NOVA OS

While the computer is open the game is frozen: the clocks stop, so combat, physics, AI and every projectile hold mid-frame, and a held trigger cannot fire into the frozen world. The mouse cursor is freed and stays free - you can point, read and type at your own pace. It is a pause without a pause menu; Esc backs out of the computer instead of opening the menu, and flight only resumes once the picture has fully collapsed.

Tab does not close the computer - inside, it is the completion key. On a gamepad the same right-stick click that opened it closes it.

Opening has side effects on the HUD: the flight instruments hide behind the monitor, and any posted objective chips are marked as read (the standing list is objectives). Closing leaves the session in place - reopen and the scrollback, your command history, even a running app are exactly where you left them.

The prompt reads nova>. As you type, a dim ghost continues the line toward the nearest command, and a hint line under the prompt tracks what you have: an unknown word turns the input red and offers did you mean map?, a wrong argument shows the command's usage. Mistyped submits answer in kind - command not found: mpa, the same did you mean suggestion, and a pointer to help. Tab completes command names, subcommands, and even the live section and contact codes an argument wants (ship repair hu completes to HULL-3).

The first open of a session boots with a report, revealed a line at a time:

NOVA OS v<version>
POST ......... flight computer / ok
CORE ......... 64K static / ok
DISPLAY ...... green phosphor crt / warm
LINK ......... cockpit bus / local
Hint: type `help` and press Enter.

Reopening after events happened in flight adds an unread count with the latest headline - 3 unread events. OBJ x Strip it clean. - try 'log'. - and clear wipes the scrollback back to this report rather than to a blank screen. The terminal also talks on its own: an objective completing while you sit at the prompt prints its OBJ x row into the scrollback immediately.

Output is honest terminal text: log numbers its entries (0001 COMMS OKONO > Strip it clean.), version signs off with cockpit link nominal - (c) Nova Dynamics, all reactors reserved, and launching an app prints launching map ... before the screen hands over. Multi-word commands resolve longest name first, so map view is its own command, not map with an argument.

The acting verbs answer with what actually happened, or with why not: a hull section refuses reload (reload: HULL-3 is a hull section, no ammo feed), a healthy section refuses repair, and a bad code lists the codes that exist. map goto SELF politely declines to fly you to yourself. Reloads and repairs are instant and free today; that may change.

Click a blip (or cycle with [/]) and the readout fills in: HOSTILE HOST-1 / Raider - range 412 m, bearing 214 mark +12. Hostile contact. Selecting re-centres the map once; T re-frames it. G engages the flight autopilot toward the selection and flashes GOTO SET: Raider - the burn keeps flying after you close the computer, so the map is a real navigation console, not a picture of one. map view prints the same contacts as an aligned KIND LABEL INFO table, own ship first, then nearest first.

The blocks are the shape of your ship - a dim green fill in a bright outline per section, with a gap so neighbours read apart. Status lives on the blips and in the inspector, not in the block colour: each blip carries its glyph and code, an integrity bar whose width is HP and whose colour is status (nominal, degraded, critical, neutralized), and ammo pips on weapons. Select a section by clicking its blip or cycling [/]; the inspector fills with its kind, an ASCII integrity meter (integrity: 41% [####------]), status, ammo and current bindings, with P Repair, L Reload and B Rebind buttons that do exactly what the keys do. G overlays the structural mates - which sections hold which.

The picture is a real tube, not a flat overlay: the terminal renders offscreen and is shown through one screen shader, so the green glyphs bloom into a phosphor halo, the image bows with barrel curvature under scanlines, grain and an edge vignette, a hum bar drifts, the mains flicker breathes, and a retrace beam sweeps by every few seconds. Launching or leaving an app fires a degauss - a brief horizontal shear and flash with a coil thump. Your mouse works through all of it: clicks on the glass are mapped through the same curvature, so the blip you see under the cursor is the blip you hit.

The monitor sounds like it looks, when SND is up: a key tick per character, a heavier clack on Enter, an ok blip when a command runs and an error buzz when it does not, a completion tick per Tab step, the power sweep up and down, and a low ambient bed humming the whole time it is on. Around the glass, the casing carries its bezel, corner screws, a vent grille and the spec line P22 GREEN PHOSPHOR . 15 IN . TYPE CQ-4.