The game self-pins to core 0 by default; on the operator box core 0 is shared with the console/relay/desktop, and the mission load drains frame-paced -- a starved frame rate multiplied the operator's load time to 3-5 min while internet testers loaded in ~20s (live finding, round 2). The local-instance launcher now spreads the game across the upper cores unless BT_AFFINITY is explicitly set. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>