Fuck my life, was looking forward to seeing it in action too.
I'm not planning to scrap it. Like I said, the issue with the particle-based method is barely noticeable as long as I stick to mostly opaque elements, so I've been working around that limitation.
After messing with various ammo type and charge indicators, I've arrived at a charge bar that appears block by block when charging, and the appearance of "TEK" in the corner when tek arrows are equipped (no text otherwise). I have one other idea to try for indicating when tek arrows are loaded, but I'm feeling pretty good about this version.
https://imgur.com/a/ilhhENext I needa come up with a way to indicate when the player's taking damage, since the normal screen flashes don't appear during the faux cutscene used to change the FOV.