Yep, the player needs the item_suit to have a hud. If you find the hev suit talking when picked up annoying tick the "short logon" flag.
And I might as well pop this in here since you are new:
There is an entity guide on twhl:
http://twhl.co.za/wiki.php?sub=1If you don't know what stuff does, just check that out, and there are many tutorials here too.