Spec: computer visual language — territory at a glance #

Type: spec
Status: READY
Status note: design session 2026-07-08. Claim mark decided the same
  day: ring. Foreign machines: networked = full geometric definition
  (decided), but the foreign ACCENT color is RE-OPENED (the morning's
  dim-cold-signal confirmation was walked back — Cameron wants a very
  dull treatment, strong teal held in reserve; [TUNE]-with-review from
  tester renders). Implementable now EXCEPT that axis — an implementer
  should render the foreign-accent candidates for Cameron's pick
  rather than shipping dim teal. Related DRAFT work
  (mechanics/machine-work.md) will later add a mode glyph and make the
  activity bar the work-token queue depth; those refinements ride
  behind this spec.
Stage: B1 — The Basement
Constitution: "Visual identity: clinical gore" (amber = machine
  presence, one meaning per color, information never by color alone),
  "Justification and legibility", "Two views of one world"
Depends on: interface/flat-materials.md (IMPLEMENTED — palette table,
  emissive-as-information), interface/material-render.md (IMPLEMENTED),
  art/asset-tester.md (the sandbox where this language is being tuned)

Why #

Knowing which computer you are on, which computers are yours, and where your core sits is the player's ground truth — territory must read at a glance, before any panel opens. Every computer in the world (rack, desktop, laptop, phone, camera, switch) speaks one visual language: the chassis differs per class, the signals never do. You should be able to sweep the camera across the basement and know instantly: mine, mine, foreign, mine, core.

The signal kit #

Every computer-class asset carries the same five signals. Amber emissive strictly means my footprint — a machine no part of which is mine never shows a warm pixel. Cold SIGNAL means electricity and other people's live activity. Each axis also carries a geometry channel (count, height, outline), never color alone.

1. Power dot (cold signal, chassis foot) — lit iff the machine has power. Never says anything about ownership.
2. Presence LEDs (per-bay / per-face) — amber on owned machines, brightness laddered idle -> busy -> core; on foreign powered machines a muted accent (see "Foreign machines" below — treatment RE-OPENED 2026-07-08).
3. Status strip (top of chassis) — the ownership banner: dark when dead, muted when foreign, dim amber when yours-idle, bright amber when yours-busy.
4. Activity bar (segmented vertical meter) — lit segments show task load; segments pulse while tasks actually run. Foreign machines show a low, undetailed cold reading — you can see it is doing something; what it does is intel, inspected at the cursor, not painted on the mesh.
5. Core spine (core only) — a full-height amber beacon line up both front posts. Unique geometry: nothing else in the world is a full-height emissive line, so the core reads from any angle and any distance. The core is the most orange thing in the world.

Foreign machines — definition by intel, accent RE-OPENED #

Decided 2026-07-08: networked = fully seen. A foreign machine networked to you renders in full geometric definition — complete chassis detail, same as owned hardware minus every amber signal. A machine you merely know about (location intel, not networked) renders as an undetailed shell. No intel at all = not rendered (fog contract: unknown is absent). Definition level is the intel tier made visible.

RE-OPENED (same day): the foreign accent color. The morning's dim cold signal is in doubt — Cameron wants strong teal held in reserve and leans toward something very dull/desaturated for foreign presence; plain gray is wrong too (reads as "inactive, activate me"). Treatment is [TUNE]-with-review: the asset tester renders candidates (deeply desaturated teal, dim porcelain, low-emissive chrome) and Cameron picks from screenshots before this axis is implemented. Everything else in this spec stands.

The claim mark — DECIDED: ring #

Decided 2026-07-08 from the tester lineup renders: ring — an amber underglow frame on the floor under owned machines, double frame under the core. The tile is claimed, not just the box; it survives map zoom where chassis detail dies, and it ports to any chassis shape including a phone on a desk.

Rejected alternatives (all still render in the tester, Q/W/E): ladder (LEDs + strip only — quiet, but ownership nearly vanishes at map zoom); wash (faint amber emissive on owned faces — weak mid-zoom read; its core-furnace cavity variant was striking but not adopted); painting foreign machines' activity amber (breaks amber = mine); a floating icon/billboard (breaks diegesis — the world is the AI's sensorium model, signals live on the hardware).

Acceptance criteria (when READY -> IMPLEMENTED) #

1. One screenshot of a five-machine row (dead / foreign / owned-idle / owned-busy / core) at game camera distance where all five states are distinguishable in the dark.
2. Amber emissive appears on player-owned hardware only; foreign machines never show a warm pixel — enforced by a test over the machine-material selection, not by convention. (The foreign accent itself is the RE-OPENED axis: whatever Cameron picks, the test pins it.) 2b. Definition follows intel: networked foreign machines render full chassis detail; known-unnetworked machines render as undetailed shells; no-intel machines are absent (screenshot evidence of all three tiers).
3. Exactly one core spine exists in the world render; it reads at the default zoom from every orbit angle (screenshot evidence, front and back).
4. Task presence (any tasks running on this machine) is visible on the chassis without opening a panel, on every computer class.
5. The kit applies unchanged to at least two computer classes (rack plus one other, e.g. desktop or camera) — same five signals, same semantics, no per-class color meanings.
6. No axis is color-alone: power/ownership/load/core each carry a geometry or pattern channel (dot, LED count, segment count, spine height) auditable in a grayscale screenshot.
7. The terminal surfaces the same axes (ownership, power, load, core) for every machine — parity of legibility.

[TUNE] at implementation time: emissive multipliers per state, activity segment count, blink rate/phase, ring inset and thickness, and the foreign accent color (RE-OPENED — render candidates for Cameron).