Build Comparison — Salvage Recovery Sortie

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

The brief requires limited carried oxygen, meaningful hordes and powerful combinations, with equipment competing against salvage. Discovery leads; enemy manipulation is secondary. The current proposed connection rules are in Build Rules, and part behaviour is defined in Equipment Catalogue. Their quantities and balance remain unselected.

For this comparison, the following are proposals:

• 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.
• 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 where placed. 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.

Approach A: Relay Cascade Array

The player assembles a linked rig from reusable parts. An ordinary automatic weapon's physical impacts can feed an Impact Dynamo; compatible connections send its charge to an Arc Emitter or Capacitor storage. A Thermal Lens can convert released charge into a heat payload. Each part occupies space, and each connection follows the current catalogue's port, readiness and receiver rules. Descendant effects retain their causal sequence and finite allowances under Build Rules. A powerful legal chain may overwhelm an ordinary crowd; power, heat and physical routes still limit its effects.

Commitment happens before reaching the salvage. Each module improves the cascade but displaces salvage or a spare canister. The player can keep a reliable partial combination or detour while oxygen falls. Returning with the full array and target is an aggressive bet: exceptional lane clearing, little room, and narrow oxygen margin.

It needs compatible triggers and enough targets. Sparse durable creatures or separated attack angles interrupt the chain. A full pack may force the player to abandon a module, sacrifice salvage, or leave the target even when the horde payoff is spectacular.

Approach B: Cargo-Cycler Rig

The player instead uses a Salvage Cycler linked to compatible output parts. Chosen conductive, pressure or brittle material produces its inspected charge, force or fragment response; the linked receiver determines the action. Sequencing material inputs can create combinations—for example, a shove followed by an arc or fragment burst—while consuming those inputs. The Cycler and its linked parts remain reusable equipment with their own carrying and rig costs.

Commitment is economic. Capacity left after the Cycler and its linked parts holds canisters, the target, and varied inputs, but combat spends colony-bound salvage. The player chooses ammunition, return value, and whether to search longer for a useful response family. The designated target cannot be consumed accidentally.

Deliberately collected materials can produce a ridiculous sequence anywhere. Careless firing empties the pack; a poor mix lacks control or damage; hoarding starves the weapon. A configuration with fewer carried equipment units leaves more oxygen margin, but input searches spend it. Power trades future return value for present survival.

Reusable discovery

Before discovery, item inspection states observed individual behaviour or material traits: an Arc Emitter chains through nearby bodies, a Capacitor stores charge, scrap is conductive. It does not list all cross-object combinations. In the paused journal, the current link preview checks compatible ports and shows the power and heat demands of possible operating states, including temporary modes. Learned families help predict unfamiliar objects and plan what to carry before their ports can be inspected. Physical mounting and removal still take running time under Build Rules.

Near the target, alien service glyphs group components into relay, sink, and isolator families. During the rack’s readable shutdown, a visible power trace passes through a relay-stamped junction, drains into a sink-stamped buffer, and stops at an isolator-stamped contact. The clustered marks and observed behavior support the player’s inference. Every mark was already visible; a proposed notebook records only a chosen facsimile and location, without naming families, highlighting matches or translating.

Original marks are consistent machine etching or stamps. Once the player recognizes the pattern, they reliably predict whether a component transfers, absorbs, or interrupts an effect. Visibly irregular human-painted copies provide crew context only, never mechanical identification; neither kind is deceptive. Later, the Array player may recognize that a heat-safe coupling’s relay stamp can pass a trigger before deciding whether it displaces a canister or salvage. The Cycler player may leave a sink-stamped input behind when the desired attack must release rather than absorb an effect. These are actual carry/build decisions across rooms, not a translation unlock or answer to the language mystery.

Largest unresolved tradeoff

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.

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. A living return preserves the current station arrangement and cleared ground; death shifts unconnected areas and resets transient crowds under Combat Rules. Both end temporary combat upgrades. Returning by death may therefore be useful; no replacement penalty is added here.