Merge eureka/aetheria-release-target: the release target and map land on master, rewritten for the demo

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/aetheria-perfect-machine-map.md

@@ -5,7 +5,8 @@ Date: 2026-06-12
 **Parked (2026-09-11).** This migration was built and then rolled back by
 commit `7006a6b0`. `F:\Projects\AetheriaEve` preserves that rebuild as a
 specimen; it is not direction or precedent. Current
-direction for this repo is [three-gates-scope.md](three-gates-scope.md). Read
+direction for this repo is [aetheria-release-target.md](aetheria-release-target.md) (the
+demo), with [three-gates-scope.md](three-gates-scope.md) as the full game's run. Read
 this document as a record of the deferred plan, not as current direction.
 The cache move alone is now [cultcache-migration-target.md](cultcache-migration-target.md).
 

docs/aetheria-release-target.md

@@ -0,0 +1,196 @@
+# Aetheria Release Target: the Demo
+
+Date: 2026-10-03, re-scoped 2026-10-06
+
+Status: target. This document owns the ends. The typed `target` in the Eureka mind
+(campaign `aetheria-release`) owns the labelled invariants and the not-in-scope list;
+this file gives their reasons. Cut specs, questions and rulings are typed documents in
+the mind and are not restated here. Body facts, the model page, the scope sort and the
+rationale for the cut order are in `docs/aetheria-release-map.md`.
+
+## Why
+
+The game has deep systems: fire control, stats and power, heat, item provenance,
+locomotion, scenarios and the targeting index. What keeps it unreleasable is that a
+player has nothing to do between minute five and minute thirty, and nothing they do
+is seen or heard. It plays no sound. A hit on a hull shows nothing where it lands.
+Loot cannot be sold, damage cannot be repaired, no boss guards anything, and reaching
+the exit does nothing. Every NPC fights the same way.
+
+The first release is a demo, and it is called one. The full game, Terminus with three
+procedurally generated regions, needs enough faction variety to give each region its
+own challenges and stories. Until that content exists the game is not presented as
+complete.
+
+## Operator direction
+
+- 2026-10-06 (ruling `first-release-is-a-demo`): "Full Terminus requires enough
+  faction variety to present unique challenges and stories across three regions, I
+  can't call it anything more than a demo if we don't have enough content to
+  populate the three gates. I'm fine with reducing scope so we can get to a release
+  on time, but I will not pretend it is the whole game."
+- 2026-10-06 (ruling `demo-cut-fixed-region`): the demo is one gate, one region and
+  one boss with a fixed faction presence. Full Terminus keeps procedural regions,
+  each with its own political and economic setup.
+- 2026-10-06 (ruling `demo-cast`): one allied faction, the protagonist's ostensible
+  employer under Aetheria's usual polite coercion; one opposing faction, which
+  decides the boss; the rest neutral. Allied: the Pirates. Antagonist and boss:
+  Zhestokost. Featured neutrals: Lucent Media for spectacle, Aeronautics Unlimited
+  as the vanilla that balances the other flavours.
+- 2026-10-06 (ruling `miss-terris-belongs-to-emily-r3`): Miss Terri's is Emily's
+  faction. Its role in the prelude stands. Agents write no lore, explanations,
+  faction play, doctrine, barks or ship concepts for it, and build on none of the
+  AI-written material already made for it.
+- 2026-10-06 (ruling `ship-authors-need-no-unity`): a person adding a ship works in
+  Blender and the CultLib tools and never installs Unity or syncs the repo.
+- 2026-10-02 and 2026-10-03 (ruling `operator-release-direction`): the release needs
+  audio, ships, stations and gear to covet and collect, and mechanics that are
+  visible and visceral. The announcement bar names a wider selection of ships and
+  gear, a UX polish pass, and audio feedback throughout.
+
+## What "the demo" means
+
+The demo is a public build, announced to players and Patreon, with a scenario named
+"Terminus (Demo)". It is done when every line below holds on one Windows build made
+from `master`, and the operator has played that build and called it. A ticked list
+without the operator's call is not a release.
+
+1. **One run, start to finish.** New Game starts the demo in a hull made by the
+   Pirates, at a station near the entrance of one region with a fixed cast: the
+   Pirates allied, Zhestokost hostile, Lucent and AU neutral. The Zhestokost home
+   zone holds the region's one gate, guarded by its boss. The gate stays sealed
+   while the boss lives. Passing it after the boss dies ends the run as won. Death
+   ends the run as lost.
+2. **The run pays.** At a docked station the player can buy, sell what they looted
+   and repair what they lost. Credits persist across save and Continue.
+3. **The four factions fight differently.** Each cast faction has a doctrine a
+   playtester can describe without being told, from the Faction Play design in
+   AetheriaLore.
+4. **Every player action that changes the world makes a sound.** Weapon fire and
+   charging, impacts on shield and hull, ship destruction, docking and undocking,
+   the wormhole and the gate, thrusters and the drive, inventory and trade actions,
+   menu clicks, the overheat alarm, and music in the menu, overworld, combat and the
+   boss fight. Master, music, effects and interface volume are player settings that
+   persist.
+5. **Every hit is seen where it lands and felt by the one who takes it.** An impact
+   on a shield shows on the shield at the side it came from; an impact on a hull
+   shows at the struck point; a hit on the player moves the camera in proportion to
+   the damage. Shake can go to zero and the hit is still shown.
+6. **Damage, heat and exposure are visible before they are fatal.** Lost armour, a
+   destroyed item and a critical hull look different on the ship and in the HUD.
+   Overheat and hull-critical warnings use sound plus a visual, and the more urgent
+   one wins. The player can see how visible they are and the largest source of it.
+7. **There is enough to covet in the demo.** Each cast faction flies a hull of its
+   own and Zhestokost's boss flies its boss hull, each entering through the
+   first-party package path. The exact count is question `demo-content-bar`. Rarity
+   tiers show their colours, and every weapon type sounds and looks distinct.
+8. **A new player can play the demo through on the Windows build without hitting a
+   blocking defect**, published through the build-delivery path.
+
+## Ends
+
+- **The simulation states what happened, and presentation shows it.** Fire control,
+  shields, damage, heat, detection, the boss and the gate publish typed facts.
+  Visual and audio presenters derive a cue from each and render it. They decide no
+  rule and recompute no geometry.
+- **One cue, two channels.** Each fact becomes a cue in one engine-free function;
+  the visual and the audio presenter render that same cue.
+- **The run is a scenario.** The demo is a compiled scenario script beside the
+  tutorial and main galaxies. Its cast, starting standing and gate are written in
+  that script; placement stays with the galaxy generator.
+- **New content is data, authored without Unity.** A new hull, station or piece of
+  gear arrives as a catalog record or a first-party package that carries its own
+  product. Nobody hand-wires a prefab array, and no author needs Unity or the repo.
+- **The player controls intensity without losing the signal.** Turning shake,
+  flashes, particles or any audio channel down never removes the tactical
+  information it carried.
+
+## Invariants that must survive
+
+The typed target carries these as labelled statements. The reasons:
+
+- **Legacy first** (operator, 2026-09-11). All work lands in the restored Unity tree.
+  No daemon, CultMesh or Eve re-architecture here.
+- **The simulation owns the facts.** Fire control was rebuilt so that no Unity
+  collider or effect decides a hit. Feedback reads `FireControl`'s facts and never
+  re-derives them. The same holds for the run: whether the boss lives and whether
+  the gate is open are decided in `ServerShared`.
+- **The simulation names no sound.** Audio is a presenter of the same semantic
+  events visual effects use.
+- **State is CultCache.** Player preferences go in the player store, authored data in
+  the catalog, run state (credits included) in the run store. Presentation tuning
+  stays on its Unity component (fork M (a) of `docs/settings-globals-cut.md`).
+- **Instruments bound what is shown.** A cue never shows the player more than their
+  sensors know.
+- **The demo is named a demo.** Release copy, store text, the scenario name and
+  these docs call it a demo.
+- **Miss Terri's is not AI-written.** No agent writes material for it.
+- **Ship authors need no Unity.**
+- **The lanes are respected.** This campaign never commits to a `codex/*` branch or
+  the operator's checkout.
+- **Rules are tested headless.** Every rule decided in `ServerShared` has a
+  behavioural test in `tests/Aetheria.Shared.Tests`.
+- **The operator judges whether the bar is met.**
+
+## Not in scope for the demo
+
+- Full Terminus: three regions, procedural regional politics and economy, faction
+  selection per run, and the full content bar. These come after the demo.
+- Factions outside the cast as flags. They stay brands on shelves and generated
+  traffic where the generator already puts them.
+- Mining yield and content (mining Cuts 4, 5 and 7), the sublinear targeting index
+  (ruling `targeting-sublinear-wanted-not-critical`), and belt rendering through the
+  index.
+- The faction-play tender loop (`faction-play-4`), drones and munitions, the
+  Colosseum, articulated mounts.
+- Narrative: storylets, Ghostlight, Ink beats per boss.
+- Volumetrics and the nebula backport.
+- Asura and procedural planet content.
+- New mechanics beyond what the demo's rulings name.
+- Build publishing machinery (`docs/build-delivery-target.md` owns it).
+- Platforms other than Windows 64-bit, and multiplayer.
+
+Open questions decide where four more items fall: the material pipeline
+(`demo-material-scope`), the all-in-`.cc` ship move (`demo-ship-cc-timing`), the
+control rebuild (`demo-controls-rebuild`) and which modes a release build lists
+(`demo-build-scenario-list`).
+
+## Strands
+
+- **The run.** Three cuts: `demo-galaxy` (the scenario, its cast, the gate's
+  placement), `boss-gate` (the boss and the sealed gate, the win), and
+  `station-services` (sell, repair, saved credits). The on-ramp is follow-up
+  `demo-difficulty-onramp`, after a played build.
+- **Feedback.** `feedback-1`: impacts with a world point and a layer, shown on the
+  shield or hull and in the camera.
+- **Audio.** `audio-1`, native Unity audio (ruling `audio-native-unity-plus-faust`).
+  Its sequel covers interface, trade, docking, the wormhole and gate, music
+  (including the boss), loops and the overheat alarm.
+- **Faction play.** `faction-play-1` to `-3`, re-anchored on post-merge master and
+  revised for the demo cast with the Pirates' doctrine (follow-up
+  `faction-play-reanchor-demo`). The Pirates need a catalog record first (follow-up
+  `pirates-catalog-record`).
+- **Loot.** `loot-1` to `-3`: floating items are simulation state and pickup is a
+  capability. With `station-services`, loot becomes money.
+- **Content.** The package path that landed with moddable-ships, then the add-on's
+  frame and mounts cuts, then hulls for the cast and the boss (follow-ups
+  `demo-cast-hulls`, `zhestokost-boss-hull`), authored at the operator's pace.
+- **UX polish.** A ledger of small fixes verified through scenarios (follow-up
+  `demo-ux-ledger`).
+
+## Sequencing
+
+The run goes first, because it is the hole every other strand fills: without it the
+demo has no thirty minutes. `demo-galaxy` and `station-services` are independent
+and can run in parallel; `boss-gate` follows `demo-galaxy`. Feedback and audio follow
+the order already mapped (`feedback-1`, then `audio-1`). Faction play waits for its
+re-anchor. Content runs in parallel at the operator's pace, because the hull clock
+starts only when the first demo hull flies.
+
+## Lanes and collisions
+
+The hot files are `Entity.cs`, `FireControl.cs`, `ActionGameManager.cs`,
+`ZoneGenerator.cs`, `ZoneRenderer.cs` and `TradeMenu.cs`. Each cut branches from
+`origin/master` in its own worktree and keeps its hunks out of the regions other open
+cuts change, which are listed per spec. New behaviour goes in new files wherever an
+existing owner allows it.

docs/headless-playground-cut.md

@@ -683,7 +683,9 @@ moves the `BehaviorData` union list down by 10 lines.
   writes only `LookDirection`) engage only within 60 degrees of their spawn facing. That is
   fork W.
 
-**Death, loot and pickup** (carried from the earlier draft).
+**Death, loot and pickup** (carried from the earlier draft). Loot into the simulation did
+not land with this cut; cut `loot-1` of campaign `aetheria-release` owns it now (ruling
+`jettison-shared-floating-items`).
 - `Zone` subscribes to the `Death` of each entity it adds. On death it:
   - removes the entity and its agent;
   - drops each non-hull item with probability `LootDropProbability`, and all cargo,

docs/merge-to-master-checklist.md

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Compiled 2026-09-29 by Eyes from the maps on the branch. Pointers are `doc:line`
 
 ### 2c. Flight, power and economy
 
-6. **Provenance in play.** Starting-ship items show tier colour; the properties panel shows Manufacturer, product name and flavour for branded gear. Dock and buy: the brand still shows in cargo. `give Lamp` (any design name): no Manufacturer row. Kill an NPC and pick up loot: brand shown (`item-provenance-cut.md:528-539`). Proves: item-provenance Cut C.
+6. **Provenance in play.** Tier colour shows only after settings-globals Cut 1 (this expectation was falsified by the 2026-09-17 smoke, section 8); the properties panel shows Manufacturer, product name and flavour for branded gear. Dock and buy: the brand still shows in cargo. `give Lamp` (any design name): no Manufacturer row. Kill an NPC and pick up loot: brand shown (`item-provenance-cut.md:528-539`). Proves: item-provenance Cut C.
 7. **Fly a restored hull (Longinus or Djinni).** Thrusters move and turn it (`locomotion-cut.md:501`). Watch the speed cap: `VelocityLimit` is gated by the hull's `Active`, and a hull taken offline with thrusters firing loses the cap (`:377`). It did not happen in 300 s on shipped settings; report if you see runaway speed. Unrecorded: how to spawn a restored hull in play (the map names no path).
 8. **Weak reactor (O2).** Fly with a reactor too small for the loadout. Expect visible, legible starvation rather than a cooked reactor (`stats-and-power-cut.md:705-706`). Proves: power bus (map Cut 3).
 9. **Brownout and refill (O6, O4).** Brownout reads as degradation, not breakage (`:774`, `:990`). A weapon refilling under brownout stutters instead of firing full rate and cooking the ship (`:729-730`). Proves: power-supply term, brownout, input capacitors.

docs/three-gates-scope.md

@@ -2,6 +2,20 @@
 
 Date: 2026-09-11
 
+**Status (2026-10-06).** The first release is a demo: one gate, one region, one boss,
+with a fixed faction cast (rulings `first-release-is-a-demo`, `demo-cut-fixed-region`
+and `demo-cast` in campaign `aetheria-release`). `docs/aetheria-release-target.md` owns
+the release now; this document records the full game's three-gate run, which comes
+after the demo. Where the items below stand:
+
+- Item 1: death deletes the run (`ActionGameManager.Die` calls `RunSave.Clear`). The win
+  screen is cut `boss-gate`; saved credits are cut `station-services`.
+- Item 2: for the demo's one gate, cuts `demo-galaxy` and `boss-gate`. Three sections,
+  locked boss-zone wormholes and difficulty per section are full game.
+- Item 3: cut `station-services` (sell and repair) and cuts `loot-1` to `-3`.
+- Item 4: landed (`docs/fire-control-cut.md`).
+- Items 5 and 6: not in the demo.
+
 Aetheria ships as a short rogue-lite run on the existing Unity game: start at
 the Entrance, fight through three boss chokepoints, reach the Exit. Everything
 the player earns comes from what they destroy. More systems come after this
@@ -46,7 +60,8 @@ AI share it, so AI accuracy is no longer superhuman by construction.
 
 **Ruling (operator, 2026-09-17):** hit detection goes away entirely. A hit is a dice
 roll over weapon stats, the stats of a new targeting-system subsystem, and sensor
-state. Fire control is being mapped as Cut 2 of `docs/headless-playground-cut.md`.
+state. Fire control was mapped from Cut 2 of `docs/headless-playground-cut.md` and has
+landed (`docs/fire-control-cut.md`).
 
 **Ruling (operator, 2026-09-17):** the player and the AI can aim for a specific
 subsystem once they have gathered enough target data to reveal it. Operator's words: "We