This is the player-information design for Hold The Horde. Ordinary weapons fire mostly automatically and manual specials are deliberate button presses. Regular fighting growth with larger horde-milestone transformations is selected. The exact display, target assistance, bindings, visual language and upgrade cadence are proposals. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) records the owner's decisions.

This is a later expedition, after both relevant ship assemblies—the navigation coupler and thermal exchanger core—have been installed aboard, so the rig has eight mounted spaces. **Carrying capacity (C)** is the shared room taken by equipment, canisters and discoveries; **active rig area (A)** is the mounted space that can operate. **Usable charge (U)** is the payload stored or passed by certain parts, not oxygen or ammunition. The astronaut enters a pressure hall with six physical parts mounted as the **7 C / 7 A Storm Choir**—Threat Sensor, Pulse Projector, Impact Dynamo, Fork Relay (the splitter), Arc Emitter and Capacitor—and one 2 C oxygen canister. The suit says, in words and numbers, that nine of ten carrying spaces and seven of eight mounted spaces are used. One carrying space remains for a discovery. [Mechanical Interfaces and Opening Quantities](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities) owns the amounts and acceptance rules.

Earlier in this same outing, regular fighting supplied the growth for **Echoing Arc**, and a major horde milestone offered **Thunderhead**; the player chose both. They are temporary transformations of the six mounted parts, not carried objects. Neither could have survived a previous return aboard.

Before anything attacks, the hall explains where danger will come from. A ward vent bucks in its frame. A door beyond it rattles. Bodies press against the glass, and the music leaves a gap in the same direction. These cues create anticipation without drawing an enemy from nowhere. When the finite release begins, the vent and its route stay marked at their physical positions; the display does not replace them with a generic “wave” banner.

The Sensor outlines the nearest valid hostile in its shown arc. Projector's readiness sits beside that outline. When both conditions are true, it fires automatically. Its impact makes the clamped Dynamo flash once and send charge through Fork: Arc lights across a dense group while Capacitor rises from 0 toward 4 U. The player does not need to read a connection diagram while moving. They see the useful consequences on the objects themselves:

- Projector ready or recovering, with its current target;

- the rig's current operating mode and whether its visible supply can support it;

The crowd thickens. A Flanker commits from the side gallery and its body tell gains the one peripheral direction marker. The suit reaches the player's labelled oxygen reserve at the same time, but the reserve remains anchored beside the tank; it never replaces the threat cue and never claims to know the cost or safety of returning. Projector keeps cycling. Echoing Arc widens the discharge through its branch routes and reserves the complete action heat before firing. Bodies, cover and the route limit determine where the effect ends. Arc creates no charge and does not silently refill Capacitor.

When Capacitor reaches 4 U, Thunderhead's manual control shows one brief opportunity at the required actuators' next natural-ready instant. An early press visibly arms that opportunity and can be cancelled; no charge or heat is spent until acceptance. A shown 0.75-second lapse, cancellation or refusal releases automatic firing, and another hold then needs a fresh press. The temporary effect provides two visible, mutually gated modes on the same mounted parts: normal charging and manual burst. The player presses the special once. The rig visibly gates ordinary charging, spends the real 4 U, routes the burst through Fork to Arc and Projector, reserves its complete heat and operating demand, then restores normal charging automatically. Both charging and burst previews include effects still in flight; a cancelled or refused command spends no charge before first acceptance, while later obstruction gives no refund. The player does not open the journal to fire or restore the build. A refusing receiver is named at that part; descendants cannot recharge the same burst through Dynamo.

Fighting supplies regular temporary growth while the release develops. A physical closure before release prevents that pressure and gives safety and access; any additional reward for avoiding the fight remains open. Once released, the finite stage ends when its committed attackers are cleared or their source is sealed. Bodies already beyond the closure remain dangerous; quiet requires clearing or safely separating the present space. Retreat keeps growth already earned until the expedition ends. Larger transformations come at named major horde milestones. [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules) owns these growth and release boundaries.

An earned Tune — a temporary upgrade choice — is banked while play continues. The player opens the fully paused journal when ready to choose; each choice spends one Tune and leaves later queued choices intact. Combat Rules gives the proposed ordinary cadence. The journal offers two behaviour changes: what mounted part changes, what the player will do differently, the added heat, power and route limits, and one situation where the choice fails. Selecting one option returns to the exact frozen moment. An unchosen offer expires on return aboard.

Silence reveals the reason for entering the hall: a sample counter stamped with a date after the hospital was supposed to be empty. Framing and committing the record happens while the game runs. Once captured, the player opens the journal, zooms, compares it with Yeva's photographed wall and writes “same fitting?” in their own words. The game records the images, places, dates and who said what; it does not promote the note to truth.

Later, a rescue begins only after a short route has been walked and prepared and is demonstrably quiet or separated. The status says who confirmed the travel air, where the abort refuge is and whether the survivor is waiting, prepared, in transfer, at refuge or Sent. The person opens their own door and walks the short crossing while the astronaut holds one exposed junction. It is not a long escort and does not require killing every creature if a shown quiet bypass or persistent local closure made the route safe enough.

The airlock shuts. Noise, heat and urgency fall away. Walking home leaves the room arrangement and permanent changes intact. The next expedition brings fresh crowds and new opportunities to grow, through sources and routes consistent with those changes. The physical rig, canister contents and committed record remain; every temporary combat upgrade and pending offer ends. If the astronaut had died, carried property would still return, but the unconnected station would shift once. Home is relief, then curiosity: inspect the new record, talk to the person who recognizes it, refill, and decide what one carrying unit should hold next time.

The player should be able to move, anticipate danger, enjoy the build and choose a special without opening a menu. Detail exists, but it has an address.

| Attention level | Always or briefly visible | Available on inspection or in the paused journal |

| **Commit deliberately** | Work checkpoint, exact spend or handover, capacity/area refusal and the object that will move or be consumed | Property history, installed/dropped locations and comparison with another loadout |

| **Body and oxygen** | Exact suit O; player-set reserve defaulting to 4 O; condition/displacement; Glass Siphon tether, radius and separately labelled extra drain; selected canister with exact O and partial/ordinary-full/prepared-full/empty state; incremental coupling progress | Numeric O plus filled form and labelled notch; condition step; physical tether; exact transfer already moved. Transfer stops at suit ceiling or empty vessel, keeps committed increments, and damage alone does not cancel. Reserve never becomes a return estimate. |

| **Work, crowd release and growth** | Mechanism stage, completed checkpoints, exact commit/spend, interruption cause; actual host withdrawal face and neutral warning on re-entry; physical crowd source and release state; seal state separately from present-space quiet; temporary growth and major milestone state | Cancel/displacement/occupied control loses only unfinished work; damage alone does not. Crossing the host face resets only that mechanism's temporary phase; re-entry begins at its visible neutral warning while completed permanent work persists. Source closure changes pressure; ordinary fighting growth and major transformations follow [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules), with early-seal rewards still open. Return ends temporary power and renews crowds for the next expedition; loading the ongoing expedition preserves its actual state. [Encounter and Mechanism Placement](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Encounter%20And%20Mechanism%20Placement%20Inventory) owns local mechanism boundaries. |

| **Station joining** | A/B/R face family; flow direction and transform sides; join attempt result; walking, latch and diagnostic-power states; joined/discovered-unjoined/anonymous roster counts | Family uses mark count and outline, direction uses arrowheads, not colour alone. Mismatch refuses without spending or changing a join. Walking, latch and diagnostic remain three separate readings. Roster names no unseen room or route. |

| **Story and departure** | Isolation coupling live/isolated; installed functions relevant to departure; any in-world irreversible consequence if a departure proposal is adopted | Direct local tell plus words. No universal progress bar or remote “safe” verdict. Departure preview cannot imply that save/continue policy or the ending is already selected. |

|---|---|---|---|

| Hold/toggle choice for staged work and oxygen coupling | Hold | Same checkpoints, interruption and commitment | Toggle may reduce physical tension |

| Colour-independent A/B/R, flow, readiness and danger | Always on | Shape, count, outline, motion and words carry meaning | More authored variants |

| Horde visual-density damping | Off | Enemy count, behaviour, collision and difficulty are unchanged | Lower visible mass can weaken the fantasy |

**Adopted 2026-09-16 (owner).** Text scale: default Medium = 1.0, range 0.8–2.0; every style is 16 px or larger at 1080p and scales with screen height, and the overall scale never drops below 0.8, so nothing draws below 12.8 px at 1080p-equivalent in any window. Interact stays E, talk and signal F. The original Q camera binding was replaced on 20 September, as recorded below. In the build, each fixture kind has a silhouette; the only text in the room is the prompt at the locked-on fixture, its name with its action or state, and a finished mechanism keeps its state word there (inscriptions and crew paint are painted into the world; sound subtitles and other state live in the HUD box); every press of the interaction key produces a notice, even when nothing can happen, a lit indicator carries its state word beside it, the Dock Mouth knock shows its subtitle at its source (other named sounds are not yet subtitled, and no audio plays in this slice), the context prompt is drawn at the physical object, and a threshold with no neighbour in the current arrangement is a sealed bulkhead labelled unbound when near. Fixture appearance uses free existing assets where they fit (the airlock door and the observation window), otherwise the silhouette and name above. The [Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) records the decision.

**Adopted 2026-09-20 (owner): mouse camera rotation.** Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse sideways to turn the view freely around the astronaut. Let go to stop turning. There is no tilt, pan or dragging the view away from the astronaut. This replaces Q and Shift+Q. Near walls drop to low kerbs at every angle, including both near walls when looking diagonally; their barriers remain solid.

- Presentation and cadence of regular fighting growth and major milestone transformations, including the meter or pickups and the interruption cost of choices.