re: hypothesis for what REMAINING OB counts -- marked attackers, 4 per squadron

Assembled from existing captures, not newly measured, and marked 🟡 accordingly.

mission-objectives-text.md gives phase 1's roster as 4 e010_Attacker_S GROUPS
totalling 16 CRAFT -- four per squadron -- and the counter moves in steps of
exactly four (004 -> 008 -> 012).  The phase-1 objective is stated in the mission
dialogue as "the attackers with the orange markers", i.e. the e010s, not the
turrets that outnumber them 7:1.  mission-wave-arrivals.md pins the arrival of the
three polled squadrons at t=170 SECONDS, which is when the counter is seen to
climb.

That accounts for every number taken so far, including the two that looked
contradictory: the counter held at 012 while the hostile population fell by a
third because those kills were almost all turrets, and it decremented 12 -> 11 in
the one run whose pilot actually killed attackers.

Recorded with its own refutation tests (kill one e010 -> must fall by exactly 1;
kill a turret -> must not move; phase 1 should cap at 016) and with the weak point
stated: "four per squadron" is 16/4, a MEAN, and if the squadrons are 5/5/3/3 the
step-of-four pattern is coincidence.

docs/re/ob-counts-marked-attackers.md

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+# 🟡 What `REMAINING OB` counts — the marked attackers, four per arriving squadron
+
+**Status: 🟡 HYPOTHESIS, assembled from existing measurements, NOT itself
+measured.** It is recorded because it is the first reading that fits *every*
+number this corpus has taken, and because it makes sharp predictions that one
+run can kill.
+
+## The reading
+
+`REMAINING OB` counts the **objective-marked `UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S` craft
+still alive**, and it *rises* because those craft arrive in squadrons on the
+mission's timetable rather than being present from the start.
+
+## The arithmetic that suggested it
+
+[`mission-objectives-text.md`](mission-objectives-text.md) gives phase 1's roster
+two ways — by unit group and by craft:
+
+| unit | groups | craft |
+|---|---|---|
+| `UN_e007_ADAN_Turret` | 12 | 108 |
+| `UN_e106_ADAN_Destroyer` | 7 | 7 |
+| `UN_f001_TCAF_DeltaSaber_T` | 7 | 7 |
+| **`UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S`** | **4** | **16** |
+
+**16 craft across 4 groups — four per squadron.** The counter moves in steps of
+exactly **four**: `004 → 008 → 012`. And the phase-1 objective is stated outright
+in the mission dialogue: *"The attackers with the orange markers"* — the `e010`s,
+not the turrets that outnumber them seven to one.
+
+[`mission-wave-arrivals.md`](mission-wave-arrivals.md) supplies the timing: the
+three squadrons the phase-1 clear condition polls (ADN110, ADN111, ADN112) all
+have first-keyframe time **170**, confirmed live as **seconds**. Objective craft
+therefore *arrive* minutes into the flight, which is exactly when the counter is
+observed to climb.
+
+## Every measured fact it accounts for
+
+| measurement | this reading |
+|---|---|
+| reads `004` with ~118 hostiles live | the 118 are overwhelmingly turrets; only the marked attackers count |
+| **rises** `004 → 008 → 012` | one squadron of four arriving at each step |
+| **held at `012`** while hostiles fell 132 → 93 | the pilot's kill logs are almost entirely `e007_Turret` — the wrong 42 kills, in that file's own words |
+| **decremented `12 → 11`** exactly once when the player really fired | that run's preference knob produced its only `e010` kills |
+| no class head-count ever equals the counter | the live `e010` population includes squadrons not yet released — 16 live against a counter of 12 in tonight's sample |
+
+The fourth row is the one that turns this from arithmetic into an explanation:
+every earlier "the counter ignores kills" result came from runs killing turrets,
+and the single decrement came from the single run that killed attackers.
+
+## What would refute it — one run, cheap
+
+1. **Kill one `e010` and nothing else.** The counter must fall by exactly 1. If it
+   falls by 4, it counts squadrons; if it does not move, this is dead.
+2. **Kill a turret.** The counter must not move at all.
+3. **Watch for `016`.** With four squadrons of four, phase 1 should cap at 16. A
+   counter that climbs past 16 kills the "marked attackers" reading outright.
+4. **Compare the counter against the count of `e010` in the `active` state**, not
+   the raw live count — `phase-watch` already reads squadron state 1 (not
+   deployed) → 2 (active), so the prediction is `counter == 4 × (active e010
+   squadrons) − (marked attackers killed)`.
+
+## ❌ What this is NOT
+
+* Not measured. No run was made for this note; every number in it is quoted from
+  an existing capture in this corpus.
+* ⚠️ "Four craft per squadron" is `16 / 4` — a **mean**, not a per-squadron count.
+  If the squadrons are 5/5/3/3 the step-of-four pattern is a coincidence and the
+  reading is wrong. `Route_ADN11x_p1F` `FrameCount` values (3, 3, 2) are *route*
+  keyframes, not member counts, and must not be confused for them.
+* It does not explain the mechanism, only the arithmetic. The counter itself is
+  the **HUD widget's value** ([`structures/mission-objective-counter.md`](structures/mission-objective-counter.md));
+  where the mission keeps its own tally is still ❔.