House (2) , and Large Bird Aviary (3) . Your zoo can only have one of each type of special enclosure. Petting Zoo animals cannot be accommodated in a standard enclosure; only in their special enclosure, the Petting Zoo. All reptiles
RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.6 · Your Zoo Map
Your zoo (1) is established in the large area in the middle of your zoo map. This is where you place buildings such as enclosures (standard or special enclosures), kiosks, pavilions, or unique buildings. An overview of all enclosures shows their sizes and shapes (2) . You are not allowed to build on
RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.10 · BUILD
Build exactly 1 building of your choice with a maximum size of on your zoo map. Pay 2 money per space. Available: Kiosk, pavilion, standard enclosure, and Petting Zoo. The size of a building is measured by the number of spaces it covers on your zoo map. In this action, you have the kiosk (size 1), p
RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.11 · ANIMALS
If there are multiple simultaneous effects, you choose the order of execution (whether these effects are appeal, reputation, conservation points, or gained by the ability of the animal or from other cards). Fill empty enclosure : To play an Animal card and accommodate the animal in your zoo, you nee
RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook · p.10 · Example: Possible building spaces for a kiosk · Example: Building with a placement bonus
The green checkmarks indicate spaces where you may build another kiosk. Build as many different buildings as you like with a maximum total size of on your zoo map. Newly available: Large Bird Aviary and Reptile House. If you have upgraded the Build action, you may also build the special enclosures L
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
warm abstain
  • this ruling — W1 — generic warm abstain · receipt: none (generic)
corpus profile
live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 96 ms · ask 3111 ms · total 3209 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 0 ms · generation 3209 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 12, "score": 0.032266, "snippet": "There are 3 different special enclosures: Petting Zoo (1) , Reptile House (2) , and Large Bird Aviary (3) . Your zoo can only have one of each type of special enclosure. Petting Zoo animals cannot be accommodated in a standard enclosure; only in their special enclosure, the Petting Zoo. All reptiles", "headingPath": "Special Enclosures (Petting Zoo, Reptile House, Large Bird Aviary) · Example: Playing animals (enclosures)", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.031754, "snippet": "Your zoo (1) is established in the large area in the middle of your zoo map. This is where you place buildings such as enclosures (standard or special enclosures), kiosks, pavilions, or unique buildings. An overview of all enclosures shows their sizes and shapes (2) . You are not allowed to build on", "headingPath": "Your Zoo Map", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.031025, "snippet": "Build exactly 1 building of your choice with a maximum size of on your zoo map. Pay 2 money per space. Available: Kiosk, pavilion, standard enclosure, and Petting Zoo. The size of a building is measured by the number of spaces it covers on your zoo map. In this action, you have the kiosk (size 1), p", "headingPath": "BUILD", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.03055, "snippet": "If there are multiple simultaneous effects, you choose the order of execution (whether these effects are appeal, reputation, conservation points, or gained by the ability of the animal or from other cards). Fill empty enclosure : To play an Animal card and accommodate the animal in your zoo, you nee", "headingPath": "ANIMALS", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.029877, "snippet": "The green checkmarks indicate spaces where you may build another kiosk. Build as many different buildings as you like with a maximum total size of on your zoo map. Newly available: Large Bird Aviary and Reptile House. If you have upgraded the Build action, you may also build the special enclosures L", "headingPath": "Example: Possible building spaces for a kiosk · Example: Building with a placement bonus", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029437, "snippet": "The game board has a Break track to count down the time remaining until the next break. At the beginning of the game, and after each break, the Break token goes on the starting space corresponding to your player count (1) . Whenever you advance the Break token, move it the appropriate number of spac", "headingPath": "The Break Track", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.028814, "snippet": "These cards represent the different conservation projects you can support. Each card depicts 3 conditions (1) to fulfill, as well as the corresponding rewards (2) . Certain Conservation Project cards grant an additional bonus to the player who plays them (3) . There are two types of conservation pro", "headingPath": "Conservation Projects Layouts · Example: Playing a Conservation Project card", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.028405, "snippet": "Play Animal cards from your hand. Compare the strength of the action with the table on the card. Play up to the indicated number of Animal cards from your hand. Follow the steps below for each animal: Check conditions : Any conditions you must fulfill in order to play the Animal card are indicated o", "headingPath": "ANIMALS", "sharpsignalDocId": 247}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 247 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 247 boosted
answered-before recall
no past answered ruling for this game matched closely enough
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until
Nov 12, 2026 12:22

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Special Enclosures (Petting Zoo, Reptile House, Large Bird Aviary) · Example: Playing animals (enclosures) p.12 0.032266 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Your Zoo Map p.6 0.031754 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) BUILD p.10 0.031025 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) ANIMALS p.11 0.03055 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Example: Possible building spaces for a kiosk · Example: Building with a placement bonus p.10 0.029877 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) The Break Track p.7 0.029437 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Conservation Projects Layouts · Example: Playing a Conservation Project card p.15 0.028814 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) ANIMALS p.11 0.028405 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 57 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read atdocumentheadingpage fused rankfused RRF scorecarried byhow it got its slot
#1 RULEBOOK Ark Nova: Marine Worlds — Rulebook (corpus doc 867) SEA ANIMAL ACCOMMODATION · REEF DWELLERS p.4 #10 0.016129 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#2 RULEBOOK Ark Nova: Marine Worlds — Rulebook (corpus doc 867) SEA ANIMAL ACCOMMODATION p.3 #9 0.016393 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#3 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) p.3 #51 0.009009 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#4 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Example: Releasing an animal · Example: Association tasks with side II · ASSOCIATION p.16 #39 0.010101 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#5 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Special Enclosures (Petting Zoo, Reptile House, Large Bird Aviary) · Example: Playing animals (enclosures) p.12 #1 0.032266 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#6 RULEBOOK Ark Nova — Rulebook (corpus doc 247) Your Zoo Map p.6 #2 0.031754 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) vector + the doc-priority boost arm the re-ranker chose it
#7 RULEBOOK Ark Nova: Marine Worlds — Rulebook (corpus doc 867) Example: Playing an animal in an aquarium · Example: Playing a Reef Dweller · Example: Revealing a Wave Icon p.5 #11 0.015385 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it
#8 RULEBOOK Ark Nova: Marine Worlds — Rulebook (corpus doc 867) SEA ANIMAL ACCOMMODATION p.3 #12 0.014706 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) vector the re-ranker chose it

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
timing split
retrieval 96 ms · first delta 3106 ms · total 3209 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 0 ms · retrieval 96 ms · ask 3111 ms · gateway work 3209 ms · total 3209 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3131
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
9
tok/sec
150.0 tok/sec — 9 output tokens in 0.060 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 5s ago)
stream path
streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog
first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture
both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
outcome
ABSTAINED — Abstained — no grounded answer; closest passages below
abstain rationale
I don't have enough information.
the answerer's own words, verbatim — hostile corpus/LLM text, rendered escaped
decision
NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 173), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.