Separate Starbridge design from roadmap residue
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@ -44,6 +44,13 @@ Brevity is an invariant. Every paragraph must own a necessary claim. Every claim
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## Verification Ledger
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### Wave 19
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- The public game-design cluster fell from 18,699 to 4,445 words. The index now owns navigation and status, `Aetheria Client and Modes.md` owns the candidate shell and durable continuity boundaries, `Aetheria Starbridge.md` owns the playable session concept, and the key-art brief owns one production composition.
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- Starbridge is consistently a developed draft GDD: concept-stage, not shipped, and not a release roadmap. Its compact proof retains asymmetric roles, pilot refusal, support work, heat, salvage, recovery, construction, scenario provenance, visible authority, success tests, and unresolved shared decisions.
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- Arena, Conquest, persistent-world play, and the reset loop are historical hypotheses or design ancestry rather than current commitments. Monetization, generation pipelines, prompt revision history, exhaustive catalogs, and unversioned protocol claims were cut rather than moved into new owners.
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- Clueless/Loremaster pressure separated setting truth, game-design choice, and implementation evidence. Soul repaired status inflation, ownership-of-people language, optional Barracks leakage, two broken section anchors, and missing non-canon art metadata; links, frontmatter, table, callout, and asset checks passed.
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### Wave 18
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- `README.md` now separates shared owner notes, finished story authority, and developmental material while retaining the repository map and shared-engine commands. A local claim becomes shared canon only when its owner note incorporates it.
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@ -1,401 +1,64 @@
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---
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title: "Aetheria Client and Modes"
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description: "The Aetheria desktop client is the cross-mode shell: Hangar, parties, Verse selection, Starbridge sessions, Arena downtime, and seasonal Conquest campaigns."
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description: "Concept specification for Aetheria's cross-mode shell, shared player continuity, and runtime boundaries."
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---
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# Aetheria Client and Modes
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Aetheria is not a single queue with a prettier launcher. It is the shell around
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multiple playable proofs of the same underlying simulation: player-owned
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loadouts, typed Verse state, ship mastery, faction pressure, economic
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consequence, and role-specific clients looking into one shared machine.
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> **Status: concept specification, not a release roadmap.** [[Aetheria Starbridge|Starbridge]] has a developed draft GDD. Arena, Conquest, and the persistent world are historical hypotheses. Their presence here does not establish sequence, funding, availability, or release.
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The desktop Aetheria app should be the player's durable home. It starts
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Starbridge sessions, advertises coming modes, manages parties, selects the
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active Verse, launches Unity pilot clients with the correct session target, and
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keeps the command-facing surfaces available when a player is acting as
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commander. It is also the place where the Hangar lives, because the Hangar cuts
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across every mode.
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The Aetheria client is the proposed durable home around multiple playable views of one simulation. It should manage identity, parties, sessions, shared player possessions, and recovery when a role-specific runtime disconnects. A mode may change the immediate rules without quietly becoming the owner of the player's account or equipment.
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## Product Spine
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## Shell Responsibilities
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The product spine is:
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The desktop client should own the cross-mode surfaces:
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1. **Aetheria client**: the shell, account surface, party surface, Hangar, mode
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selection, Verse selection, reconnect surface, and commander-capable desktop
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UI.
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2. **Aetheria: Starbridge**: the first public co-op mode, built around one RTS
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commander and one to four Unity pilots defending a station through waves.
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3. **Arena**: the controlled competitive environment for proving
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witness-authoritative quorum consensus under real player pressure.
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4. **Conquest**: the seasonal campaign layer for territory, faction struggle,
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economic movement, logistics, community warfare, and broader simulation
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experiments. This is where Profits Rising corporation-management gameplay
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is introduced and developed season by season.
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5. **Persistent world**: the later synthesis, after the smaller vessels have
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proven sync, loadouts, economy, territory, and faction consequence.
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The launcher should not present these as equal buttons in a buffet. Multiplayer
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queues are an ecosystem. Aetheria should concentrate attention around the mode
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that currently serves the health of the product and the experiment being run.
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## The Hangar
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The Hangar is the player's continuity layer.
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Modes rotate, seasons end, experiments change, and scenario rules mutate. The
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ship collection persists. Players continue unlocking hulls, equipment,
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cockpits, support gear, cosmetics, presets, and build identities from the
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Aetheria client. A ship mastered in Starbridge can be brought into Arena. A
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Conquest season can make a faction's logistics valuable without making that
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ship stop being the player's ship.
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The rule:
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> A ship is persistent. A mode decides how that ship is contextualized.
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Starbridge can apply run-local quality scaling, recovered technologies,
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temporary station stock, and boss loot because it is a rogue-lite adjacent
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co-op scenario. Arena should show the build as it was meant to be seen: no
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Starbridge quality scaling, no run-local distortion, no flattening every ship
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into an embarrassed average. Matchmaking balances teams by danger level instead
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of pretending all builds are equal.
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The Hangar should be a shared Eve/CultUI surface over typed player state, not a
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menu owned by one runtime. The desktop client, website, Unity client, future
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companion surfaces, operator tools, and compact TUI views should lower the same
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composition graph where the user's context permits it. Storefront purchases,
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season rewards, and scenario unlocks may add entitlement or inventory
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documents; the Hangar remains the projection over player-owned ships and
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equipment.
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## Commander Progression
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The commander needs a progression layer as sticky as pilot loadout
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customization. It cannot simply be a persistent station loadout. Scenario
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authorship must remain intact: the scenario owns starting station equipment,
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available technologies, salvage ecology, faction mix, wave shape, boss loot,
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and infrastructure constraints.
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The commander progression rule:
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> Scenarios own nouns. Commanders own the operating language.
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Commander progression candidates should be judged by whether they create real
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identity, mastery, and buildcraft without smuggling forbidden station assets
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into a scenario.
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### Barracks V1
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The V1 commander progression target is the **Barracks**.
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The Hangar stores machines. The Barracks stores people and minds. Pilots tune
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ships and loadouts. Commanders build a bridge crew, put that crew under
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pressure, and live with what the pressure does to them.
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The emotional model is closer to Darkest Dungeon than a collectible card game.
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Every run puts command staff against the grindstone. They gain skill,
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procedures, bonds, familiarity with pilots, and enemy-pattern memory. They also
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accumulate stress, injuries, burnout, trauma, moral damage, faction pressure,
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firmware scars, illegal habits, and strange command fixations.
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The V1 presentation should stay contained:
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- roster cards and staff dossiers;
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- active bridge slots;
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- recovery, treatment, and training slots;
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- relationship and conflict summaries;
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- after-action changes;
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- staff-linked procedures and automation;
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- no animated portraits;
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- no walk-around RimWorld-style barracks simulation.
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The most important visual outcome is not seeing staff wander around. It is
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seeing staff change.
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### Staff Roles
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Command staff should affect how the commander operates the scenario's provided
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station, not which station nouns exist. They can modify warnings, procedures,
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automation, resource handling, and emergency options while the scenario still
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owns equipment, salvage, technology, and enemy pressure.
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Candidate staff roles:
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- thermal officer;
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- fabrication lead;
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- drone marshal;
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- fire-control officer;
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- quartermaster;
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- rescue coordinator;
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- signal/witness officer;
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- faction liaison;
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- morale/comms officer;
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- neuromorphic or ship-self advisor;
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- illegal firmware specialist.
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Staff do not need to be only ordinary humans. Aetheria can include trained
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officers, faction specialists, embodied ship-selves, advisory firmware,
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compliance engines, damaged station minds, and other legal or illegal minds
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allowed onto the command side of the war table.
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### Stress, Growth, And Decay
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Staff progression should create attachment and hesitation.
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After runs, staff can gain:
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- XP and promotions;
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- new or improved procedures;
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- better enemy/faction familiarity;
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- bonds with other staff;
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- bonds with specific pilots or ships;
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- commendations and titles;
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- faction credentials;
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- black-box insights.
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Staff can also suffer:
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- acute stress;
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- fatigue and leave requirements;
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- heat trauma;
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- overclock addiction;
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- radiator dread;
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- rescue obsession;
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- salvage fixation;
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- witness compulsion;
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- illegal firmware dependence;
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- faction loyalty drift;
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- contempt for cautious or reckless commanders;
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- rivalry with another staff member;
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- refusal to work a specific scenario class;
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- breakdown, retirement, or loss.
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This is the commander's risk economy. Pilots bring hulls back scorched.
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Commanders bring minds back altered.
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### Generated Interactions
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The Barracks should use a limited authored pool of releasable characters, with
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live interactions procedurally generated from character state, run history,
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relationships, scenario pressure, and faction context.
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Ghostlight, VoidBot, and Epiphany persona turns can generate staff interactions
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as structured narrative events rather than freeform noise. The generated layer
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should know the character's stable identity, current stress, relationships,
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recent failures, recent saves, faction background, and available event type.
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It should output bounded dialogue, relationship changes, event flags, and
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operator-facing summaries that the game can store as typed state.
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Weksa vocals can give these interactions voice once the text event is accepted
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and bounded. Voice should reinforce staff presence without requiring animated
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portraits or a full barracks life sim.
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Generated outputs must be cached as content artifacts. Persona turns, accepted
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dialogue, Weksa voicing, and possible Vili acting or gesture data should not be
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recomputed every time a player opens the Barracks. Weksa interlingua tends to
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carry gesture information, so the cache should be able to store text, vocal
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performance, timing, expression, gesture intent, provenance, and the state keys
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that produced the event.
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This gives the live service a sane cost curve. Early players can expensively
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"discover" fresh staff interactions when a character, scenario, relationship,
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or trauma state has not been seen before. As the cache fills, common situations
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resolve to existing artifacts and only noteworthy state changes need new model
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work. The Barracks should feel alive without turning every hover, debrief, or
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minor stress tick into a model call.
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The cache key should include enough typed context to preserve continuity:
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- character id and variant;
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- event type;
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- scenario id and faction context;
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- relevant run facts;
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- current stress, injuries, scars, and traits;
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- relationships and bonds involved;
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- language, voice, and presentation policy;
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- model/prompt/pipeline version.
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Cached artifacts may be reused exactly, remixed through bounded templates, or
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invalidated when character state crosses a meaningful threshold. The important
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rule is that generation happens at moments of narrative consequence, not as a
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constant renderer dependency.
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V1 should treat generated interactions as authored-bounded events:
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- post-run debriefs;
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- stress breaks;
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- bond formation;
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- rivalry escalation;
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- staff requesting leave;
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- staff refusing or demanding assignment;
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- procedure discovery;
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- faction contact;
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- black-box confession;
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- memorial or recovery moments.
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The generation system must serve continuity. Characters are not disposable
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text fountains. Their state changes should persist, be inspectable, and affect
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future runs.
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### Character Release Model
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Aetheria can release a limited pool of command staff over time in a
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gacha-style cadence: named officers, specialists, firmware advisors, faction
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liaisons, illegal contractors, and strange command minds. The collection pull
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is real, but the design should avoid making the commander role depend on
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predatory availability or opaque power chasing.
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Safer release principles:
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- every commander has a competent baseline staff;
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- premium or rare staff create style, story, and specialization, not mandatory
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access to basic command competence;
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- scenario completion, seasons, faction reputation, and achievements can unlock
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staff alongside any monetized channel;
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- staff power is legible through role, stress profile, procedures, and
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compatibility rather than hidden rarity math;
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- duplicate pulls, if used, should become training, memories, cosmetics, or
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safe progression currency rather than a slot-machine cliff.
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The product can borrow the release cadence and excitement of character
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collection without designing the Barracks as a little extraction engine in a
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hat.
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### Shelved: Real-Time Command Deck
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The real-time command deck remains a viable alternate or later procedure layer,
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but it is not the V1 commander progression target.
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In that model, the commander has a deck, hand, draw pile, cooldown pile, and
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cadence-based draw. Cards install equipment, upgrade equipment, deploy drones
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and turrets, activate item behaviors, trigger procedures, and spend emergency
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protocols. The scenario contributes part of the deck so scenario authorship
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remains intact.
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The four-resource model remains useful even without cards:
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- **Power**: electrical capacity, routing, shields, sensors, weapon systems,
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drone charging, and immediate station activity.
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- **Mass**: salvage, material throughput, structure, ammunition, replacement
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parts, and physical installation.
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- **Heat**: thermal capacity, cooling budget, radiator availability,
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overclocking, fabrication haste, and emergency thermal debt.
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- **Cognition**: command bandwidth, staff attention, signal clarity, Verse
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authority, operator focus, predictive modeling, witness activity, and the
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stranger Aetheria-specific forms of semantic or neuromorphic strain.
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Cards may come back later as staff-authored procedures, emergency protocol
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bundles, or rig-like command scripts. For V1, the sticky sentence is:
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> Pilots build ships. Commanders build crews.
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## Starbridge
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Starbridge is the co-op product wedge. It is always understandable:
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- one player commands the base;
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- other players fly ships;
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- the team survives waves;
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- bosses drop technologies;
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- the station lets players dock, refit, exchange equipment, and recover.
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Starbridge proves mixed-runtime cooperation without requiring the whole world
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to be alive. The commander can remain in the Aetheria desktop UI. Pilots launch
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into Unity clients that already know which Verse, session, role, and player
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identity to connect to.
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Starbridge is also the friendly on-ramp for persistent loadout attachment. It
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lets players love a ship while the run still changes around them.
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## Arena
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Arena is the consensus crucible.
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To players, Arena is competitive ship combat. Internally, it is where Aetheria
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masters witness-authoritative quorum consensus in a controlled environment:
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- small maps;
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- known player counts;
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- constrained match duration;
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- clear loadout entry;
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- adversarial player intent;
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- replayable combat facts;
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- witness roles;
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- prediction and reconciliation pressure;
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- disconnect and reconnect handling;
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- evidence for anti-cheat and dispute resolution.
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Arena should be the downtime competitive activity when Conquest is not live.
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Its purpose is not to become the always-available deathmatch gravity well that
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starves every richer mode. Its purpose is to keep pilots sharp, generate useful
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combat data, and harden consensus under conditions that are small enough to
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understand.
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Arena uses persistent Hangar builds without Starbridge run scaling. Danger
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level matchmaking should balance teams around the real threat of the assembled
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ships rather than making customization cosmetic.
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## Conquest
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Conquest is the halfway point to a persistent world.
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It lets Aetheria simulate broader economic shifts, factional struggles,
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territorial pressure, logistics, stockpiles, industry, and strategic objectives
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without requiring every sector to be active all the time. The world does not
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need to breathe at full resolution everywhere. It can pulse through campaigns,
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fronts, windows, and resolved aftermath.
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Conquest should run in seasons. Each season is an experiment:
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- which faction pressures matter;
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- how territory changes hands;
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- how markets and production react;
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- which logistics constraints create good play;
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- how player corporations or clans coordinate;
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- how much world-state persistence creates drama without becoming homework.
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These seasons are the current development path for **Profits Rising** gameplay.
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Players may control corporations ranging from inherited small operations to
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stealth startups and larger producers, managing blueprints, licenses, supply
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chains, manufacturing, transport, labor, contracts, and market position in
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support of community warfare. The corporation layer should grow through real
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seasonal pressures rather than appearing all at once as a detached management
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game.
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The long-term destination remains synthesis: corporation-scale Profits Rising
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play and embodied Terminus-style play inhabiting the same persistent economy.
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Starbridge establishes shared combat and command infrastructure; Conquest
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seasons progressively establish the logistics, economic, territorial, and
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organizational machinery needed for that merger.
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When Conquest is active, it should be the PvP focus. If a low-friction
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deathmatch queue is available at the same time, many players will choose the
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short dopamine path and the strategic campaign will wither. Aetheria should not
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fragment its own playerbase just to look feature-rich. Arena exists for
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downtime. Conquest owns the war window.
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## Client Responsibilities
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The Aetheria desktop client should own the cross-mode surfaces:
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- home/front page;
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- account and profile identity;
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- party state and invites;
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- active Verse selection and diagnostics;
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- reconnect and crash recovery;
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- Hangar;
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- Starbridge scenario/session entry;
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- Arena matchmaking and recent-match context;
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- Conquest season map and campaign status;
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- settings that apply across runtimes.
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- party state, invitations, and role selection;
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- session creation, joining, and reconnect;
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- settings shared across runtimes;
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- the Hangar and commander continuity surfaces;
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- launch context for role-specific clients.
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Unity should own the pilot cockpit runtime: flight, combat presentation,
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effects, input, audio, docking transitions, and ship/escape-pod embodiment.
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Unity should not own the product shell. It should launch with the session
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contract it needs and then connect to typed CultMesh state.
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The shell should show only experiences that actually exist in the connected environment. It may advertise developed or future modes separately, but an aspirational design must not masquerade as a playable queue.
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The daemon owns game truth. The desktop client and Unity client are
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role-specific views into typed Verse state. That is the architectural fantasy
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and the product fantasy saying the same thing without having to apologize to
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each other.
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## Hangar
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The Hangar is the player's machine-continuity surface. It contains owned ships, equipment, saved loadouts, component access, cosmetics, names, and the maintenance state that persists beyond one scenario. Modes consume approved loadouts and may apply their own starting conditions, temporary stock, damage, or normalization. They do not fork the inventory.
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The invariant is:
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> Player inventory and loadout state have one durable owner. Every client and mode is a view or bounded consumer of that state.
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This prevents a website inventory, desktop inventory, pilot inventory, and scenario inventory from becoming four accounts that reconcile only after somebody loses a ship. Renderer caches and scene objects may represent equipment without becoming durable truth.
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Starbridge can contextualize a ship through scenario stock, recovered technology, repairs, and run-local pressure. A future competitive mode might validate the same assembly under different entry rules. Persistent ownership defines which machine the player has built; the mode defines what that machine may bring into the current problem.
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## Commander Continuity
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Commanders need continuity comparable to a pilot's attachment to a ship, but they should not carry a custom station into every scenario. The scenario owns its base, starting equipment, available technology, salvage ecology, enemies, and infrastructure constraints. The commander owns an operating history.
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The current Barracks concept represents that history through a bounded bridge crew. A small roster of officers, specialists, or advisory minds can affect warnings, procedures, automation, resource handling, and emergency options without adding forbidden station equipment. Staff may gain experience, working relationships, stress, injury, leave requirements, or refusal after runs. Those changes should remain inspectable and consequential rather than becoming disposable flavor text.
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|
||||
The compact rule is:
|
||||
|
||||
> Scenarios own the available machinery. Commander continuity owns the roster relationships and operating practices carried between scenarios.
|
||||
|
||||
Barracks is one candidate progression design. Its exact roster, presentation, and rules are unresolved and are not client architecture.
|
||||
|
||||
## Mode Status
|
||||
|
||||
| Mode | Status | Relationship to the client |
|
||||
| --- | --- | --- |
|
||||
| [[Aetheria Starbridge|Starbridge]] | **Developed draft GDD** | Asymmetric cooperative defense. A shell could form the party, select roles and scenario, expose continuity context, and recover from disconnects. |
|
||||
| **Arena** | **Historical hypothesis** | A bounded competitive environment proposed to test persistent ship builds, matchmaking, records, and reconciliation. |
|
||||
| **Conquest** | **Historical hypothesis** | Seasonal campaigns proposed to test territory, logistics, production, faction pressure, and community warfare. |
|
||||
| **Persistent world** | **Historical hypothesis** | The older ambition to join embodied and corporation-scale play in one persistent context. |
|
||||
|
||||
These modes need not coexist or appear in this order. A mode earns promotion through a playable proof and an explicit decision, not by surviving in a planning document.
|
||||
|
||||
## Runtime Boundaries
|
||||
|
||||
The implementation invariant is narrower than any particular runtime split: every consequential state change has one named authority, and every client is either that authority or a bounded requester and view. Docking, inventory transfer, equipment changes, rewards, and post-session persistence must commit through their durable owner rather than scene-local state.
|
||||
|
||||
The boundary should remain visible enough to diagnose. A player who reconnects should be able to learn which session they are joining, which role they hold, which loadout was accepted, and whether an action is pending, rejected, or committed. The client is not merely a launcher. It is the place where several runtimes remain one intelligible product without becoming several competing truths.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -1,702 +1,73 @@
|
|||
# Aetheria: Starbridge Promo Art Prompt
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Aetheria: Starbridge Key-Art Brief"
|
||||
description: "Production artifact; non-canon visual brief for Starbridge promotional art."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Date: 2026-06-24
|
||||
# Aetheria: Starbridge Key-Art Brief
|
||||
|
||||
Use case: ads-marketing
|
||||
> [!note] Production artifact
|
||||
> This brief directs promotional image production. It is not setting canon, a gameplay specification, or evidence of implementation. Where it conflicts with the current [[Aetheria Starbridge|Starbridge game design document]] or worldbuilding owner notes, those sources prevail.
|
||||
|
||||
Asset type: Starbridge promo splash art / website hero image
|
||||
## Asset And Delivery
|
||||
|
||||
Input image: use the provided Aetheria screenshot as structural reference, not
|
||||
merely mood. The nebula forms gravitational terrain: a luminous blue-white
|
||||
volumetric surface like an ocean of space-clouds. Resources, debris, ships,
|
||||
stations, missiles, and combat activity cluster along or just above this nebular
|
||||
surface. Larger celestial bodies float above the surface. The battlefield should
|
||||
feel like it takes place at the playable boundary of the nebula, not in empty
|
||||
black deep space.
|
||||
Create a cinematic panoramic hero image for **Aetheria: Starbridge**, suitable for the website, store capsules, and wide promotional crops. Preserve the central defensive relationship when cropping: station rim below, four defenders across the middle, and attackers pressing inward from the far field. Keep important ships and effects away from the extreme edges so narrower crops do not reverse or erase the scene.
|
||||
|
||||
Primary request: Create splashy matte-painting promo art for Aetheria:
|
||||
Starbridge. An Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station is under siege by pirate
|
||||
forces on the surface of a blue-white nebular gravity terrain. The station is
|
||||
under fire, shields are catching laser impacts, incoming missile swarms are
|
||||
being shredded by point-defense cannons, and multiple pirate combat roles are
|
||||
actively attacking the station and its defenders.
|
||||
The adopted reference image is [`starbridge-promo-outward-panorama.png`](../media/aetheria/starbridge-promo-outward-panorama.png). Use it as the current composition reference, not as independent evidence for lore or mechanics.
|
||||
|
||||
Scene/backdrop: a luminous blue-white nebula forms a rolling gravitational
|
||||
terrain surface across the lower two-thirds of the image, with darker ridges and
|
||||
bright cloud valleys. Asteroid resources and debris float at the surface. A
|
||||
small icy moon or pale celestial body floats above the terrain in the upper
|
||||
middle distance, echoing the reference image.
|
||||
## Visual Promise
|
||||
|
||||
Main station: a large Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station sits slightly right
|
||||
of center, hovering just above the nebular surface. It has clean industrial
|
||||
modular architecture: docking arms, radiator wings, shield emitter pylons,
|
||||
point-defense turret clusters, a central fabrication core, and repair/service
|
||||
bays. It is visibly under siege but still functioning.
|
||||
The image must communicate the cooperative concept in one glance: one station, four distinct player ships, and a siege that requires different jobs. The viewer is perched above the station looking outward across a luminous battlefield. Defenders form a readable protective line. Enemy movement and fire converge inward. Every vector must answer the basic question of who is protecting whom.
|
||||
|
||||
Four defending player ships, explicitly placed and differentiated:
|
||||
## Camera And Composition
|
||||
|
||||
1. DPS ship A: sleek red-and-white interceptor in the lower left foreground,
|
||||
knife-like triangular profile, bright engine flare, banking upward across the
|
||||
nebula surface while firing twin blue-white laser streams into a pirate
|
||||
fighter pack.
|
||||
2. DPS ship B: heavier gunship in the upper right near the station shield, broad
|
||||
forward cannons and missile pods, launching a salvo diagonally outward into
|
||||
the incoming horde while its nose points away from the station.
|
||||
3. Tank ship: bulky armored shield ship directly in front of the station on the
|
||||
left side of the shield perimeter, slab armor, large glowing frontal shield
|
||||
projector, intentionally absorbing a concentrated red-orange laser barrage.
|
||||
Its projected shield bubble overlaps the station shield and visibly deflects
|
||||
or refracts several beams.
|
||||
4. Support ship: compact utility/service craft below the station near a damaged
|
||||
radiator wing, with articulated repair arms and glowing cyan coolant beam. It
|
||||
is tethered to the station module with one repair beam and a second cooling
|
||||
beam, venting white-blue heat mist away from the damaged section.
|
||||
Use a wide-angle camera above and slightly behind the station, looking outward rather than straight down. The station core sits below the camera and outside the frame. Only its upper rim occupies the bottom foreground: shield emitters, point-defense turrets, docking-arm tips, radiator edges, service gantries, and glowing industrial infrastructure.
|
||||
|
||||
Enemy combatants, explicitly placed and acting:
|
||||
Beyond that rim, a curved shield perimeter crosses the middle band. Arrange four medium-sized defender ships along it in a loose diamond, all oriented outward. The far field is blue-white nebular gravitational terrain with asteroid resources, debris, and attackers moving along its surface. A small pale moon in the upper middle distance provides scale and depth.
|
||||
|
||||
1. Pirate missile boats: three wedge-shaped pirate craft on the far right edge
|
||||
of the nebula terrain, launching dense curved missile swarms toward the
|
||||
station. Their launch racks glow orange, and fresh missile trails arc across
|
||||
the image toward point-defense fire.
|
||||
2. Pirate laser raiders: a tight pack of small fast ships on the far left border
|
||||
skimming the nebula surface, firing red-orange beam volleys at the tank ship
|
||||
and station shields. Several beams visibly splash, bend, or reflect off the
|
||||
overlapping cyan shields.
|
||||
3. Boarding pod carriers: two ugly armored carrier craft in the lower right
|
||||
midground releasing small boarding pods or breach drones toward the station's
|
||||
docking arms. The pods form a dotted line of hot engine sparks approaching
|
||||
the shield boundary.
|
||||
4. Torpedo bomber: one larger pirate bomber above the nebular surface near the
|
||||
upper left, lining up a heavy torpedo run on the station fabrication core
|
||||
while DPS ship B's missile salvo streaks toward it.
|
||||
5. Jammer corvette: a spindly pirate support vessel at the far upper right,
|
||||
projecting faint red interference rings toward the station sensor mast, while
|
||||
station point-defense tracers try to punch through the interference.
|
||||
6. Salvage skiffs: two small pirate skiffs near the lower edge trying to tow
|
||||
wreckage or resource fragments away from the battlefield, giving DPS ship A a
|
||||
clear target cluster.
|
||||
Focal hierarchy:
|
||||
|
||||
Combat action: laser volleys splash across semi-transparent cyan station
|
||||
shields, with some beams partially absorbed and reflected as bright refracted
|
||||
streaks. Dense swarms of incoming missiles arc toward the station from the
|
||||
pirate missile boats. Station point-defense cannons fire rapid white tracer
|
||||
streams, detonating missiles into small bright explosions before impact.
|
||||
Boarding pods attempt to cross the shield boundary near docking arms. The jammer
|
||||
corvette creates visible interference around the sensor mast. Debris and
|
||||
resources drift along the nebula surface.
|
||||
1. The station rim and shield arc establish what must survive.
|
||||
2. Four bright, distinct defenders establish asymmetric cooperation.
|
||||
3. Darker pirate groups outside the perimeter establish inward pressure.
|
||||
4. Weapon, shield, repair, and movement effects explain the battle without becoming visual static.
|
||||
|
||||
Style/medium: high-end cinematic sci-fi matte painting, key art, painterly
|
||||
realism, dramatic scale, dense but readable battlefield composition, no UI, no
|
||||
text.
|
||||
## Defender Roles
|
||||
|
||||
Composition/framing: wide landscape hero image. Nebula terrain sweeps from
|
||||
bottom left to upper right like a playable surface. Station is the focal point
|
||||
slightly right of center. DPS A in lower left foreground attacking skiffs and
|
||||
raiders, tank between station and left-side laser fire, support below station at
|
||||
damaged radiator, DPS B upper right pushing outward against bomber and missile
|
||||
boats. Pirate missile boats occupy far right, laser raiders far left, boarding
|
||||
pod carriers lower right, torpedo bomber upper left, jammer corvette upper
|
||||
right, salvage skiffs lower edge. Missile trails, shield arcs, boarding pod
|
||||
paths, and point-defense tracers lead the eye back to the station. Leave
|
||||
atmospheric negative space near the upper left for possible website copy, but
|
||||
include no text.
|
||||
- **Interceptor — lower left:** a sleek red-and-white triangular craft banking outward. Twin blue-white lasers strike raiders on the left approach.
|
||||
- **Shield defender — left center:** a bulky slab-armored ship between the station and the heaviest fire. Its cyan frontal shield faces outward and catches red-orange beams before they reach the base.
|
||||
- **Gunship — upper right:** a heavier craft with broad cannons and missile pods, firing outward at bombers and missile boats.
|
||||
- **Support craft — lower right:** a compact utility vessel near a damaged radiator edge. Articulated repair arms, one cyan repair beam, and one pale coolant beam reach back toward the station while white-blue heat mist vents away. It must read as servicing the base, never firing on it.
|
||||
|
||||
Lighting/mood: intense blue-white nebula backlight, cold cyan shields and
|
||||
coolant beams, hot red-orange pirate impacts, white point-defense flashes,
|
||||
desperate but heroic co-op defense energy.
|
||||
## Enemy Pressure And Motion
|
||||
|
||||
Color palette: cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white nebula haze, steel-gray
|
||||
AU station, red-orange impact accents and pirate engine glows, small red/white
|
||||
accents on DPS A.
|
||||
Pirate forces remain outside the shield perimeter. Use several readable silhouettes rather than a catalogue of equal-detail ships: fast laser raiders on the left, wedge-shaped missile boats on the right, a distant torpedo bomber, and armored carriers releasing boarding pods toward the docking arms. Optional salvage skiffs may pull wreckage away at the outer edge.
|
||||
|
||||
Materials/textures: industrial station plating, glassy shield refraction,
|
||||
heat-scarred turret barrels, missile plasma trails, repair/cooling beams,
|
||||
asteroid debris, volumetric nebula clouds, ragged pirate armor plating, scorched
|
||||
missile racks, flickering jammer rings.
|
||||
Enemy beams, missiles, pods, and interference effects travel inward. Defender lasers, missiles, shields, and point-defense tracers face outward. Turret tracers originate from the station rim and intercept incoming swarms. Repair and coolant beams angle back toward station infrastructure and remain visually distinct from weapons. No defender weapon line points into the station.
|
||||
|
||||
Constraints: no text, no logos, no watermark, no readable cockpit UI, no single
|
||||
huge human figure, no Star Wars/Star Trek styling, no fantasy magic. The four
|
||||
player ships must be visibly distinct by silhouette, location, and action
|
||||
exactly as described. Enemy ships must not be a generic horde: show their
|
||||
specific attacks and battlefield jobs.
|
||||
## Terrain, Palette, And Materials
|
||||
|
||||
## Revision: Protective Defender Formation
|
||||
The nebula is gravitational terrain, not a decorative skybox: a luminous blue-white volumetric surface resembling an ocean of space-clouds. Ships, wreckage, resources, missiles, and combat cluster along or just above its playable boundary. Larger celestial bodies float above it.
|
||||
|
||||
Use case: ads-marketing
|
||||
Use cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white haze, and steel-gray station plating, interrupted by red-orange pirate engines and impacts. The interceptor may carry restrained red-and-white accents. Materials should feel industrial and worked: heat-scarred turret barrels, radiator fins, service gantries, glassy shield refraction, missile plasma trails, scorched pirate armor, asteroid debris, and turbulent volumetric cloud.
|
||||
|
||||
Asset type: Starbridge promo splash art / website hero image
|
||||
Render as high-end cinematic science-fiction matte painting with painterly realism, dramatic scale, and dense but legible action. The mood is desperate, competent cooperation rather than effortless triumph.
|
||||
|
||||
Input image: use the provided Aetheria screenshot as structural reference, not
|
||||
merely mood. The nebula forms gravitational terrain: a luminous blue-white
|
||||
volumetric surface like an ocean of space-clouds. Resources, debris, ships,
|
||||
stations, missiles, and combat activity cluster along or just above this nebular
|
||||
surface. Larger celestial bodies float above the surface. The battlefield should
|
||||
feel like it takes place at the playable boundary of the nebula, not in empty
|
||||
black deep space.
|
||||
## Must Preserve
|
||||
|
||||
Primary request: Create splashy matte-painting promo art for Aetheria:
|
||||
Starbridge. An Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station is being defended by four
|
||||
player ships arranged protectively around it while pirate forces attack from the
|
||||
outer edges of the nebular terrain. The defenders should clearly form a
|
||||
protective perimeter around the station, facing outward. They must not look like
|
||||
they are attacking the station.
|
||||
- outward-looking camera above the station;
|
||||
- only the station's upper rim visible along the bottom;
|
||||
- four defenders with immediately distinct roles;
|
||||
- attackers and attack origins outside the perimeter;
|
||||
- inward enemy pressure and outward defensive response;
|
||||
- nebular terrain functioning as the battlefield surface;
|
||||
- a composition that survives wide promotional crops.
|
||||
|
||||
Scene/backdrop: a luminous blue-white nebula forms a rolling gravitational
|
||||
terrain surface across the lower two-thirds of the image, with darker ridges and
|
||||
bright cloud valleys. Asteroid resources and debris float at the surface. A
|
||||
small icy moon or pale celestial body floats above the terrain in the upper
|
||||
middle distance, echoing the reference image.
|
||||
## Must Avoid
|
||||
|
||||
Main station: a large Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station sits at the center
|
||||
of the defensive composition, hovering just above the nebular surface. It has
|
||||
clean industrial modular architecture: docking arms, radiator wings, shield
|
||||
emitter pylons, point-defense turret clusters, a central fabrication core, and
|
||||
repair/service bays. It is visibly under siege but still functioning.
|
||||
|
||||
Defensive arrangement: the four player ships form a protective diamond/ring
|
||||
around the station, each ship oriented outward toward incoming enemies. Their
|
||||
weapon fire, shields, repair beams, and movement arcs all point away from the
|
||||
station or along its perimeter. Enemy fire and missiles come inward from the
|
||||
outside edges toward the station and the defender ring.
|
||||
|
||||
Four defending player ships, explicitly placed and differentiated:
|
||||
|
||||
1. DPS ship A: sleek red-and-white interceptor in the lower left foreground
|
||||
outside the station shield, knife-like triangular profile, bright engine
|
||||
flare, nose pointed away from the station toward incoming pirate skiffs. It
|
||||
banks along the nebula surface while firing twin blue-white laser streams
|
||||
outward into a pirate fighter pack.
|
||||
2. DPS ship B: heavier gunship above and to the right of the station, broad
|
||||
forward cannons and missile pods, parked just outside the shield perimeter
|
||||
with its nose pointed outward. It launches a missile salvo away from the
|
||||
station toward a torpedo bomber and missile boats at the far edge.
|
||||
3. Tank ship: bulky armored shield ship on the left-front side of the station
|
||||
perimeter, between the station and the heaviest incoming laser fire. It has
|
||||
slab armor and a large glowing frontal shield projector facing outward. Its
|
||||
shield bubble overlaps the station shield, intercepting and refracting
|
||||
red-orange laser volleys before they reach the base.
|
||||
4. Support ship: compact utility/service craft below and slightly behind the
|
||||
station, tucked inside the defender ring near a damaged radiator wing. It has
|
||||
articulated repair arms and glowing cyan coolant beams tethered to the
|
||||
station module. It is not attacking the station; it is clearly repairing and
|
||||
cooling it, venting white-blue heat mist away from the damaged section.
|
||||
|
||||
Enemy combatants, explicitly placed and acting from outside the defender ring:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Pirate missile boats: three wedge-shaped pirate craft on the far right edge
|
||||
of the nebula terrain, launching dense curved missile swarms inward toward
|
||||
the station. Their launch racks glow orange, and fresh missile trails arc
|
||||
toward station point-defense fire.
|
||||
2. Pirate laser raiders: a tight pack of small fast ships on the far left border
|
||||
skimming the nebula surface, firing red-orange beam volleys inward at the
|
||||
tank ship and station shields. Several beams visibly splash, bend, or reflect
|
||||
off the overlapping cyan shields.
|
||||
3. Boarding pod carriers: two ugly armored carrier craft in the lower right
|
||||
midground releasing small boarding pods or breach drones inward toward the
|
||||
station's docking arms. The pods form a dotted line of hot engine sparks
|
||||
approaching the shield boundary.
|
||||
4. Torpedo bomber: one larger pirate bomber above the nebular surface near the
|
||||
upper left edge, lining up a heavy torpedo run toward the station fabrication
|
||||
core while DPS ship B's missile salvo streaks outward to intercept it.
|
||||
5. Jammer corvette: a spindly pirate support vessel at the far upper right,
|
||||
projecting faint red interference rings inward toward the station sensor
|
||||
mast, while station point-defense tracers try to punch through the
|
||||
interference.
|
||||
6. Salvage skiffs: two small pirate skiffs near the lower edge trying to tow
|
||||
wreckage or resource fragments away from the battlefield, while DPS ship A
|
||||
peels outward to stop them.
|
||||
|
||||
Combat action: laser volleys splash across semi-transparent cyan station
|
||||
shields, with some beams partially absorbed and reflected as bright refracted
|
||||
streaks. Dense swarms of incoming missiles arc inward toward the station from
|
||||
the pirate missile boats. Station point-defense cannons fire rapid white tracer
|
||||
streams outward, detonating missiles into small bright explosions before impact.
|
||||
Boarding pods attempt to cross the shield boundary near docking arms. The jammer
|
||||
corvette creates visible interference around the sensor mast. Debris and
|
||||
resources drift along the nebula surface.
|
||||
|
||||
Style/medium: high-end cinematic sci-fi matte painting, key art, painterly
|
||||
realism, dramatic scale, dense but readable battlefield composition, no UI, no
|
||||
text.
|
||||
|
||||
Composition/framing: wide landscape hero image. Nebula terrain sweeps from
|
||||
bottom left to upper right like a playable surface. Station is central and
|
||||
protected. The four player ships form a visible defensive diamond around the
|
||||
station: DPS A lower left facing outward, tank left-front blocking incoming
|
||||
fire, support below/behind station repairing a radiator, DPS B upper right
|
||||
facing outward. Pirate missile boats occupy far right, laser raiders far left,
|
||||
boarding pod carriers lower right, torpedo bomber upper left, jammer corvette
|
||||
upper right, salvage skiffs lower edge. Missile trails, enemy laser beams,
|
||||
boarding pod paths, and jammer rings travel inward from the outer edges, while
|
||||
defender fire, shields, point-defense tracers, and repair beams show the crew
|
||||
protecting the station. Leave atmospheric negative space near the upper left for
|
||||
possible website copy, but include no text.
|
||||
|
||||
Lighting/mood: intense blue-white nebula backlight, cold cyan shields and
|
||||
coolant beams, hot red-orange pirate impacts, white point-defense flashes,
|
||||
desperate but heroic co-op defense energy.
|
||||
|
||||
Color palette: cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white nebula haze, steel-gray
|
||||
AU station, red-orange impact accents and pirate engine glows, small red/white
|
||||
accents on DPS A.
|
||||
|
||||
Materials/textures: industrial station plating, glassy shield refraction,
|
||||
heat-scarred turret barrels, missile plasma trails, repair/cooling beams,
|
||||
asteroid debris, volumetric nebula clouds, ragged pirate armor plating, scorched
|
||||
missile racks, flickering jammer rings.
|
||||
|
||||
Constraints: no text, no logos, no watermark, no readable cockpit UI, no single
|
||||
huge human figure, no Star Wars/Star Trek styling, no fantasy magic. The four
|
||||
player ships must visibly protect the station from outside threats. Enemy attack
|
||||
vectors must clearly come from the outer perimeter inward. Defender weapons
|
||||
should point outward or along the perimeter, never into the station. Enemy ships
|
||||
must not be a generic horde: show their specific attacks and battlefield jobs.
|
||||
|
||||
## Revision: Panoramic Overhead Base-Core Camera
|
||||
|
||||
Use case: ads-marketing
|
||||
|
||||
Asset type: Starbridge promo splash art / panoramic website hero image
|
||||
|
||||
Input image: use the provided Aetheria screenshot as structural reference, not
|
||||
merely mood. The nebula forms gravitational terrain: a luminous blue-white
|
||||
volumetric surface like an ocean of space-clouds. Resources, debris, ships,
|
||||
stations, missiles, and combat activity cluster along or just above this nebular
|
||||
surface. Larger celestial bodies float above the surface. The battlefield should
|
||||
feel like it takes place at the playable boundary of the nebula, not in empty
|
||||
black deep space.
|
||||
|
||||
Camera and format: panoramic wide-angle layout from a high camera above the
|
||||
station, looking down over the core of the base and outward across the nebular
|
||||
terrain. The bottom third of the screen is occupied by a wide-angle view of the
|
||||
station core and inner base structures, as if the viewer is hovering above the
|
||||
base looking out toward the incoming attack. The composition must feel like a
|
||||
deliberate panorama: broad horizontal battlefield, layered depth from bottom
|
||||
foreground station core to midground defender ring to distant pirate borders,
|
||||
clear left-to-right sweep of action.
|
||||
|
||||
Primary request: Create splashy matte-painting promo art for Aetheria:
|
||||
Starbridge. An Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station is being defended by four
|
||||
player ships arranged protectively around it while pirate forces attack from the
|
||||
outer edges of the nebular terrain. The defenders should clearly form a
|
||||
protective perimeter around the station, facing outward. They must not look like
|
||||
they are attacking the station.
|
||||
|
||||
Scene/backdrop: a luminous blue-white nebula forms a rolling gravitational
|
||||
terrain surface across the middle and far distance, with darker ridges and
|
||||
bright cloud valleys. Asteroid resources and debris float at the surface. A
|
||||
small icy moon or pale celestial body floats above the terrain in the upper
|
||||
middle distance, echoing the reference image.
|
||||
|
||||
Main station and base core: the Aeronautics Unlimited station fills the bottom
|
||||
foreground as a wide, readable base-core view. Show the central fabrication
|
||||
core, docking arms, radiator wings, shield emitter pylons, point-defense turret
|
||||
clusters, repair/service bays, cargo trusses, and glowing infrastructure from
|
||||
above. The station extends upward into the midground, but the bottom of the
|
||||
image should clearly be the base interior/core area, not empty space. The
|
||||
station is visibly under siege but still functioning.
|
||||
|
||||
Defensive arrangement: the four player ships form a protective diamond/ring
|
||||
around the station perimeter in the midground, each ship oriented outward toward
|
||||
incoming enemies. Their weapon fire, shields, repair beams, and movement arcs
|
||||
all point away from the station or along its perimeter. Enemy fire and missiles
|
||||
come inward from the outside edges toward the station and defender ring.
|
||||
|
||||
Four defending player ships, explicitly placed and differentiated:
|
||||
|
||||
1. DPS ship A: sleek red-and-white interceptor in the lower-left/mid-left
|
||||
perimeter just beyond the base core, knife-like triangular profile, bright
|
||||
engine flare, nose pointed outward toward incoming pirate skiffs. It banks
|
||||
along the nebula surface while firing twin blue-white laser streams outward
|
||||
into a pirate fighter pack.
|
||||
2. DPS ship B: heavier gunship above and to the right of the station perimeter,
|
||||
broad forward cannons and missile pods, parked just outside the shield with
|
||||
its nose pointed outward. It launches a missile salvo away from the station
|
||||
toward a torpedo bomber and missile boats at the far edge.
|
||||
3. Tank ship: bulky armored shield ship on the left-front side of the station
|
||||
perimeter, between the station and the heaviest incoming laser fire. It has
|
||||
slab armor and a large glowing frontal shield projector facing outward. Its
|
||||
shield bubble overlaps the station shield, intercepting and refracting
|
||||
red-orange laser volleys before they reach the base core.
|
||||
4. Support ship: compact utility/service craft above the lower station core,
|
||||
close to a damaged radiator wing or service bay, with articulated repair arms
|
||||
and glowing cyan coolant beams tethered to the station module. It is clearly
|
||||
repairing and cooling the station, venting white-blue heat mist away from the
|
||||
damaged section.
|
||||
|
||||
Enemy combatants, explicitly placed and acting from outside the defender ring:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Pirate missile boats: three wedge-shaped pirate craft on the far right edge
|
||||
of the nebula terrain, launching dense curved missile swarms inward toward
|
||||
the station. Their launch racks glow orange, and fresh missile trails arc
|
||||
toward station point-defense fire.
|
||||
2. Pirate laser raiders: a tight pack of small fast ships on the far left border
|
||||
skimming the nebula surface, firing red-orange beam volleys inward at the
|
||||
tank ship and station shields. Several beams visibly splash, bend, or reflect
|
||||
off the overlapping cyan shields.
|
||||
3. Boarding pod carriers: two ugly armored carrier craft in the lower-right
|
||||
midground outside the base perimeter, releasing small boarding pods or breach
|
||||
drones inward toward the station's docking arms. The pods form a dotted line
|
||||
of hot engine sparks approaching the shield boundary.
|
||||
4. Torpedo bomber: one larger pirate bomber above the nebular surface near the
|
||||
upper-left edge, lining up a heavy torpedo run toward the station fabrication
|
||||
core while DPS ship B's missile salvo streaks outward to intercept it.
|
||||
5. Jammer corvette: a spindly pirate support vessel at the far upper right,
|
||||
projecting faint red interference rings inward toward the station sensor
|
||||
mast, while station point-defense tracers try to punch through the
|
||||
interference.
|
||||
6. Salvage skiffs: two small pirate skiffs near the lower-left outer perimeter
|
||||
trying to tow wreckage or resource fragments away from the battlefield, while
|
||||
DPS ship A peels outward to stop them.
|
||||
|
||||
Combat action: laser volleys splash across semi-transparent cyan station
|
||||
shields, with some beams partially absorbed and reflected as bright refracted
|
||||
streaks. Dense swarms of incoming missiles arc inward toward the station from
|
||||
the pirate missile boats. Station point-defense cannons fire rapid white tracer
|
||||
streams outward from the bottom-foreground base core and perimeter turrets,
|
||||
detonating missiles into small bright explosions before impact. Boarding pods
|
||||
attempt to cross the shield boundary near docking arms. The jammer corvette
|
||||
creates visible interference around the sensor mast. Debris and resources drift
|
||||
along the nebula surface.
|
||||
|
||||
Style/medium: high-end cinematic sci-fi matte painting, key art, painterly
|
||||
realism, dramatic scale, dense but readable battlefield composition, no UI, no
|
||||
text.
|
||||
|
||||
Composition/framing: panoramic wide landscape hero image. High oblique
|
||||
top-down camera above the station core. Bottom third: wide-angle view of the
|
||||
station core, fabrication hub, service bays, docking arms, and point-defense
|
||||
turrets. Middle third: shield perimeter and four defending ships in a protective
|
||||
ring facing outward. Top and far edges: nebular gravitational terrain and pirate
|
||||
attackers pressing inward from left, right, and upper distance. Missile trails,
|
||||
enemy laser beams, boarding pod paths, and jammer rings travel inward from the
|
||||
outer edges, while defender fire, shields, point-defense tracers, and repair
|
||||
beams show the crew protecting the station. Leave atmospheric negative space in
|
||||
the upper-left sky/nebula region for possible website copy, but include no text.
|
||||
|
||||
Lighting/mood: intense blue-white nebula backlight, cold cyan shields and
|
||||
coolant beams, hot red-orange pirate impacts, white point-defense flashes,
|
||||
desperate but heroic co-op defense energy.
|
||||
|
||||
Color palette: cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white nebula haze, steel-gray
|
||||
AU station, red-orange impact accents and pirate engine glows, small red/white
|
||||
accents on DPS A.
|
||||
|
||||
Materials/textures: industrial station plating seen from above, glassy shield
|
||||
refraction, heat-scarred turret barrels, missile plasma trails, repair/cooling
|
||||
beams, asteroid debris, volumetric nebula clouds, ragged pirate armor plating,
|
||||
scorched missile racks, flickering jammer rings.
|
||||
|
||||
Constraints: no text, no logos, no watermark, no readable cockpit UI, no single
|
||||
huge human figure, no Star Wars/Star Trek styling, no fantasy magic. The camera
|
||||
must be above the base with the bottom of the screen occupied by a wide-angle
|
||||
view of the station core. The four player ships must visibly protect the station
|
||||
from outside threats. Enemy attack vectors must clearly come from the outer
|
||||
perimeter inward. Defender weapons should point outward or along the perimeter,
|
||||
never into the station. Enemy ships must not be a generic horde: show their
|
||||
specific attacks and battlefield jobs.
|
||||
|
||||
## Generated Panorama Analysis
|
||||
|
||||
The generated overhead panorama is directionally strong:
|
||||
|
||||
- the base core occupies the bottom foreground;
|
||||
- the nebula reads as a luminous gravitational terrain surface rather than empty
|
||||
space;
|
||||
- missiles, point defense, shields, and enemy pressure create a good broad
|
||||
battle rhythm;
|
||||
- the station is large enough to anchor the image.
|
||||
|
||||
The main weakness is allegiance and vector clarity. Several large ships on the
|
||||
right read as attackers, while the defending player ships do not form an
|
||||
unambiguous protective ring. The image needs more deliberate screen-space
|
||||
composition: station core in fixed bottom coordinates, four defenders locked to
|
||||
named perimeter positions, and enemy groups placed outside that ring with attack
|
||||
vectors aimed inward.
|
||||
|
||||
## Revision: Manual Panoramic Composition Map
|
||||
|
||||
Use case: ads-marketing
|
||||
|
||||
Asset type: Starbridge promo splash art / panoramic website hero image
|
||||
|
||||
Canvas model: treat the image as a 100-by-100 composition grid. `x=0` is the
|
||||
left edge, `x=100` is the right edge, `y=0` is the top edge, and `y=100` is the
|
||||
bottom edge. Compose the image as a deliberate panorama from a high oblique
|
||||
camera above the base, looking down and outward across the nebular terrain.
|
||||
|
||||
Input image: use the provided Aetheria screenshot as structural reference, not
|
||||
merely mood. The nebula forms gravitational terrain: a luminous blue-white
|
||||
volumetric surface like an ocean of space-clouds. Resources, debris, ships,
|
||||
stations, missiles, and combat activity cluster along or just above this nebular
|
||||
surface. Larger celestial bodies float above the surface. The battlefield should
|
||||
feel like it takes place at the playable boundary of the nebula, not in empty
|
||||
black deep space.
|
||||
|
||||
Camera and format: panoramic wide-angle key art, high oblique top-down camera.
|
||||
The bottom third is a wide-angle view of the station core and inner base
|
||||
structures. The middle third is the shield perimeter and defending player
|
||||
formation. The upper third and far left/right edges are the enemy approach
|
||||
zones. The composition must read from bottom foreground base core, through
|
||||
midground defender ring, to distant pirate attack borders.
|
||||
|
||||
Primary request: Create splashy matte-painting promo art for Aetheria:
|
||||
Starbridge. An Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station is being defended by four
|
||||
player ships arranged protectively around it while pirate forces attack from the
|
||||
outer edges of the nebular terrain. The defenders must clearly face outward and
|
||||
protect the station. They must not look like they are attacking the station.
|
||||
|
||||
Absolute composition map:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Station core / base foreground**: occupies `x=24-76`, `y=58-100`. The
|
||||
central fabrication core is at `x=50`, `y=75`. Large visible decks, service
|
||||
bays, cargo trusses, docking arms, radiator panels, and point-defense turrets
|
||||
fill the bottom foreground. The base should feel like the viewer is hovering
|
||||
above its core.
|
||||
- **Station shield perimeter**: visible cyan oval/arc centered around `x=50`,
|
||||
`y=57`, spanning roughly `x=18-82`, `y=34-82`. The shield is thinner at the
|
||||
top, stronger and brighter where incoming fire hits on the left and right.
|
||||
- **Nebular gravitational terrain**: fills the entire background beyond the
|
||||
station, especially `x=0-100`, `y=0-65`, with rolling blue-white ridges and
|
||||
bright cloud valleys. The nebula surface should flow diagonally from
|
||||
`x=0,y=58` toward `x=100,y=22`.
|
||||
- **Celestial body**: small pale icy moon at `x=53`, `y=12`, above the nebula
|
||||
terrain and behind the battle.
|
||||
|
||||
Four defending player ships, locked to positions:
|
||||
|
||||
1. **DPS ship A / interceptor**: located at `x=19`, `y=64`, just outside the
|
||||
lower-left shield arc. Sleek red-and-white triangular interceptor, nose
|
||||
pointed outward toward `x=5`, `y=55`. It fires twin blue-white laser streams
|
||||
outward-left into pirate skiffs and laser raiders. Its engine trail curves
|
||||
along the station perimeter, showing it is patrolling the ring.
|
||||
2. **Tank ship / shield defender**: located at `x=34`, `y=48`, left-front of
|
||||
the station, directly between the station core and the left enemy approach.
|
||||
Bulky slab-armored ship, nose pointed outward toward `x=7`, `y=42`. It
|
||||
projects a large cyan frontal shield facing left, overlapping the station
|
||||
shield. Red-orange enemy laser beams strike this shield and refract away from
|
||||
the base.
|
||||
3. **DPS ship B / gunship**: located at `x=68`, `y=42`, upper-right perimeter.
|
||||
Heavier gunship with broad cannons and missile pods, nose pointed outward
|
||||
toward `x=88`, `y=26`. It launches a missile salvo outward-right toward the
|
||||
torpedo bomber and missile boats. Its missiles must travel away from the
|
||||
station, not toward it.
|
||||
4. **Support ship / repair-cooling craft**: located at `x=66`, `y=70`, inside
|
||||
the lower-right shield perimeter near a damaged radiator wing at `x=61`,
|
||||
`y=78`. Compact utility ship with articulated repair arms. One cyan repair
|
||||
beam and one paler coolant beam connect from the support ship to the damaged
|
||||
station module. White-blue heat mist vents away from the module toward
|
||||
`x=74`, `y=67`.
|
||||
|
||||
Enemy combatants, locked outside the defender ring:
|
||||
|
||||
1. **Pirate laser raiders**: small fast ships in three packs at `x=2-16`,
|
||||
`y=36-59`. They skim along the nebula surface and fire red-orange beams
|
||||
inward-right toward the tank ship at `x=34`, `y=48`. No raider crosses inside
|
||||
the shield perimeter.
|
||||
2. **Pirate missile boats**: three wedge-shaped craft at `x=86-98`, `y=34-61`.
|
||||
They launch dense curved missile swarms inward-left toward the station shield
|
||||
and point-defense turrets. Missile trails start at the right edge and bend
|
||||
toward `x=58`, `y=55`.
|
||||
3. **Boarding pod carriers**: two armored carriers at `x=82-93`, `y=67-80`.
|
||||
They release a dotted stream of small boarding pods toward docking arms at
|
||||
`x=68`, `y=72`. Pods travel inward-left but stop visually at the shield
|
||||
boundary.
|
||||
4. **Torpedo bomber**: one larger pirate bomber at `x=18`, `y=20`, above the
|
||||
nebular surface. It aims a heavy torpedo diagonally down-right toward the
|
||||
station fabrication core at `x=50`, `y=75`, while DPS ship B's missiles
|
||||
streak outward to intercept it.
|
||||
5. **Jammer corvette**: spindly pirate support vessel at `x=82`, `y=14`. It
|
||||
projects faint red interference rings diagonally inward toward the station
|
||||
sensor mast at `x=52`, `y=52`.
|
||||
6. **Salvage skiffs**: two tiny pirate utility craft at `x=6-14`, `y=76-86`,
|
||||
towing asteroid/resource fragments away from the lower-left perimeter. DPS
|
||||
ship A is visibly turning outward to stop them.
|
||||
|
||||
Projectile and motion vectors:
|
||||
|
||||
- Enemy fire always travels from the outside edges inward toward the station or
|
||||
defender ring.
|
||||
- Defender fire always travels outward from the station perimeter toward enemy
|
||||
groups.
|
||||
- Point-defense tracers originate from base turrets at `x=42-66`, `y=58-78` and
|
||||
shoot upward/right and upward/left into incoming missiles.
|
||||
- The brightest shield impacts happen at `x=31`, `y=48` on the tank shield and
|
||||
`x=72`, `y=56` on the station shield.
|
||||
- No major defender weapon line should point into the base core.
|
||||
|
||||
Visual hierarchy:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Station core and shield perimeter are the largest readable forms.
|
||||
2. Four defender ships are medium-sized, bright, and cleanly colored with cyan
|
||||
friendly effects.
|
||||
3. Enemy ships are smaller or darker, with ragged silhouettes and red-orange
|
||||
effects, except for the torpedo bomber and jammer corvette which are larger
|
||||
but clearly outside the perimeter.
|
||||
4. Missile trails, laser beams, point-defense tracers, repair beams, and shield
|
||||
arcs must guide the eye back to the station without making the defenders look
|
||||
hostile to it.
|
||||
|
||||
Style/medium: high-end cinematic sci-fi matte painting, key art, painterly
|
||||
realism, dramatic scale, dense but readable battlefield composition, no UI, no
|
||||
text.
|
||||
|
||||
Lighting/mood: intense blue-white nebula backlight, cold cyan shields and
|
||||
coolant beams, hot red-orange pirate impacts, white point-defense flashes,
|
||||
desperate but heroic co-op defense energy.
|
||||
|
||||
Color palette: cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white nebula haze, steel-gray
|
||||
AU station, red-orange impact accents and pirate engine glows, small red/white
|
||||
accents on DPS A.
|
||||
|
||||
Materials/textures: industrial station plating seen from above, glassy shield
|
||||
refraction, heat-scarred turret barrels, missile plasma trails, repair/cooling
|
||||
beams, asteroid debris, volumetric nebula clouds, ragged pirate armor plating,
|
||||
scorched missile racks, flickering jammer rings.
|
||||
|
||||
Constraints: no text, no logos, no watermark, no readable cockpit UI, no single
|
||||
huge human figure, no Star Wars/Star Trek styling, no fantasy magic. Keep the
|
||||
camera above the base. Keep the bottom third occupied by the station core. Keep
|
||||
the four player ships arranged protectively around the station, facing outward.
|
||||
Place all enemy groups outside the shield perimeter. Make every attack vector
|
||||
and defensive action legible in the panorama.
|
||||
|
||||
## Revision: Outward-Looking Panorama From Above Station
|
||||
|
||||
Use case: ads-marketing
|
||||
|
||||
Asset type: Starbridge promo splash art / panoramic website hero image
|
||||
|
||||
Input image: use the provided Aetheria screenshot as structural reference, not
|
||||
merely mood. The nebula forms gravitational terrain: a luminous blue-white
|
||||
volumetric surface like an ocean of space-clouds. Resources, debris, ships,
|
||||
stations, missiles, and combat activity cluster along or just above this nebular
|
||||
surface. Larger celestial bodies float above the surface. The battlefield should
|
||||
feel like it takes place at the playable boundary of the nebula, not in empty
|
||||
black deep space.
|
||||
|
||||
Camera and format: panoramic wide-angle key art from a camera positioned above
|
||||
the station, looking outward across the battlefield rather than straight down.
|
||||
The station core is below and slightly behind the camera, mostly out of sight.
|
||||
Only the upper rim of the base, shield projectors, turrets, docking arms,
|
||||
radiator edges, and service structures are visible along the bottom foreground.
|
||||
The viewer should feel perched above the base looking out over its defensive
|
||||
perimeter toward the incoming pirates.
|
||||
|
||||
Primary request: Create splashy matte-painting promo art for Aetheria:
|
||||
Starbridge. An Aeronautics Unlimited frontier station is being defended by four
|
||||
player ships arranged protectively around its visible upper perimeter while
|
||||
pirate forces attack from the outer edges of the nebular terrain. The defenders
|
||||
must clearly face outward and protect the station. They must not look like they
|
||||
are attacking the station.
|
||||
|
||||
Composition:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Bottom foreground**: the upper edge of the station fills the bottom band of
|
||||
the panorama. Show only the visible rim of the base: shield emitter pylons,
|
||||
point-defense turrets, docking-arm tips, radiator edges, service gantries, and
|
||||
glowing infrastructure. The actual base core is below the camera and out of
|
||||
frame.
|
||||
- **Middle band**: the station shield perimeter arcs across the image, just
|
||||
beyond the foreground base rim. Four defending player ships form a clear
|
||||
protective diamond along this perimeter, all oriented outward.
|
||||
- **Far field**: the blue-white nebular gravitational terrain stretches outward
|
||||
from the station into the distance, with asteroid resources and debris
|
||||
floating at the surface. Pirate attackers occupy the far left, far right,
|
||||
upper-left, upper-right, and lower side approach lanes outside the defender
|
||||
ring.
|
||||
- **Sky/depth marker**: a small pale icy moon or celestial body floats above the
|
||||
nebular terrain in the upper middle distance, giving scale and echoing the
|
||||
provided reference.
|
||||
|
||||
Four defending player ships:
|
||||
|
||||
1. **DPS ship A / interceptor**: lower-left perimeter, just beyond the visible
|
||||
base rim and outside the shield arc. Sleek red-and-white triangular
|
||||
interceptor, banking outward along the nebula surface. It fires twin
|
||||
blue-white laser streams away from the station into pirate skiffs and laser
|
||||
raiders on the left approach.
|
||||
2. **Tank ship / shield defender**: left-center perimeter, between the station
|
||||
and the heaviest incoming laser fire. Bulky slab-armored ship with a large
|
||||
cyan frontal shield facing outward. Its shield overlaps the station shield,
|
||||
catching red-orange beams before they reach the visible base rim.
|
||||
3. **DPS ship B / gunship**: upper-right perimeter, outside the shield arc.
|
||||
Heavier gunship with broad cannons and missile pods, nose pointed outward
|
||||
toward the right and upper-right approaches. It launches missiles away from
|
||||
the station toward a torpedo bomber and missile boats.
|
||||
4. **Support ship / repair-cooling craft**: lower-right perimeter, close to a
|
||||
damaged radiator edge on the visible base rim. Compact utility craft with
|
||||
articulated repair arms. One cyan repair beam and one pale coolant beam reach
|
||||
down and back toward the damaged station edge, while white-blue heat mist
|
||||
vents away from the base. It must read as servicing the station, not attacking
|
||||
it.
|
||||
|
||||
Enemy combatants:
|
||||
|
||||
1. **Pirate laser raiders**: far left approach, small fast ships skimming the
|
||||
nebula surface. They fire red-orange beam volleys inward toward the tank ship
|
||||
and station shield.
|
||||
2. **Pirate missile boats**: far right approach, wedge-shaped craft launching
|
||||
dense curved missile swarms inward toward the station. Missile trails arc
|
||||
across the panorama and are intercepted by point defense.
|
||||
3. **Boarding pod carriers**: lower-right outer approach, ugly armored carriers
|
||||
releasing small boarding pods inward toward the station's docking arms. The
|
||||
pods form a dotted trail of hot engine sparks approaching the shield
|
||||
boundary.
|
||||
4. **Torpedo bomber**: upper-left distance above the nebular surface, lining up
|
||||
a heavy torpedo run toward the station below the camera. DPS ship B's missile
|
||||
salvo streaks outward to intercept it.
|
||||
5. **Jammer corvette**: upper-right distance, spindly pirate support vessel
|
||||
projecting faint red interference rings inward toward the station sensor mast
|
||||
and shield perimeter.
|
||||
6. **Salvage skiffs**: lower-left outer edge, small pirate utility craft trying
|
||||
to tow wreckage or resource fragments away from the battlefield while DPS
|
||||
ship A peels outward to stop them.
|
||||
|
||||
Projectile and motion vectors:
|
||||
|
||||
- Enemy fire, missiles, boarding pods, and jammer rings travel inward from the
|
||||
outer approaches toward the station perimeter.
|
||||
- Defender lasers, missiles, point-defense tracers, and shield faces point
|
||||
outward from the station perimeter toward enemy groups.
|
||||
- Point-defense tracers originate from turrets along the bottom foreground base
|
||||
rim and streak outward into incoming missile swarms.
|
||||
- Repair and coolant beams from the support ship angle down/back toward the
|
||||
damaged station edge, visually distinct from weapons.
|
||||
- No defender weapon line points into the base.
|
||||
|
||||
Visual hierarchy:
|
||||
|
||||
1. The visible station rim and shield perimeter anchor the bottom foreground.
|
||||
2. The four defender ships are bright, medium-sized, and arranged as a protective
|
||||
perimeter.
|
||||
3. Enemy ships are darker, ragged, and outside the perimeter, with red-orange
|
||||
effects.
|
||||
4. Missile trails, laser beams, point-defense tracers, repair beams, shield
|
||||
impacts, and jammer rings guide the eye across the panoramic battlefield
|
||||
without confusing who is defending whom.
|
||||
|
||||
Style/medium: high-end cinematic sci-fi matte painting, key art, painterly
|
||||
realism, dramatic scale, dense but readable battlefield composition, no UI, no
|
||||
text.
|
||||
|
||||
Lighting/mood: intense blue-white nebula backlight, cold cyan shields and
|
||||
coolant beams, hot red-orange pirate impacts, white point-defense flashes,
|
||||
desperate but heroic co-op defense energy.
|
||||
|
||||
Color palette: cold luminous blues, cyan shields, white nebula haze, steel-gray
|
||||
AU station, red-orange impact accents and pirate engine glows, small red/white
|
||||
accents on DPS A.
|
||||
|
||||
Materials/textures: industrial station plating seen from above and behind,
|
||||
glassy shield refraction, heat-scarred turret barrels, missile plasma trails,
|
||||
repair/cooling beams, asteroid debris, volumetric nebula clouds, ragged pirate
|
||||
armor plating, scorched missile racks, flickering jammer rings.
|
||||
|
||||
Constraints: no text, no logos, no watermark, no readable cockpit UI, no single
|
||||
huge human figure, no Star Wars/Star Trek styling, no fantasy magic. Do not show
|
||||
the entire station core as a top-down map; the core is below the camera and out
|
||||
of sight. Show only the upper rim of the base along the bottom foreground. Keep
|
||||
the four player ships arranged protectively around the station perimeter, facing
|
||||
outward. Place all enemy groups outside the shield perimeter. Make every attack
|
||||
vector and defensive action legible in the panorama.
|
||||
- top-down map composition or a fully visible station core;
|
||||
- defenders appearing to attack the station;
|
||||
- ambiguous projectile directions;
|
||||
- empty black space replacing the nebular surface;
|
||||
- one hero ship overwhelming the cooperative formation;
|
||||
- UI, text, logos, watermarks, or readable cockpit displays;
|
||||
- giant human figures, fantasy spell effects, or recognizable franchise styling.
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
File diff suppressed because it is too large
Load diff
|
|
@ -1,68 +1,42 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
title: Game Design
|
||||
description: "Aetheria's design is two different games sharing one doomed universe: cockpit-scale action and spreadsheet-scale corporate predation feeding the same persistent galaxy."
|
||||
description: "Public map of Aetheria's current design owners, inherited ambitions, and playable constraints."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
# Game Design
|
||||
|
||||
*"The setting is a machine. The playable problem is deciding which gears the player gets to touch first."*
|
||||
|
||||
Aetheria's design begins from an old, unreasonable ambition and then tries to make it survivable: two different games sharing the same doomed universe. One layer is a tactical action RPG about ships, crews, missions, routes, and violence up close. The other is a corporate strategy game about production, infrastructure, population roles, research, and economic dominance. Both are meant to feed the same persistent galaxy, where field players collide with shortages and opportunities created by the people running the machinery.
|
||||
Aetheria's oldest design ambition joins cockpit-scale action to strategy-scale production, logistics, and institutional power. A pilot experiences a shortage as a dangerous route, failed repair, or contract they cannot afford to refuse. A corporation experiences the same shortage as procurement pressure, market leverage, or a reason to send somebody else into danger.
|
||||
|
||||
That is the full beast. The first major scope cut was [[End of the Line|Aetheria: Terminus]], a rogue-lite ARPG slice designed to prove combat, traversal, ship customization, narrative pressure, and the setting's corporate logic before the project tried to swallow the whole sun and ask politely for seconds. When even that looked too large, [[Call of the Void]] became the last-ditch smaller target: curated cases, taxi work, station life, and one exhausted private investigator discovering that the rupture is not politely undoing itself. [[Aetheria Starbridge|Aetheria: Starbridge]] cuts sideways instead: one RTS operator and several pilots defending the same base through Verse-authoritative co-op. [[Aetheria Client and Modes]] is the cross-mode product shell around that work: Hangar, parties, Verse selection, Starbridge sessions, Arena downtime, and seasonal Conquest experiments.
|
||||
This branch contains current design owners, developed drafts, prototypes, and historical scope cuts. Those statuses matter. A detailed note can preserve useful mechanics without describing the current roadmap, and game design does not overwrite the setting notes that own shared history, technology, factions, or physical constraints.
|
||||
|
||||
## Design Stack
|
||||
## Current Design Owners
|
||||
|
||||
- [[Design Pillars]] - the compact doctrine for what the game is trying to make playable.
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Client and Modes]] - the desktop client, Hangar continuity layer, Starbridge/Arena/Conquest positioning, and mode cadence.
|
||||
- [[Playable Layers]] - how the ARPG, corporate strategy layer, and shared world are supposed to meet.
|
||||
- [[Action RPG Layer]] - cockpit-scale play: travel, combat, loadouts, risk, quests, and survival.
|
||||
- [[Corporate Strategy Layer]] - spreadsheet-scale play: corporations, labor, production, research, logistics, and market pressure.
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Starbridge]] - asymmetric co-op defense: RTS base command, pilot ships, thermal support, repair, station refits, boss technology recovery, and score-driven meta-progression.
|
||||
- [[Persistent Universe and Reset Loop]] - the long campaign structure, alien escalation, extinction, and temporal reset.
|
||||
- [[Design Pillars]] owns the durable playable values: material systems, consequential scale, ship identity, economy, failure, and accessible depth.
|
||||
- [[Playable Layers]] owns the relationship between embodied action, corporate strategy, and a possible shared persistent context.
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Client and Modes]] describes candidate cross-mode shell, player-continuity, and runtime boundaries. Its mode descriptions are historical hypotheses, not release commitments.
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Starbridge|Aetheria: Starbridge]] is a developed draft GDD for asymmetric cooperative defense: one commander operates the base while pilots fight, recover material, and perform field work in the same crisis.
|
||||
|
||||
## Systems
|
||||
## Design Invariants
|
||||
|
||||
- [[Economy and Production]] - commodities, blueprints, crafting quality, supply chains, and corporate leverage.
|
||||
- [[Colonies and Population]] - colony vessels, station populations, demographic attributes, production affinity, demand, and influence.
|
||||
- [[Galaxy and Navigation]] - generated stars, map layers, zone links, routes, sectors, and frontier topology.
|
||||
- [[Gravity and Locomotion]] - the Grid, gravitational terrain, thrusters, warp fields, traction, wormholes, and fast travel heat costs.
|
||||
- [[Heat, Stealth, and Detection]] - thermal performance, emissions, sensors, scanning, jamming, and identification.
|
||||
- [[Ship-shape and Up to Specs]] - ships as loadouts, homes, status objects, and thermal compromises with weapons attached.
|
||||
- [[Progression, Claims, and Consequence]] - licenses, death, escape pods, wreck claims, looting, scavenging, and station exposure.
|
||||
- [[Narrative and Missions]] - Ink-driven quests, location constraints, faction presence, and story inside generated space.
|
||||
- [[Nibu Attached Shuttle Story]] - a pre-Rupture hard-sci-fi playable story about a grey-market transport crew taking Nibu on as an attached shuttle and collapsing around the risk she brings.
|
||||
- [[A Different Sort of Space]] - the visual and physical feel of Aetheria's non-hard-SF void.
|
||||
- [[Visual and Sensory Direction]] - shaders, clouds, weapon effects, audio, and readable spectacle.
|
||||
- [[Volumetric Nebulae]] - atmospheric prototype clips showing the nebula renderer as moving terrain, not wallpaper.
|
||||
- [[Implementation Signals]] - what the active `Aetheria-Economy` work surface reveals about the design.
|
||||
- [[Action RPG Layer|Cockpit-scale play]] and [[Corporate Strategy Layer|strategy-scale play]] must create pressure the other can understand.
|
||||
- Ships remain material assemblies shaped by heat, maintenance, cargo, manufacturer doctrine, and access; see [[Ship-shape and Up to Specs]].
|
||||
- Production history matters. [[Economy and Production]] owns commodities, fabrication, quality, and supply relationships.
|
||||
- Travel and combat remain legible through [[Galaxy and Navigation]], [[Gravity and Locomotion]], and [[Heat, Stealth, and Detection]].
|
||||
- Generated structure gains meaning through authored context; [[Narrative and Missions]] owns that seam.
|
||||
- Implementation is evidence, not authority. [[Implementation Signals]] records inherited code and data-model pressure without making every surviving system a requirement.
|
||||
|
||||
## Release Path
|
||||
## Historical Scope Cuts
|
||||
|
||||
- [[End of the Line]]
|
||||
- [[Call of the Void]]
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Client and Modes]]
|
||||
- [[Aetheria Starbridge]]
|
||||
- [[../Lore/Welcome to Elysium|Welcome to Elysium]]
|
||||
- [[A Different Sort of Space]]
|
||||
- [[Ship-shape and Up to Specs]]
|
||||
[[End of the Line|Aetheria: Terminus]] was a reduced rogue-lite action-RPG proposal intended to prove combat, routes, ship builds, and corporate pressure without simulating the full persistent galaxy. [[Call of the Void]] cut further toward curated cases, station life, taxi work, and a private investigator confronting an older version of the Elysium revelation.
|
||||
|
||||
## Planning Sources
|
||||
Both remain useful design history. Neither is identified here as the active release target. Older GDDs and planning documents likewise preserve mechanic intent rather than current marching orders.
|
||||
|
||||
The active `Aetheria-Economy` repository points to three planning-time documents:
|
||||
[[Persistent Universe and Reset Loop]] preserves the historical long-campaign structure in which alien escalation, extinction, and temporal reset organize repeated play. It remains setting and design ancestry, not a current product commitment.
|
||||
|
||||
- [Aetheria GDD](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iULu1WsbuQoUM3c87XkGseb1P-8R5xlruoiyg03TsSE/edit?usp=sharing) - the action RPG design document.
|
||||
- [Profits Rising](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U3uGFqQboAiFJ_Y-nUOGpyixbXUHRbc5DiCuB59GM4w/edit?usp=sharing) - the corporate strategy / RTS design document.
|
||||
- [Aetheria Shader Implementation](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AFycvCtW6hA1jkKq1ZmYd3k6_uEWaaCqcZ4fYj4vU6A/edit?usp=sharing) - shader and rendering notes.
|
||||
- [Call of the Void / L'appel du Vide brainstorm](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YWn5RWsciBxuaQ4l5TN2lAEz4okaQes-aiyx1E9NAxA/edit?usp=sharing) - the last-ditch post-Terminus scope cut built around Cat Marrigan, PI cases, taxi fares, and the point-of-no-return revelation. It predates the current Elysium continuity and still assumes a colonization-fleet frame.
|
||||
## Contribution Boundary
|
||||
|
||||
These documents and the repository README are dated planning maps, not current marching orders. They are useful because they preserve mechanic intent: the time loop, tactical ship combat, heat and stealth, licenses, contracts, dungeons, drones, station management, production, population attributes, demand profiles, market arbitrage, research patents, independent traders, police protocol, AI corporations, and shader-driven gravitational terrain. They are also very much the sort of documents a person writes before reality, money, health, and the calendar arrive with tools.
|
||||
Use this branch to make playable consequences explicit. New mechanics should identify the player decision, state owner, inputs, outputs, failure mode, and setting constraint they consume. Keep speculative features labeled as candidates until adopted by the relevant design owner. A playable interpretation may compress lore for a scenario; it does not silently establish universal canon.
|
||||
|
||||
The live hierarchy treats them as inherited design pressure, then filters them through the current canonical vault and the project direction now in front of us. The active game repo's shape is evidence, but not law: shared simulation classes, `ServerShared` data models, galaxy generation, equipment behaviors, cargo and trade UI, Ink narrative processing, map rendering, debug tools, and the server architecture show long-running ambitions that still need current judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
## Setting Pressures
|
||||
|
||||
- [[Introduction]]
|
||||
- [[Narrative Themes]]
|
||||
- [[Worldbuilding/Pre-Elysium/Timeline/index|Timeline]]
|
||||
- [[Worldbuilding/Politics/Restrictions on Warfare|Restrictions on Warfare]]
|
||||
For setting pressure, begin with [[Introduction]], [[Narrative Themes]], the [[Worldbuilding/Pre-Elysium/Timeline/index|Timeline]], and [[Worldbuilding/Politics/Restrictions on Warfare|Restrictions on Warfare]].
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
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Reference in a new issue