|---|---|---|

**What you see and fear.** A broad chest, dragging close arm and bright contact plates make its reach obvious. The shoulder drops and the whole arm draws back before one forward strike. Pressers are dangerous mainly because many of them fill the useful lane while another role attacks the side, sightline or work position.

**How you turn it.** Back out during the draw, circle fixed cover, keep firing automatically, or use the cutter when one is isolated. A faced Barrier buys work time; Manual Trigger → Vector Nozzle can open the approach. Packed Pressers are also the connected bodies an Arc or pull build wants. A developed climax defeats an ordinary Presser it validly reaches, but its shown route and contact limits still decide which bodies count.

**Exact action.** It follows local sight, recent sound or the last seen place along a reachable route. At close reach it warns, locks one forward contact arc, commits one external attack wave, then plants both feet through recovery. A hit reduces condition and gives a short shown shove. Damage alone does not interrupt work; displacement cancels only when it moves the astronaut off the control. A strike on a correctly faced Barrier is a local impact and can feed a Dynamo clamped to that frame once for this wave.

**What its body suggests.** A hospital restraint strip lies over older joint plates. Altered patient, reused test body and later hybrid remain interpretations, not combat facts.

**What you see and fear.** A narrow tilted body, long outside leg and reflective cheek plates point toward its preferred approach. While Pressers own the direct lane, a Flanker pack makes the astronaut keep a connected side passage in view.

**How you turn it.** Move so the side route becomes longer, force the pack around fixed cover, face a Barrier across the announced lunge, or use Nozzle to spoil the committed line. Walking and doorway geometry remain sufficient; no unique part is required.

**Exact action.** A Flanker uses sight or investigated local sound. When the direct lane is blocked, it chooses only a side route currently connected and visible from its decision point; it never teleports or knows an unseen path. At side reach, its outside leg folds and a floor chevron follows the intended lunge until commitment. It then makes one cross-lane body strike as one external wave, causing condition loss and lateral displacement, before skidding through a visible stance recovery. Work is interrupted only if the displacement loses the control. Barrier and Dynamo apply only at the actual faced contact.

**What its body suggests.** Hospital mobility braces are bolted to older asymmetric joints. Repair, patient and experiment remain competing readings.

**What you see and fear.** A tall resonant cavity, brightening throat shutters and a lamp matching one nearby source make the consequence visible. Caller does not make the current crowd tougher; it threatens to bring the next physical source into the fight.

**How you turn it.** Focus it, cut the named alarm lead, obstruct or displace it during the brace, seal the answering route, or withdraw before the crowd arrives. Barrier can buy time but does not silence it. Nozzle is a strong interruption. A powerful build may deliberately let the call finish because the second surge offers useful density and more fighting growth.

**Exact action.** Caller reacts to local sight, recent noisy work or a stated mechanism alarm, then braces beside its shown source. Completing the throat-shutter warning commits one external event to the already cued entrance. The event has no damage, impact or compatible current receiver; it wakes one adjacent source whose crowd arrives physically. Cutting the lead after commitment cannot recall bodies. A sealed or exhausted source cannot answer. Caller lowers and vents through recovery before it can brace again.

**What its body suggests.** Hospital speaker wire is laced through older chamber ribs. The observed signal path is fact; its maker and intended use are not.

**What you see and fear.** A tripod torso carries one translucent pressure sac and a straight launch rail. The sac fills, an aim line brightens, and the final rail click tells the player the line has locked. In a horde, that line makes standing still at a mechanism costly.

**How you turn it.** Break sight during wind-up, step away after the line locks, cross behind hard cover, displace the rail or defeat it. A manual Barrier catches a correctly faced bolt; Nozzle can spoil its locked facing where geometry permits. The baseline answer is the warning and cover, not a specific part.

**Exact action.** Boltspitter needs current sight and will not fire through its own known occluder. The line tracks during wind-up and fixes at the final click. It launches one bolt as one external wave, then empties and refills its sac through recovery. Bolt flight, any cover contact and its fragments remain descendants of that one wave. A body hit reduces condition and may knock the astronaut away from work. Hard cover stops it. A Barrier impact can feed only a Dynamo locally clamped to that Barrier.

**What its body suggests.** A human injector rail sits on a ceramic pressure organ. Weapon, treatment tool and older test apparatus remain possible readings.

**What you see and fear.** A small six-limbed body has bright clamp jaws and an arched leap posture, visually distinct from loot. It watches an active control, forcing a choice between finishing the current stage and baiting a predictable commitment.

**How you turn it.** Start work, wait for the jaw-flash lock, cancel and step outside the fixed landing arc so it skids through recovery. The player can also interrupt it before commitment, intercept the body with Barrier, displace it with Nozzle or clear it before working. It never steals an item.

**Exact action.** It follows local sight and sound. When a visible control is active in its room, the crouched landing arc tracks the operator until the jaws flash and lock to the astronaut’s position. Cancelling before lock makes the inactive control ineligible and drops the crouch without a leap. Cancelling after lock does not undo the committed external attack wave. A body landing causes modest condition loss and displacement. A panel landing explicitly interrupts the unfinished work stage and leaves the Crawler occupying that control until displaced or defeated. The latch is an ongoing state, not repeated attacks; it cannot erase a completed checkpoint or consume material. After removal, it rights itself through recovery.

**What its body suggests.** Crash-cart clamps meet older adhesion pads. Maintenance organism and changed hospital tool remain interpretations.

**What you see and fear.** A hunched carrier unfolds a translucent membrane between two bright floor anchors. Its edge is previewed before release. The fixed sheet briefly hides allies from automatic targeting, so the player must restore a firing angle, wait for decay or interrupt the cast; the weapon cannot solve the lost visibility by itself.

**How you turn it.** Reach an edge, wait for decay, interrupt or displace the bearer during wind-up, or defeat the exposed body. Barrier can hold Pressers while the player flanks but cannot erase the sheet. Unlike Shutterback, the veil is fixed, short-lived and does not turn with the sheltered group.

**Exact action.** The bearer needs sight of the astronaut and at least one visible ally behind the preview. Losing either, or being displaced or defeated before commitment, aborts the cast. Commitment starts one external wave and anchors the sheet; moving the bearer later does not drag it. The sheet blocks required sight in both directions, making sheltered hostiles invalid targets. It causes no damage, impact, oxygen effect or compatible rig packet and emits no later waves. The bearer cannot cast again while the edge visibly decays; collapse is followed by refold recovery.

**What its body suggests.** Hospital isolation film has grown over older frame limbs. Shield, quarantine and experiment remain open readings.

**What changes in the fight.** A low four-limbed body with a hollow bell chest plants, moans and draws dust into a bright limited cone. At warning start it faces the last seen point and locks the cone. The player can therefore use the coming force: leave it, put a rib between it and the astronaut, or allow it to shove loose bodies toward a useful plate or knot.

**Exact action and answers.** If the brace completes, Bellback releases one pressure wave and then collapses, unplants and refills through recovery. Pressure, shoved bodies and their resulting collisions are descendants of that one external wave. It damages condition and moves the astronaut, loose objects and unbraced creatures until structure stops them; work ends only if displacement loses the control. Displacement or defeat during the unfinished brace interrupts it. Manual Nozzle can break the brace. An accepted Inward Draft with clear line moves Bellback at most two metres, uses one body slot and interrupts an unfinished brace; cover blocks the pull. Leaving the locked cone or reaching hard cover avoids the release without cancelling it. Barrier can face the impact. Dynamo receives only a hit on its named local carrier, never remote body collisions. A released wave remains committed.

**What its body suggests.** Older compression plates sit under a hospital harness. Ascension apparatus and compression-treatment patient remain interpretations.

**What changes in the fight.** A tall visible carrier unfolds a plate fan. A heel-clamp click and floor-shadow preview announce its first shelter angle; while open, it turns slowly within a shown limit so the safe firing angle moves with the group. The player decides whether to take the longer flank, attack the exposed carrier or break the clamps before the shelter protects a second pressure.

**Exact action and answers.** Shutterback needs local sight and visible allies behind its shelter angle. The heel clamps set and the shadow fixes before the fan opens. Opening starts one external wave but adds no impact, payload or rig packet. The plates block sight and ordinary projectiles through their actual angle; sheltered enemies are invalid automatic targets. A projectile already in flight continues and stops only if it physically hits a plate. Breaking the clamps, sufficient damage or defeat collapses the fan; folding and regaining stance form recovery. Manual Nozzle can rotate or break the clamps. Arc has no permission to ignore the screen. Sustained ordinary fire, hard cover and the longer visible angle remain baseline responses.

**What its body suggests.** A hospital radiation fan rides on non-human load joints. Treatment barrier and older experiment screen remain competing readings.

**What changes in the fight.** A narrow tripod shows a translucent bladder, hose arm, line and radius. The empty-bladder flash locks the tracked launch line. If the hose attaches, the player sees a second drain beside ordinary suit use and must decide whether this work stage is worth the oxygen.

**Exact action and answers.** Siphon needs local sight and unobstructed line within its shown radius. It tracks during the brace, locks at the flash and commits one hose strike as one external wave. A miss retracts fully before another brace. A hit creates one continuing tether state—not repeated waves, damage ticks, canister deletion or offscreen loss. It adds drain only while attached. Leaving the radius, breaking line with hard cover, displacing or defeating Siphon breaks it, followed by visible retraction recovery. Barrier may intercept the physical launch and feed a Dynamo clamped to that frame. Barrier or Nozzle can stop the launch or break its geometry; pillar bait, line breaking and ordinary or cutter defeat remain baseline. Work may continue while tethered at the displayed higher oxygen cost.

**What its body suggests.** A crash-cart hose is fixed to an older breath-transfer bladder. Resuscitation device, respiration test and hybrid remain interpretations.

Enemies attack on local sight, investigate recent sound or a last seen place, search locally and give up. They do not gain global knowledge, use unseen shortcuts or track across the station. A completed call or named alarm can alert an adjacent source, but its arrivals use a route shown before they appear.

By default, each ordinary automatic actuator selects its nearest visible valid hostile within its own reach and source arc. Each output keeps its own readiness and target check, even when several outputs or Fork Relay branches coexist. A failed check preserves present readiness: a recovering actuator stays unready, while a ready actuator without a target stays ready. Commitment seals one target and spends that actuator’s readiness. New occlusion does not erase or retarget an existing projectile, though physical cover may intercept it. Power, heat, rig space and carrying capacity limit simultaneous paths.

Every enemy attack has a visible warning, one committed action and recovery. Simultaneous warnings remain independent and resolve by actual contact, not a hidden turn order. Each attack or call is one external wave. Its pressure, projectile flight, fragments, pushed bodies or continuing state retain that ancestry and cannot create free readiness or energy. A later refusal never rewinds an earlier commitment. Barrier catches only qualifying physical contact on its faced geometry; Dynamo responds only when locally clamped to the struck Barrier, Projector feed or named fixture surface.

Crowds come from named physical source volumes—wards, ducts, stores or mouths—and enter through visible feeding apertures or warned walking routes. A mapped group may already have walked to its standing position before departure, but those bodies are deducted once from that source. Loading, re-entering, waiting or killing efficiently never duplicates them.

A **stage** is one finite announced release. Fast killing can hold a lane while a source is still feeding; it does not end the stage. Clearing its committed attackers or completing its physical seal resolves it. A preventive seal stops the release and its unpaid growth marks, while a late seal stops access but leaves bodies already through. There is no counter-spawn, tougher replacement or reduced reward because a build succeeds early. Quiet begins only after remaining pressure is cleared, bypassed into a shown quiet state or physically separated. An occupied neighbour may still send bodies through a visible route.

Regular fighting supplies temporary upgrades, and named major horde events can offer larger transformations before the crowd is over. Those upgrades, queued choices and unchosen offers last only for the current expedition. A fresh expedition renews combat and growth through viable sources and current routes after either a living return or revival. Permanent closures, completed work and joined rooms remain. Only death also rearranges unjoined rooms. Defeated enemies do not return during the ongoing expedition.

Work done while the game runs shows its current stage and committed checkpoints. Explicit cancellation, displacement out of reach or a creature occupying the control loses only the unfinished stage; damage alone does not. Capturing a record is all or nothing. Seals, completed caps, pins, clamps and other owning checkpoints persist.

The journal fully pauses enemies, oxygen, tethers, projectiles, alerts, warnings, recovery, readiness and work. Link edits among accessible mounted parts can commit inside that pause, but no action or timer in the world advances. Pickup, first fitting, fixture operation and other physical work happen while the game runs.

A living retreat requires physically reaching the named exit and does not repopulate the ongoing expedition. Returning aboard alive preserves the arrangement; death shifts unjoined rooms. Either return brings every still-carried part and loot object home once, ends expedition power and begins a fresh combat climb next time. Breathed oxygen and consumed material stay spent. Dropped or station-installed objects remain at their exact locations.

There are ten encounter placements across the four regions and twelve objectives. Objectives 10 and 12 add no encounter. Setpiece A is placement 8 and setpiece B is placement 10, not extra rooms. Every placement except objective 3’s quiet first latch lesson is a crowd encounter; one featured creature is a teaching cue inside that pressure, not a replacement for it.

| Objective and host | Crowd pressure and player decision | Work, quiet and lasting state |

| **5 — R14/R15, Builders’ Runs** | Boltspitter guards the pump-hall pillar; Veilbearer screens a rail crowd. Gantry and cable-duct stages are separate. In the moving-scan variant, the same sources provide its warned bands and P14 milestone—never duplicate stages. | Seal gantry hatch/duct grille or clear arrivals. P04, captures, wall panel and Lens state persist; the scan bridge keeps its own notch/sample rules. |

R35’s threshold shows two pillars, Siphon radius, Shutterback’s first angle, Caller and its source, two side mouths, a separate far-wall hatch, R36’s iris and the two clamp approaches. The side mouths support a proposed 80–150 bodies at once. The first phase asks whether to take the exposed selector, longer fan flank or first clamp. The second combines the special pressures and optional Caller stage. The third uses earned quiet to equalise by selector or two clamps and hand-cycle the iris. R36’s side openings to R37/R38 are walking passages and are never sealed; opening R39/R40 creates no crowd.

A developed build may strip the exposed Shutterback and release into the packed hall, even allowing the Caller’s second stage on purpose. No counter-spawn or protection answers that efficiency. The low-power route seals the nearest mouth, baits Siphon’s hose into a pillar, crosses during full retraction, cuts the alarm and uses the longer flank to complete one clamp before withdrawing. Gauges and two clamps keep language, equipment and survivors optional.

For the one mapped route where nearer local sources are permanently sealed, R35’s two side-mouth volumes have a proposed conserved total of **220–370 bodies**. Of that, 40–60 stand in two R17 bands, 20–30—including R20’s existing Siphon—occupy the R20-to-R25 approach, 80–130 form the two R25 bands including one Bellback, and 80–150 remain at R35 at once. The 140–220 migrants walk the current R35→R27→R26→R25→R20→R17 route before departure and are deducted once. Re-entry or reaching R35 does not refill it. The far-wall Caller stage is separate. A living return can initialize a fresh allocation next expedition if this arrangement and its sources remain viable; death may break the unjoined R27→R35 route. Other sealed arrangements still need mapping.

On the first objective 6 visit, the four-space Sensor/Projector plus Manual/Barrier rig can barely hold the long hall. The player seals one ward door, baits the newly seen Siphon hose into a pillar, handles the Flanker pack along the wall and closes one Breath Bank cap. Four starter parts, one two-unit canister, the one-unit Dynamo and two-unit regulator total **9 of 10 C**, so a lightly loaded successful visit can carry both finds. This example leaves the regulator only when other carried cargo leaves fewer than the two units needed for its pickup, or when the player keeps more breathing margin instead of spending time on both pickups. The cap and any removed fixture part remain changed; the route record is useful but not promised after death.

After finding Capacitor and opening the six-space ship configuration, the player can return—if the sampling loop is actually reachable—with **Counterwall, 6 C / 6 A**: Manual → Barrier, Dynamo clamped to that frame → Capacitor, then the Capacitor’s built-in manual release → Arc. Each Siphon hose, Presser strike or Flanker strike caught on the faced Barrier is its own external wave and may supply one local Dynamo contribution. At a visible valid Arc target, the player releases stored charge through the packed lane. The horde has changed from a reason to flee into fuel for a protected valve window. One two-unit canister leaves only two carrying units for the regulator and nothing else.

The lateral **Salvage Breacher, 6 C / 6 A** uses Manual → Cycler → Projector, with Dynamo on Projector’s physical-output feed and Capacitor storage. It can buy an opening without waiting for strikes, but the selected salvage occupies space until used and permanently loses its return value. Protected or invalid material refuses before consumption. Once Cycler commits a valid sample, a later Projector refusal, occlusion or miss does not refund it. Consumption may make room for the regulator; that is the cost, not a free inventory trick.

Either build can finish the hand-cycle and take the regulator. A living return brings the carried manifest home and preserves seals and completed work; the next expedition renews viable pressure and growth. Death after committed pickup returns every still-carried object once, while spent Cycler material remains spent. Death before pickup leaves the regulator there. The journal can pause the warning for record and link comparison, but tether breaks, attacks, cap work and pickup still require running time.

The current full proposal is six ordinary roles, three specials and two setpieces. Its strongest cheaper alternative keeps all six ordinary roles plus Bellback and Glass Siphon, removes Shutterback from this roster, and uses only Receiver Vault as a major setpiece. Veilbearer carries the simpler sight-pressure role. Balance Gallery becomes an ordinary Bellback/mechanism placement. Receiver Vault uses Bellback and Siphon instead of the moving fan, but its threshold must show one complete Bellback warning, locked release and recovery across fixed cover before Siphon can overlap. That self-contained rehearsal avoids requiring objective 8 first.

The alternative removes one special adaptation and one bespoke staged layout, at the cost of less dynamic angular cover, spectacle and escalation. It does not delete any ordinary movement/cover baseline or add a creature. Two different tests remain: if the fixed Veilbearer and moving Shutterback are not readable as distinct pressures, cut the ordinary Veilbearer rather than multiply occlusion roles; separately, the cost-driven 6/2/1 alternative removes Shutterback to save the special adaptation and staged layout. Neither roster cut is selected.

- Target priority, manual overrides and aiming assistance.