The Specimen

Something is out there, and humanity's answer is a bioweapon launched on a dying ship. Each run sends your specimen further into hostile space — evolving, fighting, scavenging — until the fuel runs dry or the vessel breaks apart. What you salvage comes home. The rest doesn't.
Each run is one vessel. One specimen. One tank of fuel. You're sent to push through star systems crawling with alien threats, each one deadlier than the last. A boss guards the exit of every system. You won't survive them all...not this time. But that was never the plan.

Your specimen's genetic traits will determine its fate. Each encounter with an alien threat triggers an auto-battle where your different mutations and upgrades will face enemies of ever growing strength and agility. The real strategy happens before the fight: choosing mutations that stack thorns, freeze, heals, and many other upgrades.
Your bioweapon benefits both from in-run freshly rolled mutations as well as powerful meta-progression in-between runs, where you spend your savage carefully to unlock an ever more powerful bioweapon as you push deeper into space and unknown star systems.

Explore ever more threatening star systems each with its own branching node map. Every path and every fork is a tradeoff. Dangerous nodes guard better salvage. Safe routes gather fuel or health but starve your specimen of power. Fuel is your lifeline. When it runs out, the run ends whether you're ready or not. There's no perfect route. Just the one you can afford.

When your vessel is destroyed — or your fuel runs dry — you launch a data capsule back to base. Inside: dark matter to evolve your specimen's base stats, electronic parts to upgrade your ship's systems. Two resource pools, two upgrade paths, one decision every time you scavenge. Every failed run is an investment. Every relaunch hits harder, flies further, pushes deeper into the void.