UX Spec: Crafting — Station Screen, Repair & Examine

Status: Reviewed — APPROVED (/ux-review final pass 2026-08-31: 0 blocking, 0 advisory) · v0.4
Author: Jeroen + ux-designer
Last Updated: 2026-08-31
Journey Phase(s): unknown — no player journey map yet (see Open Questions)
Template: UX Spec
Variants: Station (opened with Interact at a workbench: recipe list + craft + repair) · Examine (read-only look at another player's equipped gear — AC-13's third inspection context)
Requirements input: crafting Rules 1–3, 5, 7–9, 12; crafting UI Requirements (all known recipes visible, three per-cause reason strings, maker's mark everywhere, craft-beat progress with true-no-op cancel, glanceable wear, aggregation ban); EC1/EC2 commit races, EC5 disconnect at commit; harvesting no-op tone; base-building Rule 12 (stations are structures BB places; stationPresentExact / stationPresentAtLeast); art bible §7; ui-hud quick-spec Rule 4 (Crafting row) + queue item ②
Patterns used: #2 List Picker · #3 Panel/Modal · #4 Focus & Nav · #5 Tooltip/Inspect · #6 Reason String · #7 Honest No-Op Cue · #11 Craft-Beat Progress · #12 Maker's-Mark Inspect · #19 Feedback Split · #24 Interact Prompt · (new candidates: Repair action; Examine)
Related specs: design/ux/inventory.md (APPROVED — equip lives there; the rack context is its storage tooltip), design/ux/hud.md (APPROVED — E3 wear accent, E11 interact prompt)
AC-13 joint coverage: crafting AC-13's three inspection contexts are satisfied across two specs — tooltip + storage rack by inventory.md, equipped-on-another-player by this spec's Examine card; test AC-13 across both.

Purpose & Player Need

The station is where the group's hauls become the group's gear — the one screen that delivers the headline fantasy ("the smith who forged the party's iron era"). The player arrives wanting to make the thing the bag now allows, or to put a dulled tool back to spec before the next trip. It must be honest about why something can't be made (three distinct world-fact reasons — never "locked"), unhurried but not slow (a 2 s hand-tended beat, never a menu-click factory), and impossible to misread as a factory or a scoreboard: no queues, no batches, no craft counts, no "made by" grouping (crafting Rules 5, 8; CD C2). Examine exists for the other half of the fantasy — the mark is read off the item on your friend, without asking (AC-13's third context).

Player Context on Arrival

• First encounter: end of the first trip — a bag of fiber, a fresh workbench, curiosity: "what can I make?"
• Typical: (a) at home after banking, relaxed, deciding what to spend the haul on; (b) between trips, a quick repair of a worn axe — wants it to take one press; (c) at a friend's bench, elbow-to-elbow (Rule 8: no occupancy lock) — two people crafting at once. Examine: idle moments at home ("who made your hat?").
• Emotional assumption: calm — home is hostile-free at MVP; tide pressure is felt only as "is there time for one more trip", never on this screen.
• Voluntary: always; nothing sends the player here.

Navigation Position

Gameplay → Station (context-dependent: within stationRange 3 u of a workbench, Interact with the bench as the nearest target). Gameplay → Examine (context-dependent: a player within interaction range as the nearest target, Interact). One panel at a time (#3): opening the station replaces an open bag. The bag never opens inside the station — materials are shown through the affordability read, and CARRY ∪ in-range STORAGE draw is automatic (Rule 7).

Entry & Exit Points

No one-way exits; the only persistent changes are a committed craft or repair (host-confirmed, after the panel has already closed).

Layout Specification

Information Hierarchy

• Recipe list with availability at a glance — every known recipe, filled vs hollow marker (Rule 3: known-but-uncraftable is always visible)
• The focused recipe's inputs vs what you have in reach — have / need where have = CARRY ∪ STORAGE within stationRange (Rule 7)
• Repair row(s) — worn gear this station's tier (or lower) can repair (Rule 9); absent when nothing is worn
• Reason string for a focused unavailable recipe — one of exactly three causes (station / world / affordability)
• Discovered: maker's mark, tier, wear via tooltip (#5 / #12)

Deliberately absent: sort, filter, search, favourites, craft counts, "made by" grouping, queue or batch controls (Rules 5, 8; CD C2).

Layout Zones

• Z1 — Station panel (single panel; anchored right-of-centre at the same position as the bag's Z1 in inventory.md; 640 px = 16 pad + 280 Z1a + 24 gutter + 300 Z1b + 20 pad @100 % scale): header = station name · tier ("Workbench · cloth") — a display-only read of the client's replicated structure registry for the nearest station (BB Rule 13 advisory context; may be one RTT stale; never an input to any gate).
• Z1a Recipe list (left column, 280 px): pinned Repair row(s) at the top when applicable, a divider, then every known recipe in RecipeDef data order — available rows filled marker; unavailable rows hollow marker with the reason string (#6) beneath. No sorting control exists.
• Z1b Detail pane (right, 300 px): the focused recipe's output icon (tier-shaped, art bible §7.4), name, class · tier, input rows have / need with ✓ / — glyphs, and the Craft Primary button labelled with the beat ("Craft · 2 s") — pointer-only (clickable on KB/M; a visual affordance on gamepad; never in the keyboard / gamepad focus graph — ruled 2026-08-31, review Q3). When unavailable it is dashed only; its reason reaches the player via the focused row's trailing slot and the Z1c footer — #1's "reason on focus" clause is satisfied by the row, which is the focus owner. The button is 200 px wide, centred in Z1b; for a Repair row: item icon + maker's mark + Repair Primary, same rule.
• Z1c Footer: the focused row's reason string at full length (if unavailable); the verb hint.
• Z2 — Examine card (separate variant): a ≈ 300 px world-space card anchored above the examined player — hat glyph + name, one row per equipped slot (icon · tier · wear) with its maker's-mark line (#12). Read-only; no buttons.
• Z3 — Tooltip layer (#5) over Z1 rows and input lines.
• Background: world live; HUD never occluded (#3 layering).

All px at 100 % UI scale (pattern-library scale convention).

Component Inventory

New patterns flagged for interaction-patterns.md: Repair action (an instant, stateless station verb) and Examine card.

ASCII Wireframe

STATION
┌─ Workbench · cloth ──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ▸ Repair: Cloth Sword (worn)    │  Cloth Garb                 │
│ ───────────────────────────     │  [icon]  armor · cloth      │
│ ● Cloth Garb*                   │                             │
│ ● Cloth Sword                   │  fiber    12 / 20   ✓       │
│ ○ Cloth Garb, Reinforced         │  sinew     2 / 2    ✓       │
│   not enough sinew in reach     │                             │
│                                 │      ┌───────────────┐      │
│  (MVP set = the three cloth     │      │  Craft · 2 s  │      │
│   recipes; a Tier 1 forge row   │      └───────────────┘      │
│   would read "you need a Forge")│       pointer-only          │
├─────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┤
│ Enter: craft                                   * = focus      │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
have = bag + chests within 3 u · rows in recipe-data order · no sort

EXAMINE (world-space card above the player)
┌─ ◉ Mara ────────────────────────────┐
│ ⚔ Cloth Sword · cloth · fresh        │
│   Jo — forged 4 tides ago            │
│ 🛡 Cloth Garb · cloth · worn          │
│   Mara — forged 11 tides ago         │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Z1 shares the bag panel's anchor so the two never coexist and spatial memory carries over. Focus starts on the first Repair row if present, else the first available recipe, else the first recipe.

States & Variants

Interaction Map

Mapping for KB/M (primary) and gamepad (partial); UI capture semantics per ADR-0007 §3.

Focus adjacency (complete; no wrap; buttons are outside the graph):

Numbered order (QA traversal): Repair rows (if any) → recipe rows top to bottom. First focus = first Repair row, else first available recipe, else row 1. Exactly one focused element at all times; the Z1b button is never it. Submit on an unavailable row is a no-attempt (reason re-asserts) — there is no dead end because nothing leaves the list.

Divergence from #2 List Picker, stated: this list's Submit commits rather than selects — the panel has no selected-but-uncommitted state (focus drives the detail pane directly). Recorded in interaction-patterns.md #2 as an allowed variant.

Events Fired

No analytics events exist in this project.

Transitions & Animations

• Enter: instant (#3); exit: 100–150 ms fade. Craft press: the panel fades as the stance begins (same frame) — no gap, no confirmation.
• Detail pane swap on focus: instant content swap, no slide.
• Repair: the row collapses 100 ms after the host thunk (reduced-motion: instant); the hotbar E3 accent clears the same frame.
• Craft fill: on the station silhouette (#11), never in the panel; reduced-motion: three discrete steps.
• Examine card: appears instantly, closes with the standard fade; content updates in place if the target swaps gear.
• Nothing gates input (art bible §7.5); no motion-sickness vectors.

Data Requirements

Architectural flag: the provisional legality read and the authoritative commit run the same F1 predicate over different snapshots — this spec depends on the honest no-op, never on the two agreeing.

Accessibility

Tier: Standard.

• Keyboard-only: Interact opens; ↑ ↓ the list, Enter commits, Esc closes. Gamepad: UI.Navigate / Submit / Cancel over the same list-only graph; the Z1b buttons are pointer-only and never take focus, so there are no dead ends (list ends stop).
• Focus: 3 px outline + inset tick (#4); exactly one focused element; first-focus rule stated in the Interaction Map.
• Text: names Medium 16–18 px; reason strings and marks Small 13–14 px; contrast ≥ 4.5:1 on slate; ✓ / — glyphs are always paired with the numeric have / need (never glyph-only).
• Colour-independence: available vs unavailable = ● / ○ marker + reason text + dashed button, never hue; worn = "(worn)" text + shape accent; the three causes are distinguished by words, not colour.
• Reduced motion: row collapse instant; craft fill in discrete steps; no other motion exists.
• No hover-only: input tooltips reachable by focus-dwell; Examine needs no pointer.
• Scale: all px at 100 %; at 150 % the 640 px panel is 960 px — fits 1080p at the bag's anchor (AC).
• Screen reader: out of scope (documented limitation). Motor: single presses only; the 2 s beat needs no held input.

Localization Considerations

HIGH rows must survive 40 % expansion within their stated line cap.

Acceptance Criteria

• [ ] Interact within 3 u of a workbench opens the station panel within 1 frame at the same screen position as the bag panel; Esc / East closes it.
• [ ] Every known recipe is listed; with fiber 12 / 20 in reach the Cloth Garb row is ○ with "not enough fiber in reach" and its Craft button is dashed; adding 8 fiber to a chest within 3 u flips the row to ● without reopening.
• [ ] Three unavailable recipes with different causes (test config) show three different strings (station / world / affordability); no string contains "locked" or addresses the player in the second person.
• [ ] With the pointer over recipe B and keyboard focus previously on recipe A, pressing Enter crafts exactly one recipe — the one under the focus outline (which on KB/M is B, since hover moved focus); clicking the Craft button crafts the focused row.
• [ ] Pressing Craft closes the panel the same frame the crafting stance starts; walking during the beat ends the stance with no material change and no message; standing still for 2 s produces the item, one thunk, and a bag flash.
• [ ] Two clients craft the last-materials recipe within one tick: exactly one item exists afterwards; the loser's stance ends silently and their reopened panel shows the affordability string.
• [ ] A worn axe shows a pinned "Repair: Cloth Sword (worn)" row; pressing it removes the row, clears the hotbar wear accent within one frame of host confirm, and leaves the panel open; with nothing worn, no Repair block renders.
• [ ] A cloth-tier item is repairable at a cloth or higher station; a higher-tier item shows no Repair row at a cloth station (the filter calls stationPresentAtLeast(item.tier) per item — verified by a fake provider in EditMode).
• [ ] Interact on a nearby player opens a card showing their name, each equipped item's tier and wear, and a maker's line "Name — forged N tides ago"; it closes when they walk out of range.
• [ ] Gamepad-only: every row is reachable with a visible 3 px focus outline; the Craft / Repair buttons never take focus; ↑ at the top and ↓ at the bottom do nothing; ← / → do nothing; Submit on a ○ row does nothing but re-assert its reason.
• [ ] No sort, filter, search, count, or "made by" control exists on the panel (reflection + screenshot); list order equals RecipeDef data order.
• [ ] At 150 % UI scale nothing clips; all HIGH strings fit their line caps at +40 % length.

Open Questions

• Player journey map not yet created (.claude/docs/templates/player-journey.md) — arrival contexts assumed; validate at the playtest.
• ~~Downed at a station~~ Ruled 2026-08-31: an ordinary station panel — if a designer ever wants Downed to gate crafting, that is a combat / crafting GDD rule via /quick-design, not a UI decision (same ruling as inventory.md OQ 7).
• Repair and Examine → lift into interaction-patterns.md as #29 Repair Action and #30 Examine Card (#25–28 are reserved).
• have for storage is one RTT stale by construction — if the playtest shows confusing flips, prefix storage-sourced counts with "~". Playtest item.
• Tier 1: recipe-list length, and whether a station implies a filter (does a Forge list only forge recipes?) — currently every known recipe lists everywhere with the station cause; revisit when a second station type exists.
• Repair CommandKind name + payload — a required new kind (Events table); belongs to ADR-0010 / the crafting runtime ADR (architecture review's proposed Required-ADR row 16).
• Examine vs Revive at a Downed ally: both ride Interact (E / West — Revive is the same control read as HeldFor, ADR-0007). Proposed: at a Downed ally the revive channel (#10) owns the control and Examine is unavailable until they are up (a downed friend's gear is not the question). Needs combat's assent; logged as a #24 / #30 gap in the pattern library.
• Examine competes with chests / stations for #24's single nearest-target slot — step closer to the player to examine. Stated, not a bug; watch at the playtest.