#166-#173: plainer words, a point to shoot at, and a catalog that says when it is broken

Eight tickets. The last one is the interesting one.

#166 - PLAINER DIALOG. Every spoken line rewritten: the nine prologue lines and
all twenty quest brief/done pairs. Mostly splitting em-dash subclauses into
sentences and dropping the literary register ("hulls" -> "ships", "That is our
hands back" -> "That frees us for other work"). Same meaning, same voice.

#167 - NOTHING ANNOUNCED TWICE. Quests carry an `important` flag; seven of the
twenty have it, and they are the search for the World Ship. A quest handed out
with its goal ALREADY met is now credited in silence unless it is one of those
- no brief, no answer, both signals still fired and the index still moved, so
it appears ticked in the objectives panel. The chain used to stop the game to
set a task the player had already done, then stop it again to congratulate
them on it.

#168 - THE KEYBOARD CAN ANSWER A DIALOG. The rule the ticket asks for (still
arriving, show it all; already whole, move on) was already the rule for a
click since #149, but a key press reached the banner and did nothing - and
this game is played with WASD and a mouse. Touch, click and key now go through
one door. Modifiers alone and auto-repeat echoes are not presses.

#169 - A LOADING SCREEN. A press raises a cover, and the load happens after it
has been on screen for a frame, so the wait is something the player is
watching. Deliberately still a blocking load: load_threaded_request() comes
back FAILED for these scenes, reporting text-parse errors that load() does not
produce, because the global class names and preloads they reach each other
through are not resolvable off the loading thread. A progress bar is not worth
a menu that sometimes refuses to start the game, and the web build ships with
thread support off anyway. Further presses while loading are ignored - on the
web a button fires on PRESS, so an impatient double tap costs nothing to make
and used to build the world twice.

#170 - THE PICTURE BEFORE THE CAPTION. The prologue's first line was up before
the scene had finished arriving, so the game opened STOPPED (#128) over a
convoy nobody had seen yet. It flies for three seconds first.

#171 - THE CONTROLS FOLLOW WHAT IS BEING HELD. is_touchscreen_available() asks
whether a touch COULD arrive, and in a browser that is yes on any laptop whose
panel reports touch support - so the web build put thumb sticks over a screen
being played with a mouse, and switched mouse aiming off on the machine it
exists for. The reading is now the last input actually used, it lives in
GameState so the sticks and the guns cannot disagree, and it is two-way:
nothing can strand a tablet, because the gesture that needs the controls is
the gesture that brings them back. A touch suppresses mouse evidence for a
second, so the click Godot manufactures out of a tap is not mistaken for a
mouse.

#172 - AIM AT A PLACE. Every gun was handed the same direction, so a fleet
firing at something threw a sheet of parallel bolts past either side of it and
only the middle hull could hit - worse the wider the formation. Guns now take
a POINT and each hull works out its own heading to it, so the fleet's fire
converges. The mouse already had a place and was flattening it into a bearing;
a pushed stick names the point at the guns' reach along it, so touch loses
nothing. The assist (#89) still bends a shot onto an enemy, now per hull and
around that hull's own heading. The aim guide stops at the point and marks it.

#173 - AND THE ONE THAT EXPLAINS ITSELF. "In the web export version the fleet
can not store any resources" is not a web bug. It is the third time the Godot
editor's .tres writer has quietly dropped a property it thought was
default-valued: InterceptorVesselDefinition losing `capabilities` leaves
cargo_capacity at 20 and takes away the "cargo" claim that
fleet_cargo_capacity() actually gates on, so the hold is zero and nothing can
be mined or carried. That is the symptom, word for word.

test_definitions_intact caught it in the suite. What it could not do is catch
it in a BUILD - an export is taken from the working tree at whatever moment
the editor last touched it, which is exactly when the damage is done and
exactly where nobody is running tests. The checks move to core/CatalogCheck.gd
and now run at startup in every build as well as in the test, from the same
function. On the web push_error lands in the on-page log web_shell.html
mirrors, which is the only error a phone can read.

The tree is intact today, so a fresh export should restore the hold. The point
of the change is that the next time it is not, the build says so.

Full suite green at 154/154.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0139MmxRAJSUe1j77kftAWv3

world/IntroDirector.gd

@@ -26,6 +26,15 @@ signal finished
 # Beats, in order. The names are the whole outline.
 enum Beat { BRIEF, RUN, AMBUSH, CLEAR, GAUNTLET, BREACH, VORTEX, AFTERMATH }
 
+# #170: how long the prologue runs before anybody says anything.
+#
+# The first line used to be up before the scene had finished arriving: the
+# game opened on a dialog, which since #128 means it opened STOPPED, over a
+# convoy the player had not yet seen and a starfield still being drawn. The
+# opening beat of a story should be the picture, not the caption. So the
+# convoy flies for a moment first, and the guide calls in over a scene that is
+# already moving.
+const OPENING_SILENCE: float = 3.0
 # Where the shipment was going, and never arrives.
 const WORLD_SHIP_AT: Vector2 = Vector2(0.0, -16000.0)
 # The convoy: mostly holds, a few escorts. Larger than any fleet the player
@@ -77,6 +86,10 @@ const BREACH_LENS_SCALE: float = 7.0
 # up to the breach; after it there is nobody left to talk to, so the closing
 # lines are the ship's own log - which is the point being made.
 const SHIP_LOG: String = "KESTREL - LOG"
+# By path rather than by class name, for the load-order reason documented in
+# PlanetSetups and elsewhere. Only for DEFAULT_SPEAKER, so a queued line names
+# the same speaker an immediate one would.
+const NARRATION = preload("res://ui/NarrationBanner.gd")
 const VORTEX_COLORS: Array = [
 	Color(0.55, 0.35, 1.0), Color(0.25, 0.9, 1.0), Color(1.0, 0.35, 0.8),
 	Color(1.0, 0.8, 0.3), Color(0.4, 1.0, 0.6),
@@ -101,6 +114,11 @@ var vortex_time: float = 0.0
 var survivor: Node2D = null
 var breach: Node2D = null
 var _done: bool = false
+# #170: lines waiting on the clock, and the beat time they are waiting for.
+# Cleared whenever the beat changes, so a line a beat did not get round to
+# saying cannot surface in the middle of the next one.
+var _pending_lines: Array = []
+var _pending_at: float = 0.0
 
 @onready var overlay: ColorRect = get_node_or_null("../UI/BreachOverlay")
 
@@ -129,6 +147,7 @@ func _process(delta: float) -> void:
 	if not running:
 		return
 	beat_time += delta
+	_drain_pending()
 	_tick(delta)
 	_apply_shake(delta)
 	if beat_time < _deadline() and not _ready_to_advance():
@@ -139,9 +158,31 @@ func _process(delta: float) -> void:
 	_begin(beat + 1)
 
 
+# #170: says a beat's lines once its clock reaches `at`. Deliberately measured
+# in BEAT time rather than wall clock, like everything else here: a dialog
+# stops the tree, so a line still waiting behind an unread one cannot have its
+# turn come round while nobody is looking.
+func _say_later(at: float, lines: Array) -> void:
+	_pending_at = at
+	_pending_lines = lines
+
+
+func _drain_pending() -> void:
+	if _pending_lines.is_empty() or beat_time < _pending_at:
+		return
+	var lines: Array = _pending_lines
+	_pending_lines = []
+	for line in lines:
+		narration.say(String(line[0]), String(line[1]))
+
+
 func _ready_to_advance() -> bool:
 	if beat_time < _floor_time():
 		return false
+	# A beat with a line still to come has not finished talking, whatever the
+	# banner currently says (#170).
+	if _waits_for_narration() and not _pending_lines.is_empty():
+		return false
 	if _waits_for_narration() and narration.is_speaking():
 		return false
 	return _beat_complete() or beat_time >= _floor_time() and _floor_only()
@@ -162,6 +203,7 @@ func finish() -> void:
 		return
 	_done = true
 	running = false
+	_pending_lines = []
 	_clear_props()
 	GameState.intro_active = false
 	GameState.intro_locks_movement = false
@@ -275,6 +317,7 @@ func _clear_props() -> void:
 func _begin(next: int) -> void:
 	beat = next
 	beat_time = 0.0
+	_pending_lines = []
 	match beat:
 		Beat.BRIEF:
 			start_at = fleet.get_centroid()
@@ -285,23 +328,28 @@ func _begin(next: int) -> void:
 			# takes for CONVOY and CONVOY_FORMATION to line up.
 			_apply_convoy_formation()
 			fleet.spawn_ships(CONVOY.size(), start_at, CONVOY)
-			narration.say("Convoy Kestrel, you are carrying the season's shipment to the World Ship.")
-			narration.say("Hold your heading and keep the holds intact. We will be watching.")
+			# #170: not yet. The convoy is under way before the guide calls.
+			_say_later(OPENING_SILENCE, [
+				["Convoy Kestrel. You are carrying this season's cargo to the World Ship.",
+					NARRATION.DEFAULT_SPEAKER],
+				["Stay on course and keep the holds safe. We are watching.",
+					NARRATION.DEFAULT_SPEAKER],
+			])
 		Beat.RUN:
-			narration.say("World Ship bears ahead. Fly on.")
+			narration.say("The World Ship is straight ahead. Keep flying.")
 		Beat.AMBUSH:
 			_spawn_ambush()
-			narration.say("Contacts ahead - raiders, a light group. Break them and continue.")
+			narration.say("Raiders ahead, and not many of them. Break them, then carry on.")
 		Beat.CLEAR:
-			narration.say("Clean work, Kestrel. Resume your heading.")
+			narration.say("Good work, Kestrel. Back on course.")
 		Beat.GAUNTLET:
 			_spawn_belt()
-			narration.say("Debris belt across your lane. Take it slow - there is no way around.")
+			narration.say("A rock belt lies across your lane. Go slowly. There is no way around it.")
 		Beat.BREACH:
 			GameState.intro_locks_movement = true
 			breach_at = fleet.get_centroid() + Vector2(0.0, -900.0)
 			_open_breach()
-			narration.say("Kestrel, your heading is - something is opening ahead of you -", "CONVOY CONTROL")
+			narration.say("Kestrel, your course is - something is opening ahead of you -", "CONVOY CONTROL")
 		Beat.VORTEX:
 			vortex_time = 0.0
 			_ensure_survivor_hull()
@@ -309,8 +357,8 @@ func _begin(next: int) -> void:
 		Beat.AFTERMATH:
 			GameState.intro_locks_movement = false
 			shake = 0.0
-			narration.say("It seems you've lost your way through the space, lost and abandoned.", SHIP_LOG)
-			narration.say("No communication with the World Ship can be heard.", SHIP_LOG)
+			narration.say("The hole threw us somewhere else. We are lost, and we are alone.", SHIP_LOG)
+			narration.say("Nothing answers. The World Ship cannot hear us out here.", SHIP_LOG)
 
 
 func _deadline() -> float: