Your run is saved. Security advances only when you act.
This ends the run and costs one life.
Trace rises by 3 / 5 / 7 per cycle on Easy / Normal / Hard. At 100% trace or zero integrity, you lose.
Sentinel guards the vault, then the exit. It moves every second cycle; every cycle on Hard. Hound follows you or your decoy. Each enemy on your node after its turn deals one damage.
Ghost: hidden for two enemy turns (+12 trace). Decoy: lure Hound to your current node (+6 trace). Purge: use a relay once to remove 25 trace.
Keyboard: Tab / Shift+Tab visits every control. Arrow keys select controls in menus; Enter or Space confirms. During a run, arrows or WASD move, 1–3 activate programs, 4 uses the contextual action, and period waits. Escape opens the run menu or goes back. F1 or ? opens this guide. Select a cartridge, then a socket to install it without dragging. On the briefing screen, hold Space for three seconds to jack in from anywhere; release early to cancel. Enter on Jack in starts immediately. On touchscreens, use the directional pad or tap a connected node.
Gamepad (standard Xbox / PlayStation mapping): D-pad or left stick moves / selects. In menus, A / × confirms and B / ○ goes back; LB / L1 and RB / R1 switch sections, triggers scroll long screens. In a run, A / ×, B / ○, X / □, Y / △ activate actions 1–4. RB / R1 waits. Start / Options opens the run menu; Back / Share opens help. Movement and actions require a fresh press, so holding a button cannot spend several turns. Press a controller button once to connect it to your browser.
Five jack-ins and three lives per local day. Starting costs one jack-in; losing or disconnecting costs one life. Progress saves to your server account. The minimap remembers explored routes; hollow nodes are unvisited neighbors. Pulse temporarily reveals the complete network, node types and live enemy positions for six commands (+8 trace, one command to activate). While an intel module is active, its slot becomes Wait. Purging a relay also grants three commands of intel. The countdown advances only on valid actions, never real time.
Daily contracts have rotating conditions and shard recovery objectives. Earn credits by extracting; spend them on modules, the power bus and cosmetic shells in the Market. Equip three modules before a run. A security event occurs every fourth cycle. External decisions are used only when a service is configured; otherwise the local decision model runs.