A small hostile behavior chart determines whether the creatures attack or flee. By drawing encounters at random from a cup, your troops can run across not only aliens but also surviving or deceased crew, robots, items, and random events that all lend character to each individual play session. The extreme randomness of the system may be a turn off for some gamers, giving the impression that little the gamer can do in the way of planning can prevent the mangling or abduction of his team. But this is the precise effect the game seeks to impart. The system helps to create the mood of the game as much as does the rulebook artwork.
Aliens appear and deal out damage swiftly and mercilessly.
The task of the player is to react to the inevitable disaster and salvage what he can. The game is bloody. If you end the game with only a third of your marines dead or incapacitated, you have done very well. More likely there will be an unholy slaughter and your frantic men will make a mad dash for the escape shuttles to avoid being dismembered, machinegunning aliens as they run. Feynman, they can board their shuttle and escape.