SITREP // TRIAGE, COMMAND INPUT, RIGS, BASE OPS, AND WHERE WE'RE HEADED [0028]

// SITREP [0028] [DEV] [2026-06-30-2100] [KAOS // DV-98] [NAFOSEC // NCC-RIGA] [RE: TRIAGE, COMMAND INPUT, RIGS, BASE OPS, AND WHERE WE'RE HEADED]

Been a while since we did one of these properly. Not a changelog, not a feature list. Pulling back and walking through the design work we've been deep in this week and the direction we're building toward. Some of this lands before EA launch, some of it lands after, this sitrep is about where we're headed either way. Part I of what's probably going to be a multi part one.

THE MEDICAL SYSTEM

This is the one I've been living in all week. Wounds in Burned Horizons aren't a hit point bar. We're building this around real TCCC protocol, the same framework actual combat medics train on. Three phases of care. Care Under Fire is what happens while you're still taking contact, tourniquet, direct pressure, drag a guy to cover, fast and limited, no menus, just react. Tactical Field Care is once the situation clears and your medic actually has time to work, full assessment, full treatment, the real depth of the system.

Here's what that actually looks like. Say an operator takes a round to the leg and goes down with an arterial bleed. A rifleman who reaches him first sees a wound and bleeding, that's it, no detail, no certainty what's actually wrong. He can throw on a tourniquet and buy time, but he's working blind. A trained medic looking at the same wound sees the full picture, femoral artery involvement, how long until incapacitation if it's not treated, exactly what's needed, in what order. Same casualty, completely different information, because medical skill in this game is something an operator actually has to earn, not something the game hands the player for free.

Treatment follows MARCH, hemorrhage, airway, respiration, circulation, hypothermia, everything else, in that order, because that's the order that actually keeps someone alive. No Stimpak. Anyone can attempt any treatment on anyone, even something way above their training. They're just a lot more likely to make it worse instead of better.

We're also designing a real triage interface around this. Pull up a wounded operator, see them ranked by what needs attention first, work through treatment one step at a time while it's actually happening in front of you. Watching your medic work while the rest of the squad holds the line is supposed to mean something. Status notifications, things like Scar events and similar moments, are also getting a pass to feel less like popups and more like part of the world, smaller, cleaner, fading naturally instead of stacking up and crowding the screen. Steam post image

OPERATORS AS PEOPLE, NOT AUTOMATONS

A lot of what we worked through this week feeds into something bigger we've talked about before but haven't fully laid out. Operators in Burned Horizons aren't supposed to just execute orders like a machine. Underneath every command sits a layered behavior system, instinct, trained habit, rules of engagement, your standing orders, and underneath all of it, Scars, the psychological weight an operator carries from what they've been through.

Some of that's already in, AP costs and certain behaviors are affected by it now. But the bigger version is what we're building toward. Picture this. You give a move order mid firefight, simple, routine, something the operator has done a hundred times. Except three days ago this same operator watched a teammate go down twenty feet from where he's standing right now, and the order doesn't execute. He freezes. Not because you did anything wrong, because something in that moment matched something he's still carrying. You can't fix that by clicking a different button. You ride it out, or you get another operator close enough to talk him through it. That unpredictability is the whole point. It's what turns a roster of operators into people you actually know, not pieces you move around a board.

COMMAND INPUT

We're designing how command input works as four distinct layers, each doing one specific job. The command wheel handles persistent operator states, posture, stance, fire mode, stealth, squad behavior, the things you set and they hold until you change them. A future hotbar handles fast, repeatable actions, weapon swaps, reloads, throwables, fully rebindable to whatever you want at your fingertips. Context menus handle everything situational, right click an operator, an object, a position, get exactly what's relevant to that specific thing. And then of course there is direct action commands like selecting an operator and then clicking or double clicking to get them to walk/run to a specific point. Multiple ways of getting to the same actions in many cases.

While working through this we also landed on something we want to get right from the start. If your weapon is up and ready and you sprint, you shouldn't have to manually drop your stance before the run and bring it back up after. A real operator lowers their weapon to move fast and brings it back up the second they stop. That should just happen automatically based on what you're already telling your operator to do. Small detail, but it's exactly the kind of thing that decides whether the game feels like it understands how operators actually move.

RIGS AND LOADOUTS

Continuing to build out how plate carriers and rigs map to what you're actually equipping. Real operators don't build their kit pouch by pouch before a mission, they grab a configured rig built for the job and go. That's the model we're building toward, preconfigured rigs that reflect real loadouts, mission to mission, rather than micromanaging individual pouches.

So when you're staging a team for a job, you're not assembling gear piece by piece, you're picking the rig that matches what you're walking into. A breach heavy assault calls for a rig built around mag capacity and a sidearm you can get to fast. A long patrol or overwatch position calls for something leaner, more room for water and optics, less weight you don't need. The decision happens at the rig level, the way it would for a real operator grabbing kit off a rack before stepping off, not by dragging forty individual pouches around a screen.

ARMOR AND WOUND RESILIENCY

Continued building out how armor and the medical system talk to each other. Armor handles what armor does, NIJ protection tiers, what stops what, durability and degradation, hit zone coverage. Wound Resiliency handles what happens to the person underneath it, blood volume, internal damage, fractures, the full physiological picture as we layer it in.

BASE OPERATIONS

Started scoping the early version of a deployable base camp this week. An actual patrol base you place and can move, not a fixed mission hub. Ties straight into casualty evacuation. Pop smoke, call it in over comms, wait for the bird, get your guy out. Different colored smoke for different calls, CASEVAC, reinforcements, resupply, same underlying system, different outcome depending on what you're calling for. This is also where the early version of squad building lives, pulling operators from a pool, gearing them up from what's on hand at base camp, ahead of the full character creation system coming later.

WHAT'S NEXT

Part II picks up from here, the full Scar behavior system in detail, how the operator pool and squad building flow works at base camp, and the rest of the field support actions tied to CASEVAC and resupply.

That's where things stand. Some of this lands before EA, some after, but the direction is locked and we're building toward it deliberately.

More to come.

// KAOS

Hold the Line. Always Forward. Слава Україні. Героям слава. //-- BACKER GAME KEYS CAN BE ACCESSED VIA UPLINK PORTAL: https://burnedhorizons.com/uplink All keys listed in your Operator Service Jacket (Uplink Profile) so far can be activated, but currently only the base game can be installed. Once activated, the Forward Deployed Supporter Pack, Soundtrack, etc. will prompt an install closer to 1.0. ADDITIONAL KEYS CAN BE OBTAINED BY DIRECTLY SUPPORTING THE GAME'S DEVELOPMENT VIA THE DIRECT BACKER PORTAL: https://burnedhorizons.com/dbx WISHLIST/FOLLOW ON STEAM | JOIN THE DISCORD

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