What the Astronaut Sees and Controls

This is the proposed player-information design for Hold The Horde. Ordinary weapons fire mostly automatically and manual specials remain deliberate button presses—owner decisions. The journal pauses enemies and oxygen—also an owner decision. The exact display, target assistance, bindings, visual language and stage-only upgrade rhythm remain proposals. Nothing here claims tested readability or accessibility.

One fight, one discovery and a way home

This is a later expedition, after both relevant ship assemblies—the navigation coupler and thermal exchanger core—have been installed aboard, so the proposed 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, Arc Emitter and Capacitor—and one proposed 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 owns the proposed amounts and acceptance rules.

Earlier in this same outing, resolved pressure stages offered Echoing Arc and Thunderhead, and the player chose both. They are temporary transformations of the six mounted parts, not carried objects. Neither could have survived a previous return aboard. Their stage-only acquisition remains provisional while the owner considers the regular defeated-enemy-growth alternative.

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;
• Capacitor's four-step fill;
• Arc heat and the two remaining Echoing Arc extensions;
• the rig's current operating mode and whether its visible supply can support it;
• the manual Thunderhead control, unavailable until storage and receivers are ready.

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, spends one visible echo per extension and adds heat. Arc creates no charge and does not silently refill Capacitor.

When Capacitor reaches 4 U, Thunderhead's manual control becomes available. 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, adds its stated heat, then restores normal charging automatically. 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.

Had the astronaut completed the physical closure before the release committed, it would have prevented that release and awarded no combat-upgrade offer; lasting safety and access would be the payoff. Once the release commits, the finite stage ends when all attackers committed to it are cleared, or when the player completes a physical source seal that ends their access. The seal can stop committed attackers that have not crossed yet, and it resolves the stage even before the announced peak. Bodies already beyond the closure remain dangerous; quiet requires clearing or safely separating the present space. Escape earns nothing and re-entry resumes the same unresolved stage. Reopening the seal cannot pay again. Combat Rules owns the common release boundary.

The temporary-upgrade offer opens in a pause. It shows two behaviour changes, not percentages: what mounted part changes, what the player will do differently, the added heat/power/echo cost, and one situation where the choice fails. Selecting one option returns to the exact frozen moment. An unchosen offer expires on return aboard. Stage-only choices are explicitly provisional while the owner considers regular defeated-enemy growth with larger milestone transformations; no meter or threshold for that alternative is invented here.

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 takes live world time. Once captured, opening the journal pauses everything. The player can zoom, compare it with Yeva's photographed wall and write “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 this arrangement intact: the resolved stage remains spent and cleared ground remains clear. The physical rig, canister contents and committed record remain; every temporary combat upgrade and pending offer ends. Whether stored Capacitor charge survives return is still unresolved and is not answered by the upgrade reset. 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 attention promise

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.

Critical facts never depend on colour, sound, tiny in-world text or a single flash. Optional detail may be reduced; survival and action state may not.

When several urgent cues collide

Tank and condition keep fixed positions. Every locked threat keeps its own body tell. Only the nearest committed threat receives the single peripheral direction marker; another remains visible at its source. The active manual special, each automatic actuator's readiness/target and a live work interruption stay visible rather than taking turns.

This is a proposal with a known failure. In the Storm Choir hall, reserve oxygen, two locked attacks, a full Capacitor, two hot parts and a capture prompt can all become active together. Drawing six equal arrows, banners and meters would bury the corridor and make the spectacular build feel like paperwork.

The design response is hierarchy, not silence: oxygen/condition stay anchored; one threat receives the peripheral bearing; other threats keep strong source-local tells; charge, heat and echoes cluster on the relevant rig parts; the context prompt yields to a locked attack but remains at the physical object; and branch diagnostics move to inspection. Effect-density damping reduces particles, never enemies, timing or state. This response itself needs later authorized observation: if players still miss the second threat or the ready special, the hierarchy—not the player's attention—must change.

What the journal may and may not do

Opening the journal freezes enemies, oxygen, projectiles, readiness, warnings and unfinished world work, and completes none of them. Comparing records, writing notes, choosing a temporary offer and changing compatible links among already mounted accessible parts happen in the pause under the current proposals. Picking up, mounting or removing a physical part; operating a mechanism; transferring oxygen; moving into a view; and framing or committing a capture happen in live world time.

The journal has five simple places:

1. Records — committed stills and readings with place, arrangement, time, source and factual limit.
2. Comparison — player-pinned records, zoom and manual highlights; optional lookalike suggestions are labelled software-generated.
3. Notes — freeform, revision-preserving and never parsed, graded or scored.
4. Testimony — who said what, whether they saw it and what remains their interpretation.
5. Places — rooms actually entered, completed work, installed objects and routes actually traversed, each dated to its arrangement.

Capturing a place, inscription or instrument again creates a new dated record and never overwrites the earlier capture. Alien script is never translated automatically: records preserve visible form and context, while player notes, testimony and labelled software suggestions remain interpretations. Language and Journal owns the deeper evidence rules.

Places is a list, not an omniscient map. A reverse breadcrumb shows passages traversed this life to the last known anchor. It promises no current safety and no oxygen cost. After a death shift, the ship still opens onto its fixed dock room; any space beyond that dock or its selected joined group remains unknown until actually seen in the new arrangement. A ship receiver bearing or other distant instrument report is live only while inspected at that instrument; a carried copy is a dated record, not tracking. Neither a log, unchanged geometry nor a matching mark proves that a route is walkable, connected or safe. Unknown geography remains blank until observed.

Manifest and property

The manifest never silently unloads, drops, sells or absorbs anything. It has four sections:

• Worn: integral tank, navigation, journal and emergency cutter; outside C/A.
• Active rig: each mounted part pays its C once and its A while active.
• Inactive cargo: carried property pays C and no A.
• Elsewhere: an object installed, dropped, lent or left at a named observed place; it uses no carried capacity because it is not carried.

Capacity and rig area are separate exact numbers. A pickup or mount that would exceed either refuses before commitment and leaves the object where it is. A protected objective cannot be selected for consumption at all. A preview that consumes material, hands over an object, installs it outside the carried set or spends stored charge says exactly that beside the confirm control. Invalid links and unsafe concurrent power modes refuse without changing the last valid arrangement.

Complete information obligations

“Direct” means observed on the object or action now; “recorded” means dated evidence, not current truth. The owning rules linked below carry the mechanical detail; this page owns what the player must be able to perceive and act on.

Home-machine detail kept in the journal

The ship collar receiver shows each branch as ready or refusing, and distinguishes incomplete—unreadable from cleared. An incomplete buffer exposes no reading and cannot be captured. Clearing discards it; a valid dated reading requires both branches to be re-sampled in the same new attempt. The packing bench names the secured vessel and its exact oxygen. Incomplete setup or a below-ordinary-fill valve-only cycle preserves the committed amount but cannot label the vessel prepared-full. These are inspection details, not ordinary combat overlays; Mechanical Interfaces and Opening Quantities owns their commit and recovery rules, and Home and Colony Loop owns their place aboard.

Controls and accessibility proposals

Bindings and defaults are proposals, not a compliance claim. Every option must preserve the information in the table above.

General options-menu pausing remains undecided. Only the journal pause is owner-selected. If another menu pauses, the option must say so consistently rather than create a hidden safer pause.

The owner has not yet reacted to the proposed defaults for directional markers, effect intensity, horde-density damping or field-detail density. Those four rows remain usable proposals for independent design work, not selected settings.

Open decisions and validation boundary

Still open: stage-only versus regular defeated-enemy growth; target override and aiming assistance; exact power/heat/echo values; general menu pause; save slots; survivor-transfer safeguard; final station-joining and departure rules; and the exact visual/audio treatment for every creature, mechanism and part.

This design can require that information be present and traceable. It cannot establish that a player notices it, that six simultaneous cues are tolerable, that a horde remains readable under effect density, or that the options preserve excitement. Those claims require a later authorized implementation and observation phase.