This preserves a real expedition cost for investigating while avoiding a cost based on the player’s reading speed. It also permits an epiphany in the station: reflection is not forced aboard ship. Free interface time is justified here as a readability/accessibility proposal, not an owner requirement or an automatic consequence of “discovery first.”

| Player activity | World / oxygen / threats | Information and choice |

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

| Notice an unfamiliar clue | Continue normally; noticing adds no separate charge | Only what is currently perceptible; choose whether to stop |

| Position or watch an ongoing event | Continue | New angles, timing and sequence require real in-world exposure |

The default’s real cost is tonal and strategic. A player can freeze a dangerous moment to think, interrupting immediate horde tension. Selective, framed records may discourage indiscriminate capture, but that safeguard is itself unproven and should not become arbitrary friction. The system may also encourage “record everything, sort later,” shifting some discoveries away from the station despite allowing field inference.

**Threat-managed rooms with a slow global oxygen budget.** In-world study consumes oxygen, but local danger is mainly the horde. Clearing, sealing or cutting power can buy quiet; combat is one route, not the only one. Its strongest case is sustained physical observation where the environment supports control. Its cost is that discovery may depend on controlling a room, producing a repeated “secure, then inspect” rhythm and weaker moment-to-moment return pressure.

**Finite field-study reserves at authored apparatus.** The player docks a carried canister into a work hood or console, creating a visible finite reserve for physical study without spending the active return supply. This produces a clear preparation tradeoff and supports manipulation that cannot be captured. Its strongest case is an earned, bounded observation window that preserves limited oxygen. Its cost is authored infrastructure: study points can advertise important clues, exclude mysteries elsewhere and turn exploration into “find socket, spend canister.” It is better kept as an exceptional affordance unless core mysteries repeatedly require it.

Reopen the default if planned core mysteries repeatedly need prolonged physical manipulation, or if later owner-authorized observation shows that players either capture indiscriminately or abandon clues because the in-world recording cost overwhelms curiosity. No such validation exists yet.