**Status.** First-pass paper contract, not owner-approved balance or implementation. Limited carried oxygen, unlimited ship oxygen, shared capacity for spare oxygen/equipment/loot, carried-property return on death, full journal pause and the selected opening direction are owner decisions. All capacities, item sizes, starting parts, refill behavior and timing below are proposals.

The **active rig area** answers what can operate now. Only parts physically installed there can receive links or act; moving a part to inactive cargo frees rig area. The **shared carrying capacity** answers what the astronaut can transport. Every active rig part, inactive part, portable canister, objective item and piece of loot occupies this total once. Installing a carried part in the rig does not charge capacity twice, and removing it from the rig does not free carrying capacity.

Transfer is conserved and incremental. If interrupted, the suit keeps only the amount already transferred and the canister keeps the remainder; neither duplicates or vanishes. A full, partial or empty canister keeps the same carrying size because the physical vessel remains. An empty vessel can be brought home for free refill, dropped at a known place, or used by a separately authored station fixture. No general fixture use or canister consumption is assumed here.

Aboard the ship, the player may connect the suit tank and any canisters in storage to the ship’s unlimited oxygen supply. Refill costs no scarce oxygen, currency, charge or maintenance resource. It may be stopped and resumed, leaving an honestly shown partial fill; the safe ship context adds no expedition pressure. Before departure, the manifest distinguishes full, partial and empty vessels rather than replacing them with an abstract total.

| State at the moment an expedition ends or an action is interrupted | Capacity / operation | Voluntary return | Ordinary or deliberate death | Interrupted action |

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

| Worn suit tank, with any remaining oxygen | Outside carried capacity; supplies breathing | Aboard at its remaining level, then freely refillable | Aboard; already breathed oxygen stays spent, then freely refillable | Field transfer leaves the tank at the amount actually received |

| Loose or inactive carried part | Uses carrying capacity, no active rig area | Comes aboard | Comes aboard | Pickup not yet completed leaves it at its source; completed pickup makes it carried |

| Newly found carried loot or freed objective item | Uses its stated capacity once | Comes aboard | Comes aboard | Before pickup completion it remains at the source; after completion it is carried |

| Oxygen breathed or material consumed by an explicit effect | Already spent and occupies no capacity | Does not return | Does not return | Only the amount already transferred or consumed is spent |

| Survivor | Never cargo or a loadout object | Follows Rescue Rules | Death grants no delivery, loss or shift exception | Transfer state follows its owning rescue rule |

Voluntary return and death therefore use the same carried manifest. Death additionally ends the expedition at that point, starts the next trip aboard and shifts the station; deliberate death uses exactly the same rule. It gives no special refill, extraction gate, charge tax, property loss or survivor result. Completed fasteners and other completed work persist under their own rules; an unfinished stage is lost. A living return does not trigger a shift unless another future rule explicitly establishes one.

Both choices pursue the selected goal: reach Collar Control, free the isolation bridge and bring it aboard while deciding whether the loose Fork powers both the rack and patient-bay shutter.

| **Retrieval-ready** | Four active rig parts (4) + one full canister (2) = 6 used, 4 free | Reserved space for the freed bridge (2), carried Fork (1) and one unit of other loot | Less breathing reserve; the player may need to return after a completed fastener rather than attempt the noisy final stage |

Consider the same qualitative decision after two bridge fasteners are complete. The player has used part of the spare canister, the reverse breadcrumb records the outward path but cannot promise its present safety or exact oxygen cost, and the next stage is visibly noisy. **Return now:** the rig and partial canister come home, refilling is free, and both completed fasteners remain removed. **Press on:** spend more breathable reserve, trigger the horde hold and try to free the bridge; if it is freed before death, it comes home while carried, but if death interrupts removal the bridge remains in its rack and only completed fasteners persist. A deliberate death after freeing it is a legitimate return with the carried manifest, but it also causes a station shift and forfeits the current position. The decision is about time, route access, current work and capacity—not fear of an invented loot penalty.