**Status.** Working ordinary-horde contract after focused review, not a roster or balance claim. The brief requires hostile masses, meaningful combat, powerful combinations, limited oxygen, clear controls and discovery first. It now also requires mostly automatic ordinary fire with manual special abilities. Targeting details below remain proposed; the journal pause is owner-set.
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**Status.** Working ordinary-horde contract after focused review. The owner accepted the route-pressure and selectively contested-work direction; this is not approval of a roster, frequency or balance. Mostly automatic ordinary fire, manual specials and the journal pause are owner-set; targeting details remain proposed.
## Minimum player control
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A decisive rig can decide an encounter. Cascade clearing the run defeats that crowd; a quiet return stays clear unless a separately cued living enemy approaches. The wider door area is quiet only after its caller/source, present enemies and travelling groups are resolved, with no unused eligible groups behind an active source. Counterwall can preserve completed door stages; Cycler can spend cargo to open a temporary lane, not a solid lasting barrier. None causes replacement elites, invisible escalation or reduced reward. Victory buys access, time, oxygen margin and discovery opportunity.
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A hit visibly reduces condition and narrows the margin before damage death. Lost condition persists for the expedition with no passive field recovery in this proposal. Returning alive or reviving aboard restores ordinary condition for the next expedition; field healing and lasting injuries remain undecided. Working under attack therefore risks condition/death and spends time and oxygen even when progress survives.
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A hit visibly reduces condition and narrows the margin before damage death. Lost condition persists for the expedition with no passive field recovery in this proposal. Returning alive or reviving aboard restores ordinary condition for the next expedition; field healing and lasting injuries remain undecided. On death, everything still carried—including unused loot—returns aboard with the astronaut. Cycler inputs and canister oxygen already consumed stay spent; dropped or installed property remains where left. Combat adds no replacement tax or substitute death penalty. Working under attack still risks losing the current position, unfinished action and time while completed world changes persist under their own rules.
Withdrawal is valid but physical. Completed records/checkpoints remain; unfinished stages do not. Detours spend oxygen and may defer the objective; abandoned alarms may stay active. Later, authored evidence and deliberate changes persist while population may differ. Breadcrumbs promise no safety.
