**Provisional pending owner choice.** The model below grants temporary upgrades only for resolved stages. Regular growth from defeated enemies with larger milestone transformations remains the owner-facing alternative; its meter, thresholds, pickup behaviour and interruption cost are not designed here.
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An eligible stage is one finite, announced pressure release from an identified physical source. Once that stage's arrivals commit, resolving it earns one temporary choice tied to the active rig. The player resolves it either by clearing all attackers committed to that release or by completing a physical seal that ends their access. Killing faster than arrivals suppresses the lane but does not end a release that still has committed attackers feeding through it. A strong build that clears the finite release before the announced peak, or a prepared player who seals it early, earns immediately without waiting for danger to grow. Break and seal offer the same choice; their combat, oxygen and access costs may differ.
Crossing the stage's escape boundary saves the astronaut but earns nothing; re-entry resumes the same unresolved stage. A resolved stage pays once for the current station arrangement and remains spent across a living return. Reopening the same seal does not create another reward. A later machinery release qualifies only when it is separately authored, announced and sourced—not because the player crossed a distance reset. Physical seal persistence follows its mechanism. Death itself pays nothing. An earned but unchosen offer expires aboard with the rest of temporary expedition power. The accepted cost is that surviving an unsuccessful fight gives no temporary help beyond retained property and knowledge, while a reachable seal may become the safer reward route; placement must keep sealing a real tactical choice.
