Duration / Tick length — how long the mission runs, and how many real seconds pass per simulated step. 300 ticks × 60s = 5 hours of mission time.
Telemetry / Bulk / Critical rate — the chance, each tick, that the robot generates that kind of message. Telemetry = routine status. Bulk = mining/science data (the thing Smart Mesh protects during a hold). Critical = urgent commands from Earth.
Critical expiry — how many ticks a critical command stays valid before it's too late to act on.
Disruption 1 / 2 — deliberate link failures. Start/End set the window; Ramp controls how gradually it fails and recovers (a real fade, not an instant cliff — this is what gives Smart Mesh's prediction something to actually detect). Disruption 2's Floor quality controls how bad it gets: 0.04 ≈ fully down, 0.35 ≈ flickers but never fully dies (good for stress-testing over-caution).
Robot Anomaly — optional. If set, the robot develops a fault between these ticks. This is what triggers the playbook's guardrail — Smart Mesh will prioritize diagnostics (or hold safely, if battery is also low) during this window; Basic Mesh has no such awareness at all.