Much later the bag is not the bag you started with. The navigation coupler bolted a new column onto it. Yeva stitched a side pouch. A courier frame found in a locker added a long rail along the bottom. You chose where each new square went, so the outline is yours.

| **Decided by the owner, 2026-09-17** | The pack can be opened whenever no enemy is around. It also opens when a new item is gained. |

| **Decided by the owner, 2026-09-17** | The bag should have plenty of ways to grow. |

**4. Parts connect by where you put them.** *(Proposed; see the first open question.)* A part on its own does nothing. The Threat Sensor spots an enemy, but something has to be told to shoot. Today that telling is set up by picking pairs from a list in the journal: "Sensor goes to Projector". The proposal is to throw the list away. Each part that tells another part what to do has one small arrow on one edge. Put the parts down so the arrow presses against the other part, and they are connected: a seam lights up between them. Pull them apart and the seam goes dark. It is the same idea as a mana stone powering the wand next to it in Backpack Hero. The Fork Relay is a T because it takes one signal in on its stem and sends it out of both arms, so one Sensor can drive two things. The ship's power limit stays: if the lit seams ask for more power than the ship supplies, the newest seam stays dark and says why.

- Aboard the ship the pack is always available.

- In the station the pack key works while no enemy is around. Proposed meaning: no living creature has noticed you, and none stands within about ten metres in plain sight. While enemies are around the key is refused with a short reason, and the HUD shows the pack thumbnail with a closed strap.

- Taking an item opens the pack by itself so the item can be placed, even in the middle of a fight. Everything in the pack can be moved at that moment, not just the new item. A player could put something down and take it again to reopen the pack during a fight; that costs them the pickup time in front of the crowd, and I propose to allow it.

- While the pack is open the world is paused, like the journal. Because it only opens when it is safe or when something was just taken, the timed mounting from the 2026-09-16 build is no longer needed.

- **Ship assemblies.** Installing the navigation coupler aboard adds a column of five. The second ship assembly adds another. This replaces the older idea that these assemblies enlarge a "rig area".

- **People you bring home.** Each rescued survivor gives the bag one thing in their own style. Yeva stitches a side pouch of four squares.

- **Frames and pouches found in the station.** Physical finds at fixtures, each with its own outline: a courier frame that adds a long rail, a medic's roll that adds a block. Permanent once carried home.

- **Home projects.** Later workshop projects add squares for materials and time.

- **What the languages unlock.** A builders' carrying rail read from an inscription can be reproduced aboard: an odd, long extension nobody human would have designed.

- **Temporary room on a trip.** Growth earned by fighting can offer a few extra squares for that expedition only. They vanish on return like every other temporary upgrade, and anything sitting in them goes to ship storage.

- A new piece of bag is placed the same way as an item: drag it against the outline, green where it may attach.

- **Equipment Acquisition And Rig Growth**: ship assemblies enlarge the bag instead of a rig area, if the owner agrees to drop the "switched on" limit.

- In the game as built today: the text pack panel on the I key with its timed mounting, the ship's manifest list, and the journal's link editor.

- The Fork machine, Sensor into Fork into Projector and Barrier, can also be laid out, in twenty arrangements.

- The opening rig, one canister, the Fork and the bridge all fit the starting bag together. With two canisters the bridge does not fit until something goes on the floor. That is harsher than the old example, where it still fitted, and is easy to tune by moving an arrow or by the first bag growth.

2. **Does every square work?** See the section above. My recommendation: yes, drop the older "switched on" limit.

3. **Which ways to grow do you want?** Rule 7 lists six. Should the player choose where each new piece of bag attaches?

4. **What counts as "no enemy around"?** Proposed: nothing has noticed you and nothing stands within about ten metres in plain sight.

5. **Does position matter beyond connections?** Backpack Hero has rules like "works better in the top row" or "stronger next to armour". Wanted here, or are connections enough?

6. **Turn only, or turn and flip?**

7. **Is four squares per part the right grain?** Bigger, stranger parts make harder puzzles and fewer parts per machine.

8. **What is drawn in each square?** The art kit has no pictures of these objects. Free art would have to be found, or the objects drawn as simple silhouettes.