diff --git a/docs/re/autopilot-memory-driven.md b/docs/re/autopilot-memory-driven.md
index 9551d65..9bd97fc 100644
--- a/docs/re/autopilot-memory-driven.md
+++ b/docs/re/autopilot-memory-driven.md
@@ -1,13 +1,15 @@
 # Memory-driven autopilot — build log and current state
 
-**Status: 🟢 IT FLIES, KILLS AND SURVIVES — it has not yet finished a mission.**
+**Status: 🟢 IT FLIES, KILLS AND SURVIVES — but it loses the mission anyway.**
 Updated 2026-07-30. `pilot.py` flew Stage 02 for **300 s with the hull untouched
 at 1500/1500** and scored the first confirmed autopilot kill (`YOU KILLED
 WARPLANES 0001` on the HUD, screenshots `shots/pilot1-*.png`); the scene's
 hostile count fell from 134 to 111 over the run. The day before, every run was
 dead inside 35 s. What is still missing is the *end* of a mission: the objective
 counter (`REMAINING OB`) rises as new waves spawn, and nothing yet tracks which
-targets actually close it out.
+targets actually close it out — and the second run proved the point the hard
+way: `GAME OVER` with the hull at 1500/1500, because Stage 02 is an **escort**
+and the ACROPOLIS was sunk while the pilot chased fighters two kilometres away.
 
 ## 2026-07-30 — the numbers survival needs
 
@@ -200,6 +202,30 @@ statements about `0x820af030`, which is *not* the live entity —
   (6 Hz) and re-check orthonormality on every read — blocks found by a scan get
   overwritten between the scan and the read.
 
+## The second run lost the mission **without being hit** (2026-07-30)
+
+A second 240 s flight, with the two fixes above, ended on the `GAME OVER`
+screen — while the hull read **1500/1500 on the last live tick**. Nothing shot
+us down. The other defeat condition fired: *the ACROPOLIS is sunk*. The HUD had
+been showing a red `WARNING` banner for a while, and the pilot spent the whole
+run pursuing an `e010_ADAN_Attacker_S` two kilometres away.
+
+So surviving is necessary and not sufficient, and "nearest hostile fighter" is
+the wrong objective function for this stage. **The mission is an escort.** What
+follows:
+
+* **Prioritise hostiles by their distance to the protected asset, not to us.**
+  The attackers worth killing are the ones closing on the ACROPOLIS.
+* **The protected asset's health is readable with the same anchor as ours** —
+  hull at `position + 0x154`, its maximum being its own definition's `HP`. That
+  gives a live "are we winning" signal for the escort, and it should drive the
+  target choice directly.
+* A frozen tail in the log (identical position, speed and target for the last
+  five seconds) is what mission-end looks like from the outside, **not** an
+  emulator wedge. Worth knowing before diagnosing the wrong thing.
+* Practical: do **not** pipe a long run's log through `tail` — that discards
+  everything but the end, and the interesting part of this run is gone.
+
 ## After survival, the blocker is lethality (2026-07-30)
 
 The 300 s run took **no damage at all** and killed **one** warplane, spending
diff --git a/docs/re/captures/autopilot-escort-warning-stage02.png b/docs/re/captures/autopilot-escort-warning-stage02.png
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