Design: the job strip, work on your route, and the touch drawer

Agreed October 2026. Built in the same month (see "As built").

Contracts play like a quick mini-game, but mid-flight it was hard to tell which job you were on and where to go next, especially after a fight. And on a phone, thirteen flight buttons crowded the screen when you most wanted it clear. This covers both.

It builds on companies and contracts and radio and comms (where these messages will live once the radio log exists).

Principles

• Always know the next step. One line says what you're doing and what to do next, without opening anything.
• The computer picks up where you left off. A fight is an interruption, not the end of the job.
• Tell, don't nag. Messages come at natural moments (arriving, fights ending, approaching a station), never as a stream.
• A clean screen for combat. On a phone, only what you need to fight is always there; everything else is one tap away, and never moves under your thumbs.

1. The job strip

A single line on the HUD while you hold a contract:

▸ 8 t Medicine → Diso · 2 jumps left · Hexon Next: hyperspace to Diso (H)

• The most urgent contract is shown: late first, then fewest jumps left. "+1 more" when there are others; tapping it lists them all.
• The next step comes from where you are:
  • somewhere else: the next hop on the shortest route ("Hyperspace to Leesti (H) · 3 jumps to Diso"), or "Set course to Leesti" if the course isn't set (tap the strip to set it), or "Refuel first" if the tank won't reach;
  • at the destination: "Dock at Diso Station";
  • a survey: "Survey Leesti's moons · 1 of 2", then "Hand in at any Wexley-Yorozu station";
  • cargo adrift: "Recover your sealed case at Riedquat".
• Deadlines read "2 jumps left", "last jump" (amber) and "late · half pay" (red).

2. Back on course

When a fight ends (no hostile ship within 8 km for a few seconds, after there was one), the computer says what's next:

Back on course · 8 t Medicine for Diso · hyperspace to Leesti (H)

Once per fight, and only when you hold a contract.

3. Work on your route

Approaching a station (at docking-clearance range), traffic control mentions one contract on its board that goes your way:

Diso Station · Hexon has 6 t Liquor for Zaonce, one jump past your drop

• It fits your route: the same destination as a contract you hold, one jump from one, or on the way there (at most one jump longer).
• You can take it: standing, free hold and the three-contract limit all allow it. Surveys aren't offered this way.
• Once per station per board (boards change every half hour), and only while you hold a contract, so a commander just flying about isn't pestered.
• You still dock to take it. It's a reason to stop in, not a pop-up.

Messages

Things worth keeping go into Messages on the Contracts tab, from the company concerned: one jump left, running late, reclaimed (as before), delivered (with the pay) and work on your route. "Back on course" is for the moment and isn't kept. Under Modern rules these, and the moment-to-moment lines, are also heard in the radio log (radio and comms). Phone notifications stay for when you're away from the game.

4. The touch drawer

• Always on screen: the aim pad, speed, Fire, the missile button and ECM, beside Fire.
• The view button (Mark, 29 October 2026): beside the camera, an arrow pointing where you're looking (amber when it isn't ahead). Tap it and Front, Rear, Left and Right open round it: tap one and the view stays. Press and hold, and the four open under your thumb: slide onto one to look that way while you hold, and let go to look ahead again (a glance). It replaced the drawer's View, which stepped through the four one at a time.
• The missile button (Mark, 29 October 2026): a master arm and a guarded trigger. A tap arms (or, armed or locked, disarms); once locked it reads Hold to fire and launches only after half a second held, the button charging as you hold, so a thumb by FIRE can't send a missile at the wrong ship.
• The drawer: everything else (Jump, Hyper, Dock, Combat, Map, Surrender, Bomb, Survey, Dark, Sound, Tilt; "Combat" was "Pilot" until Mark found it said nothing) slides in from the right edge. A small tab opens it (tap, or swipe in); it slides away after you press anything in it, or when you tap the tab again.
• The next button out by itself: one contextual button sits outside the drawer, the obvious next step: Dock within clearance range (docking computer fitted), Survey near something to survey (survey autopilot fitted), Hyper when a course is set and the tank reaches it, otherwise Jump.
• Nothing moves on its own in a fight. The drawer only opens and closes when you touch it.
• The job strip on a phone is a small pill at the top left, clear of the dashboard ("▸ Diso · 2 jumps · +1"). Tap it for the full line, the next step and a Set course button; it folds away by itself when a fight starts.

Docked on a phone (Mark, 29 October 2026; built)

From Mark and Marketing's walkthrough of every docked screen (launch/docked-audit.md), drawn as phone mock-ups and approved by Mark. On a phone held upright only; a computer, or a phone on its side, keeps the tabs and the full exchange.

• The station menu (Mark: "Having 6 or 8 tabs taking up so much space feels wasteful"). One slim header, Cambridge Orbital · Market ▾, replaces the title, the location and two rows of tabs. Tap it for the places, laid out like the flight view picker. A dot on the header when anything inside has news (a new contract, a ship ready at the yard), so hiding the tabs never hides what's new.
• One bottom bar for leaving: Flight log, Galaxy map, Launch, never repeated inside a screen (the Market used to repeat them with credits and 1984).
• The wallet (Mark: "Maybe we should have a wallet rather than Credits"). A wallet button with your credits sits in the header everywhere and replaces the Credits and Bitcoin lines. Its sheet: credits, Bitcoin and what it's worth now, any local or company money you hold, and the station's money in one line (its rate, and whether it's steady this week), with Change money here and More about it, which open the money screen. The Money tab is gone. Mark's open question, answered for now: local money shows in the wallet only once you hold some; for a new commander it's the one line about this station's money.
• The Market on a phone: the game's neon look, not the grey terminal. The list first; tap a good and it opens in place beneath it, with its news and the trade form. The chart, order book and trades fold under one line, Chart, order book and trades · Show.
• Kit, grouped (all screens): Combat, Trade, Exploration and Ship (game/kit.ts), repairs first. In each group what you can buy here comes first, then what you own (✓). What you can't afford says how much more, in amber; what isn't sold here folds to one line saying why (tech level, explorer rank, the law) and opens out on a tap. The list went from about 2,300 px to 850 on a phone.

As built

• src/game/jobs.ts: the next step, deadlines and route fit, pure and tested (jobs.test.ts).
• The strip, back on course, route work and the drawer: src/main.ts, play/index.html, src/style.css.

Fixes from players

• Roll keys held their bank (28 October 2026; reported by myno on Stardot, t=33815). In the mouse scheme the flight assist levelled the wings the moment the roll keys were let go, so a keyboard roll fought back ("a bit obstinate"). Any roll you make now holds its bank until you tap to level, as a mouse roll already did.
• The Cobra carries four missiles (28 October 2026; reported by myno on Stardot, t=33815). As in 1984: four rails, starting with three.

Think something here should change? Say so on the ideas board, where others can vote it up, or email hello@witchspace.org.uk. If you code: this page is docs/design/flight-hud-and-touch.md on GitHub, open to pull requests.