**Status:** Provisional systems proposal for the first design exercise, not an opening mission, final inventory rule, or balance claim.
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**Status:** Provisional systems example, not an opening mission or balance claim. The owner accepted connected reusable-part builds and spare oxygen sharing carrying capacity with equipment and loot. The compared parts, interactions, objective and quantities remain proposals.
## Requirements and shared proposals
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The brief requires limited carried oxygen, meaningful hordes and powerful combinations, with equipment competing against salvage. Discovery leads; enemy manipulation is secondary. Build rules and oxygen quantities remain undecided.
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The brief requires limited carried oxygen, meaningful hordes and powerful combinations, with equipment competing against salvage. Discovery leads; enemy manipulation is secondary. Detailed build rules and oxygen quantities remain undecided.
For this comparison, the following are **proposals**:
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- The objective is a **compressor head** from station canister-filling gear. It occupies meaningful capacity, is useless if cracked, and must reach the ship. Installing it is proposed to extend reach per canister slot; magnitude and uniqueness remain open.
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- Equipment, ordinary salvage, and spare oxygen canisters share one visible carry-capacity interface. Active oxygen and estimated time remaining are always readable; no exact quantities are asserted.
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- The objective is a **compressor head** from station canister-filling gear. It occupies meaningful capacity and must be brought aboard, whether by live return or the owner-required death return while it is carried. Installing it is proposed to extend reach per canister slot; magnitude and uniqueness remain open.
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- Equipment, ordinary salvage and spare oxygen canisters share one visible carry-capacity interface, as the owner accepted. Active oxygen and estimated time remaining are always readable; no exact quantities are asserted.
- The head begins in a readable powered rack and reserves its full shared capacity from the moment it is lifted, whether in hand or stowed; a full pack must first make room. **In hand**, it travels immediately but overrides equipment form: both builds lose their full functions and retain only basic defence. **Stowed** on the carry frame, it still occupies full capacity but restores full build use after a deliberate, exposed transfer. **Dropped**, it frees capacity and restores handling immediately, but stays behind, fragile and exposed. In-hand carriage is transitional during release, transfer or emergency re-pickup; once safe stowing is possible it is not intended as a competing long-return strategy. Ordinary hordes remain active during the return.
The Design Lead’s expedition should match these carrying, extraction, and hazard properties or identify a replacement before review.
@@ 49,4 49,6 @@
## Largest unresolved tradeoff
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Shared capacity makes every carried choice legible, but oxygen may dominate if another canister is usually correct. Separate oxygen capacity would protect build expression but weaken preparation and return tradeoffs. Shared capacity is only a reversible proposal; its balance and play quality are unvalidated.
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Shared capacity is an accepted direction, not a remaining branch. Its unresolved risk is oxygen dominance: if another canister is usually correct, equipment and loot choices narrow despite sharing one interface. Exact capacity, canister value and encounter pressure remain untuned and unvalidated.
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Death does not undo the carrying choice by confiscating the load: everything still carried, including the compressor head and unused salvage, returns aboard with the astronaut. Material already fired through the Cycler is consumed, and anything dropped or installed in the station was not carried. Returning by death may therefore be useful; no replacement penalty is added here.
