Once Human backpack beeping, colors, and numbers, explained

Once Human provides an intimidating experience at the outset thanks to a slew of mechanics, narrative, and systems at play. It certainly doesn’t help when things like your backpack flashing numbers, changing colors, and beeping aren’t explained. Fortunately, the explanation is easy enough and the Cradle will become far more useful.

What do the numbers and beeping on the Cradle mean in Once Human?

The long and short of the numbers, colors, and beeping your backpack does is to act as a warning when approaching areas of high Stardust concentration. This ranges from having a debuff to your maximum health to straight-up dying if you don’t have adequate protection.

The number determines your distance to the epicenter. In the test area I use below, it capped at 30 and would increase or decrease depending on my direction. This was also marked by the area growing increasingly foggy and dark.

The color is an indicator of how dangerous the pollution is. Green is tolerable, yellow might start to induce Whims, and red means death is coming soon.

The beeping is correlated to the color and will become increasingly frantic as things get worse.

To help illustrate this, let’s do an experiment. My character has a Pollution Resist value of 80. The Sutherland Family Orchard (7334, -5379) is an area rife with “pollution.” This is a low-level zone, between levels five to eight.

With my current gear, my backpack emits a steady beep, has a green light, and is displaying “30” at the epicenter. When I strip down to nothing, my backpack displays 30, has a red light, and the beeping sounds more like a radiation detector going off. My maximum health debuff was 58% and I received the None Shall Pass and Gathering Storm Whims for 10 minutes.

As for the pulsing yellow light that appears randomly? That’s a Morphic Crate Detector. As you get closer to a Morphic Crate, the detector will pulse quicker. When it does this, press Q to scan the area and locate the crate.