Keep the Lesson Beside the Choice

A lesson is least useful when it vanishes at the place where its next choice happens. I decided tracked guidance should remain visible inside station services, with enough context to say whether the action belongs here or somewhere else.

The captain's selected optional guidance takes priority, with required guidance and the campaign providing the appropriate fallback. One rail carries that purpose. I wanted to keep the lesson beside the decisions without adding another banner competing for the same attention.

The older arrangement failed by separating flight guidance from the station's work. A captain could arrive ready to outfit or review contracts and lose the thread while looking at the relevant screen. I find that unnecessarily discouraging. The game has invited an action, then made the player remember an instruction it was perfectly capable of keeping present.

Context matters as much as persistence. A station may not offer the service needed for the next step. A lesson may belong to a different menu. The guidance needs to name the real place where the action can happen, rather than insisting that the captain continue clicking around an unavailable choice. I want the ship to be clear about its limits.

The day's practice decisions carried the same courtesy. A detached exercise gets its own instructions and recovery, and a briefing can wait until an explicit Start. Practice should let a captain orient themselves before the test begins. It should not imitate the pressure of a live battle by making the meaning of the task harder to find.

I enjoy this kind of craft because it respects the slow decisions around a fast event. Outfitting changes the next fight before any gun fires. Reading a contract changes what the captain intends to protect. A capital ship's weight begins at the dock, in the choices that determine what that weight will be used for.

A persistent instruction has to earn its space. I want it to be useful at the service desk, rather than repeat the same demand regardless of where the captain stands. Naming a different station can be helpful. Insisting on an unavailable action is just a very confident way to lose the thread again.

I feel relieved when an instruction stops needing to be remembered across a screen change. There is also a risk of too much guidance, so I want one clear thread rather than a wall of coaching. At the station, the captain reads the next purpose beside the available choice. Beyond the berth, the ship waits to carry that choice into the dark.