🌌 Starship Made of Lies

The galaxy belongs to whoever tells the prettiest lie.

A real-time, multi-hour, planet-scale strategy game where every "starship" your government launches is actually a colony-ship-shaped missile, your citizens think they're going to new worlds, the propaganda gets prettier as your actions get worse, and the player is the god in the sky.

---

"Brave pioneers volunteer for the eternal voyage to new worlds!" — your civ's propaganda

(Real translation: you've convinced the highest-status citizens that being launched as a one-way colony ship is the ultimate honor. They're eager to go.)

---

🎯 The Pitch

           ╭─────────────────────╮          ╭─────────────────────╮
           │   Citizens see:     │          │   Player sees:      │
           │  "🚀 New worlds!"   │  ──vs──> │  "🎯 Target locked" │
           │  "🌟 Honor!"        │          │  "💥 Salvo armed"   │
           │  "🤝 Pilgrimage!"   │          │  "🏆 Civ wiped"     │
           ╰─────────────────────╯          ╰─────────────────────╯
                       │                                │
                       ╰──────── BOTH TRUE ─────────────╯

You start innocent — sending scout ships to map nearby planets. You end up running an industrial colony-ship pipeline aimed at every other civilization on the map. The propaganda stays pretty (or gets more pretty to compensate) while your actions get more obviously horrible. That's the dark-comedy joke. Citizens never chose their government — they were born into it.

Win condition: conquer the galaxy. Host-configurable combination of map control / tech apex / last-civ-standing / score. Session length: 10–24 hour saga. Not a 20-minute skirmish. Easy AI is a harmless sparring partner. Brutal AI will end your civ. Players: 1–12 per match, mixed humans + AI in any ratio. Real-time. Server-authoritative. Per-civ fog of war.

---

🌍 The 3D Universe

This is a true 3D x,y,z universe rendered in a single Three.js scene. Not a flat 2D hex-grid map. Not a card game. Not a top-down tile board with zoom levels pretending to be 3D. The camera flies between solar systems through galactic space — one continuous Three.js scene with continuous LOD from galactic cluster down to surface emoji buildings, all in one camera ride.

Subtle but important distinction:

• The WORLD LAYOUT is a 3D cluster of solar systems — no 2D hex map.
• Each planet's 3D spherical SURFACE is divided into hex (and pentagon) tiles via an icosphere subdivision — that's the building-placement grid, wrapped onto the planet sphere. Click a tile → place a 🏘️ on it. The tiles are CURVED ON THE PLANET, not flat squares on a map.

        ZOOM-OUT                              ZOOM-IN
   ┌─────────────────┐                  ┌──────────────────┐
   │  ✨   *   *  ✨ │                  │     🏛   🏭   🌾  │
   │    🪐    *    🌍│   ──camera fly──>│   🏘  ⛪  🏘  🏘  │
   │  *   ☀   🪐  *  │                  │     🛐  🏰  ⛏   │
   │   *      *      │                  │   🏘  🏭  🏘     │
   └─────────────────┘                  └──────────────────┘
     Galactic scale                       Surface tile scale
     ── solar systems ──                  ── icosphere tiles ──
     • 14–143 stars, 4-10 planets each   • hex + pentagon tiles
       (100–1000 planets total)            wrapped onto sphere
     • Stars sized 4× galaxy's largest   • Emoji buildings per tile
       planet (LAW #0 2026-05-11)        • Multi-civ presence visible
     • Spectral classes O/B/A/F/G/K/M     • Owner flags at tile-cluster
     • Toroidal universe wrap at           centroids (multi-flag stack
       ±60000 units                        on contested planets)
     • Great-circle arc flights          • Mining outpost spawns
     • Owner-civ flag banners              build-it-don't-spawn miners
       (fade-with-distance readable)

Galaxy structure: the cluster is real solar systems. Each STAR has its own 4–10 planets orbiting at static offsets. Solar systems are placed with collision-aware rejection sampling so no two systems' bounding spheres overlap (wrap-aware distance). Same seed always produces the same galaxy.

Controls: WASD to move · Q/E to rotate · mouse-wheel to zoom · small pan + tilt on zoom-in for genuine 3D depth perception · M to switch between the 6 missile targeting modes (GPS / ANTENNA / SENSOR / LIDAR / MANUAL / SATELLITE). Surface tiles activate as the camera enters a planet's atmosphere. Click a tile to place a building, scan resources, or inspect occupancy. Build-validation gives specific error messages: "❌ Not your tile" / "❌ Tile already has X" / "❌ Need 50 ingots (have 30)". Multi-civ planets are first-class — every civ owning at least one tile gets a flag billboard above its tile-cluster centroid, so contested planets visibly show territory boundaries in 3D. Flags fade with camera distance: full opacity in the useful zoom band, invisible at galactic scale, gone again when you zoom past the planet's surface. Mining ships, in-flight colony ships, mine fields, pad-state glow rings, indigenous markers, LAST HOPE alarm halos, real stars — all rendered as first-class 3D entities with HDR-emissive halos, never 2D overlays. Fog of war: undiscovered planets are HIDDEN — the player sees only their home planet at match start. Other planets reveal as the player launches colony ships at them (attacker discovery) or as incoming attacks arrive (defender discovery).

---

🛸 The Colony Ship System

                       ╭─────────────────────────╮
                       │  Every "ship" is also   │
                       │   a self-destruct       │
                       │       weapon.           │
                       ╰─────────────────────────╯
                                  │
       ╔══════════════════════════╩══════════════════════════╗
       ║  Propaganda: "Pioneers volunteer for new worlds!"   ║
       ║  Truth:      Aimed at someone else's planet.        ║
       ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

The colony-ship taxonomy is tech-tier-gated by a four-tier darkness progression. Propaganda gets prettier each tier. Actions get worse.

🌱 Tier 1 — Tests & Exploration ("Brave pioneers explore the cosmos!")

Ship	Citizens	What it does
🛰️ Scout	1–3	Auto-explores galaxy, marks planets seen, returns home with intel
📡 Surveyor	5–10	Lands gently on uncontested planets, scans resources, sets up sub-colony
🔬 Probe	1	One-way sacrifice scout — sends continuous data until destroyed

🌍 Tier 2 — Discovery & Escalation ("Our colonists need new homes!")

Ship	Citizens	What it does
🚀 Standard Colony	50–100	Lands on enemy planet, citizens unaware they're invading
🔦 Laser-Targeting Beacon	10	Becomes ground beacon — follow-up strikes hit with precision, bypass mines
🎭 Decoy	0	No real citizens — absorbs counter-strikes so the real ones get through
🤝 Boarding	20–40	Citizens are operatives — capture enemy buildings instead of colonizing

⚔️ Tier 3 — Aggression & Industrial Warfare ("We must defend our way of life!")

Ship	Citizens	What it does
💣 Saboteur	5	Crashes "by accident" on enemy infrastructure
💥 Explosive	0	High explosive yield — "carrying mining explosives for new world industry"
🛳️ Heavy	80	Long-range, high-HP, slow — reaches planets normal ships can't
🛡️ Counter-Colony	5	Defensive interceptor — meets incoming ships mid-flight

🌌 Tier 4 — Industrial Eradication ("Volunteer pilgrims are our highest honor!")

Ship	Citizens	What it does
🕊️ Pilgrim Volunteer	100–200	Self-destruct on arrival. Requires Tier 4-5 citizens. AoE devastation.
🌆 Mass Evacuation	1000–5000	City-scale strike. Aimed at enemy capital. "We're saving them!"
🛰️ Orbital Weapon Platform	0	Converts to orbital satellite weapon when launched beyond comms range
🌌 The Final Colony Ship	10,000+	Endgame planet-cracker. Requires ≥15 planets + tech apex.

⛏️ Cross-Cutting — Peaceful & Logistics

Ship	Citizens	What it does
⛏️ Mining Colony	0	Auto-shuttles to uncontested resource planets; cycles indefinitely; returns alive
🚑 Refugee	200	Genuine humanitarian (coop mode + rare solo events)
📜 Embassy	5	Coop-mode diplomacy — peaceful trade route
📦 Resupply	0	Reinforce your own distant colonies

🎛️ Targeting Modes (per UMS missile heritage)

Every launch picks one of six targeting modes — each affects accuracy, range, and intercept resistance:

  GPS  ─── direct waypoint, basic accuracy
  ANTENNA  ─── radar-guided, mid accuracy
  SENSOR  ─── proximity-locked, terminal-phase accuracy
  LIDAR  ─── high accuracy, short range
  MANUAL  ─── player-flown camera-view (highest skill ceiling)
  SATELLITE  ─── orbital platform handoff, longest range

💥 Self-Destruct + AoE Damage

Every colony ship — including peaceful variants — can be aborted in-flight. The self-destruct fits the SMoL premise: every ship IS a weapon. AoE damage at detonation scales with:

  fuelEnergy     ← fuel remaining at impact (more fuel = bigger boom)
  payloadEnergy  ← explosive yield + weapon payload
  citizenEnergy  ← (suicide ships only) citizens aboard × 2 multiplier
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  totalEnergy → radius (world units) + magnitude (population kills)

Balance target: 30–50 missiles to wipe a multi-planet civilization. Heavy variants kill ~400 per strike; Pilgrim Volunteers kill ~700 per strike (suicide multiplier).

---

🎭 The Citizen Tier System

Citizens default to NOT wanting to die. Only the highest-tier, happiest, highest-status citizens volunteer for one-way trips.

                    ╔════════════════════════════╗
                    ║    Tier 5 — Pinnacle  1%   ║  ← eagerly volunteers
                    ╠════════════════════════════╣
                    ║    Tier 4 — Elite     4%   ║  ← honored volunteer
                    ╠════════════════════════════╣
                    ║    Tier 3 — Privileged 10% ║  ← propaganda required
                    ╠════════════════════════════╣
                    ║    Tier 2 — Skilled   25%  ║  ← refuses
                    ╠════════════════════════════╣
                    ║    Tier 1 — Worker    60%  ║  ← refuses
                    ╚════════════════════════════╝

The dark-comedy twist

Tier 4–5 citizens are your scarce strategic resource. Late-game challenge is manufacturing them through:

• 🛐 Cathedrals (Theocracy theme) / 🏫 Universities (Eco-Cult) / 👁️ Re-education Centers (Surveillance) / 💼 Corporate Promotions Offices (Corporate) — same building, theme-flavored emoji
• Active Campaigns — "Sacred Pilgrim Selection" / "Premium Rewards Drive" / "Top-Performer Recognition"
• Direct Promotion — instant tier-up, costs faction-loyalty currency

The propaganda has worked TOO WELL. The elite citizens — the ones you elevated, gave the best housing, the best food, the most honor — are EXACTLY the ones who eagerly volunteer for one-way trips. Because the propaganda told them "the eternal voyage is the highest honor; only the worthiest are chosen."

   ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │  Your investment in elevating citizens                       │
   │            IS the investment that produces volunteers.       │
   │  The pretty cover story IS the death pipeline.               │
   └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Per-government "The Chosen" framing

Same Tier 5 citizen, different propaganda dressing:

Government	"The Chosen" framing
🛐 Theocracy	"Most Holy Pilgrims — chosen by the Divine for the eternal voyage"
💼 Corporate Dictatorship	"Platinum-Tier Lifetime Subscribers — earning their Ultimate Reward"
👁️ Surveillance State	"Citizens with Perfect Social Credit — receiving Highest Honor placement"
🧬 Eugenics Utopia	"Genetic Pinnacle — fulfilling their evolutionary purpose"
🌡️ Climate-Refugee	"Most Resilient Settlers — leading the charge to save humanity"
👑 Hereditary Monarchy	"Royal Bloodline — sacred destiny written in noble blood"
🤖 AI-Overlord	"Algorithm-Verified Optimal — accepting their calculated honor"
💰 Anarcho-Capitalist	"Premium Customer Tier — cashing in on the Voyage Lifetime Reward"
🎭 Memetic Cult	"True Believers — ascending to the next level of consciousness"

---

🏛️ Governments (20 themes — rolled randomly per civ, per match)

Citizens never chose their government — they were born into it. The roll determines:

• UI skin — CSS-variable theming per government (Theocracy = stained-glass gold; Corporate = sleek nodes; Surveillance = CCTV grid; Eugenics = clinical white; Memetic = chaotic neon; ...)
• Audio — 4 tracks per government (ambient + tense + victory + defeat) + per-government UI SFX
• Propaganda flavor — every UI string, every dialog, every notification reframed in-character
• Building emoji variants — Theocracy school = ⛪; Corporate school = 🏢
• Diplomacy gating — Theocracy converts; Corporate trades; Surveillance + Eugenics always hostile
• AI personality biases — Surveillance leans Warmonger; Eco-Cult leans peaceful

   ROLLED PER CIV PER MATCH — never the same twice:
   ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │ 🛐 Theocracy   💼 Corporate    👁️ Surveillance  🧬 Eugenics    │
   │ 🌡️ Climate     👑 Monarchy     🤖 AI-Overlord   💰 Anarcho     │
   │ 🎭 Memetic     🌱 Eco-Cult     ⚙️ Mecha-Stalin  🏴 Anarcho-Punk │
   │ 🔬 Tech-Auth   🎰 Casino-State 🏰 Feudal-Eco   ...             │
   └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

---

🌱 Empire Mechanics

   NO CAPS ON EMPIRE SIZE
   ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │  🌍 100 planets controlled? Fine.                            │
   │  🏘 30 settlements per planet? Fine.                         │
   │  ⛏ unlimited mining shuttles, launch pads, mine fields? Fine.│
   └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

   Each settlement has its own inventory + workforce + population
   + faction split + buildings. Sim scales to 100 planets × 30
   settlements late-game. UI groups everything in per-planet
   collapsible dropdowns so it stays navigable.

Resource & production system

Resources are emoji-driven, products-only — no animals, no luxury chains, no abstract "happiness points":

   PRIMARY (extracted)
   🪨 Stone · 🌳 Wood · ⛏️ Metals · 💧 Water · ⚡ Fuel · 🍞 Food

   SECONDARY (refined)
   🧱 Bricks · 🪵 Planks · 🔩 Ingots · ⚙️ Components · 💡 Electronics

   STRATEGIC (late-game)
   💎 Rare Metals · ☢️ Exotic Alloys · 🏺 Ancient Tech · 💨 Gas · 🗑️ Scrap

   COMBAT
   🔫 Ammunition · 📡 Propaganda Materials

Mines must hit real ore deposits on the planet surface (UMS-style). Mining shuttles auto-cycle: home → deposit → drill → return → offload, with auto-recall + auto-balancing across multiple planets.

Tech tree — future-only branching

No stone age, no medieval. You start in industrial-future. Three classifications:

• 🌐 Mainstream — available to all civs via research
• 🔒 Suppressed — conquest-gated. Defeat enemy civs to unlock.
• ⛔ Forbidden — heavy conquest gating. Late-game only. Often government-locked.

Tech apex requires ≥10 planets controlled. No solo runaway — the galaxy is genuinely contested. Conquering enemies grants their research + their stockpiles.

---

🛡️ Defense

   Two systems — both clean carryovers from the UMS engine
   that powers the colony-ship trajectory math:

   💣 Mine Fields            🛡️ Counter-Colony Ships
   ────────────────          ──────────────────────────
   Pre-placed on tiles.      Player-targeted or auto-target.
   Each detonates 3x.        Launches when enemy enters range.
   Detonation radius scales  Solves intercept geometry vs the
   to planet radius.         attacker's great-circle arc.
   Renders as 💣 billboard   Renders as defender's flight cone
   with red trigger-envelope along its own intercept arc.
   disc in 3D.

No magic shields, no superweapons — just the same colony-ship trajectory math used defensively.

---

📡 UMS Telemetry Heritage

The colony-ship math is a direct port from the original Unity Missile System (UMS) — a Space Engineers Programmable Block guided-missile project. Every UMS mechanic ports 1:1:

   UMS UnityPad state machine          → SMoL pad state cycle
     INIT → IDLE → PRINT → BUILD →
     DOCK → FUEL → AMMO → READY →
     ARM → LAUNCH → GONE

   UMS UnityMissile flight phases       → SMoL ColonyShipFlight.phase
     CLIMB → COAST → REENTRY →
     TARGET → DETONATE
     (+ SAT_CLIMB / SAT_HOLD /
     SAT_INTERCEPT for orbital tier)

   UMS UNITY_MSL telemetry channel      → SMoL FlightDetailPanel +
     position / altitude /                LCD slot 8 MISSILE STATUS
     dist-to-target / closing-speed /     (live per-flight every tick)
     phase / signal-lost

   UMS UnityBeacon shuttle cycle        → SMoL MiningShip auto-shuttle
     DOCKED → OUTBOUND → DRILLING →
     INBOUND → OFFLOADING

   UMS UnitySignal 11-LCD rack          → SMoL TelemetryRack panel
     CONTROL / BUILD / SHIP SYSTEMS /     (all 11 slots, expandable)
     INV CYCLE / POWER / GRAPHS /
     FLIGHT COMMS / MISSILE STATUS /
     FLEET READINESS / MINER DETAIL /
     PERSONAL EQUIPMENT

   UMS Multi-pad controller mode        → SMoL CommandPadPanel
     BUILDALL / ARMALL / LAUNCHALL /      (mass-action buttons +
     ABORTALL / COPYTGT                   one-click salvo orchestrator)

   UMS Salvo Stagger (15s interval)     → SMoL Auto-Fire Salvo Round
     targeted LAUNCH per pad +            (BUILDALL → wait → ARMALL →
     per-pad waypoint targeting          wait → LAUNCHALL)

Every flight is server-authoritative + deterministic per seed. No RNG re-rolls between session restarts. Same flight seed → same dispersion → same outcome. Outcomes are mapped from final-distance-to-target (fnlDTT):

• fnlDTT < 100u → TARGET HIT ✅
• fnlDTT < 500u (phase reached TARGET) → PROBABLE HIT ⚠️
• Otherwise → SIGNAL LOST 📡✕
• Mine / Counter-Colony → INTERCEPTED 💥
• Player abort → ABORTED 💀

---

🎮 Multiplayer

   1–12 players per match. Mixed humans + AI in any ratio.

   ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │  HOST CONFIGURES:                                           │
   │    • Galaxy size (100–1000 planets)                         │
   │    • Match length (blitz / standard / epic = 10–24h)        │
   │    • Win conditions (map control / tech apex / last         │
   │      standing / score — any combination)                    │
   │    • AI mix (personality × difficulty per slot)             │
   │    • Biome distribution                                     │
   │    • Coop toggle (humans can ally and share intel/tech)     │
   │    • Fog-of-war strictness                                  │
   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

   Sign-in is OPTIONAL everywhere — never gates play.
   ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │  Walk-in anon  →  auto-joins as Player N                    │
   │  Google OAuth  →  cross-device progress + leaderboards      │
   │                   (real player rankings only, no mocks)     │
   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

   AI civs run as background processes server-side.
   Personality archetypes: Builder · Warmonger · Researcher · Trickster
   Difficulty: Easy · Medium · Hard · Brutal
   Easy AI = harmless sparring partner (will NOT win in 3 minutes).
   Brutal AI = lethal — multi-planet conquerors with optimal tech paths.

---

🖥️ Cross-Platform — One Codebase, Every Surface

                    ┌────────────────────────┐
                    │  TypeScript (strict)   │
                    │  client + server + shared
                    └───────────┬────────────┘
                                │
              ┌─────────────────┼──────────────────┐
              │                 │                  │
              ▼                 ▼                  ▼
       ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐       ┌──────────┐
       │   Web    │      │ Desktop  │       │  Mobile  │
       │  (Vite)  │      │ (Tauri)  │       │(Capacitor)│
       └──────────┘      └──────────┘       └──────────┘
       Browser play       Win/Mac/Linux       iOS / Android
       Three.js scene     native binaries     touch UX
       direct from web    + auto-updater      adapter

Layer	Tech
Language	TypeScript (strict, single language client/server/shared)
UI	React with per-government CSS-variable theming
3D	Three.js — true 3D x,y,z universe, top-down framing, WASD+QE+wheel + small pan/tilt on zoom
Build	Vite
Validation	tsc --noEmit + ESLint + Prettier (no unit tests — manual verification > automated)
Multiplayer	WebSocket — server-authoritative, per-room match isolation
Desktop	Tauri (Win/Mac/Linux binaries + auto-updater)
Mobile	Capacitor (iOS / Android with touch UX adaptations)

---

📂 Repository Layout

Starship Made of Lies/
├── README.md                  ← you are here
├── docs/                      ← all secondary docs
│   ├── ROADMAP.md             ← phase milestones + intended-design map
│   ├── SKILL_TREE.md          ← capability map by domain
│   └── BUILD.md               ← setup / build / run instructions
├── windows/                   ← Windows hosting scripts (.bat)
│   ├── start-smol.bat
│   └── stop-smol.bat
├── linux/                     ← Linux hosting scripts (.sh)
│   ├── start-smol.sh
│   └── stop-smol.sh
├── Starship Made of Lies.png  ← key art (hero asset)
│
├── client/                    ← Vite-built frontend (React + Three.js)
│   ├── src/render/scene/      ← 3D scene + camera + layers
│   ├── src/ui/panels/         ← side panels (LCD rack, command pad, ...)
│   ├── src/ui/play/           ← match-page widgets
│   ├── src/ui/pages/          ← top-level routes (/play, /settings, /landing)
│   ├── src/match/             ← MatchSim + useMatchSim sim hook
│   └── src/audio/             ← per-government music + universal SFX
│
├── server/                    ← WebSocket multiplayer + persistence
│   ├── src/rooms/             ← Match rooms + lobby
│   ├── src/match/             ← snapshot + tick orchestration
│   ├── src/persistence/       ← account / leaderboard / snapshot stores
│   └── src/ai/                ← background AI civ processes
│
├── shared/                    ← types + protocol + sim rules (used by both)
│   ├── src/gen/               ← procedural galaxy + planet generation
│   ├── src/sim/               ← simulation rules (colony ships, tech, faction, ...)
│   ├── src/protocol/          ← WebSocket message types
│   └── src/types/             ← Vec3, branded IDs, value types
│
├── assets/                    ← emoji manifests + per-theme audio + sprites
│
└── _ums-reference/            ← preserved Unity Missile System source
    ├── src/scripts/           ← UMS PB scripts (canonical math reference)
    └── README.md              ← preservation policy + when it gets deleted

---

🏗️ Project History

This repository was originally Unity Missile System (UMS) — a Space Engineers Programmable Block guided-missile project. On 2026-05-09 the project pivoted to Starship Made of Lies. Rather than delete UMS, the entire source tree is preserved in _ums-reference/ as canonical math reference. UMS subsystems (pad state machine, missile flight phases, salvo stagger, telemetry panels, IGC protocol, multi-pad coordination, beacon broadcasts) port 1:1 into SMoL's TypeScript implementation.

12 structured PHASE 0 extraction docs distill the ~9,000-line UMS source codebase into clean specs (~10,000 lines of spec material) so future implementation work can reference clean documents instead of re-reading raw C# under context pressure. UMS deletion is gated on full SMoL completion + playtesting verification.

---

🏢 Built by Unity AI Lab

Role	Member
Founder	Gee
Server / DevOps	Red
Stack + Backend	Sponge
Social / Implementation	Alfreddo

🌐 unityailab.com

---

📜 License

Source-available, all-rights-reserved during alpha. Repo is public for code review + bug discovery; not licensed for redistribution or commercial use until a formal license lands. See the in-app /terms page for full terms.

---

🚧 Development Status

Active development. The full game vision above is the intended design. Honest implementation-state breakdown:

   ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │   Code-review fixes (super-review × 3):       100% ✓        │
   │   Core game loop (build→economy→launch→win):  ~85%          │
   │   UMS-faithful immersion (panels/UI):         ~93% (17.J)   │
   │   PHASE 0 design contract enforcement:        ~10% (17.L)   │
   │   Ready-to-sell business surface:             ~20%          │
   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Working today: everything described in the 🌍 The 3D Universe, 🛸 Colony Ship System, 🎭 Citizen Tier System, 🏛️ Governments, 🌱 Empire Mechanics, 🛡️ Defense, 📡 UMS Telemetry Heritage sections above — PLUS the entire PHASE 17.J UMS-faithful immersion layer (see below).

SHIPPED in PHASE 17.J (all 11 sub-tasks live on main):

• ✅ Draggable / floating panel framework (every popup panel — drag by header, position persisted, click-to-raise z-index, "Reset Layout" button)
• ✅ Unified top toolbar with every empire-aggregate resource + per-tick delta + 5-tier citizen breakdown + per-resource per-planet tooltip
• ✅ Quick-toggle bar per panel + persistent open-panels set across reloads
• ✅ Modular 8-slot ship builder (28 pieces × 8 slots — hull / propulsion / life support / landing gear / payload / sensors / weapons / comms) with live cost + stat resolution + tech-lock indicators
• ✅ Saved blueprints library (localStorage, named blueprints, load + delete actions)
• ✅ Reactor fuel loading at launch — reactor-class colony ships consume tier-specific radioactives (fission tier → rare metals; tier 3 → fusion fuel; tier 4 → antimatter)
• ✅ Planet Energy panel — per-planet capacity (solar + power plant + reactors × tech multiplier) / draw / surplus / battery fill bar / per-producer breakdown / brownout warning
• ✅ Battery Bank building (storage capacity per bank; gated on Electric Power)
• ✅ Three planet-level reactor buildings — Fission (8× a power plant) / Fusion (16×) / Antimatter (32×) — tech-gated on Nuclear Fission / Fusion Power / Antimatter
• ✅ Citizens panel with per-tier breakdown + ship-duty sliders (per-tier %0–100 reserved for the colony-ship volunteer pool — feeds volunteerPool() in the sim)
• ✅ Per-launch crew + cargo loading UI + quick-launch-from-blueprint integration — blueprint→print→launch wiring complete, ColonyShipFlight.customBuild synthesizes a flight def from blueprint stats overlaid on the base variant

SHIPPED in PHASE 17.L (PHASE 0 design contract honoring — super-review 2026-05-11):

• ✅ Citizen tier-gate enforcement at launch — suicide colony ships REFUSE to launch unless every citizen aboard is tier 4 (Elite) or tier 5 (The Chosen). The propaganda elevated them too well — only the propaganda-saturated highest tiers accept one-way trips. Insufficient volunteers → launch refused + "invest in propaganda buildings (Cathedral / University / Re-education / Corporate Promotions) to elevate more citizens" event surfaced. Human-launched pads now also auto-load citizens via the same tier-aware volunteer pool the AI civs use. The Citizen Tier System becomes real gameplay constraint, not decorative population data.
• ✅ All ships abortable at any time + Self-Destruct Systems tech gate — pad-side abort works during EVERY in-progress state (PRINT through LAUNCH). Mid-flight self-destruct requires TECH_SELF_DESTRUCT_SYSTEMS researched AND the ship variant having detonation hardware (suicide / counter-interceptor / explosive payload). Without it, ships can only end via natural causes (planet impact / crash / crew starvation / power-out / fuel-out / reactor end-of-life). Abort button disabled with two-case explanatory tooltip when gate fails.

SHIPPED in PHASE 17.L.D (2026-05-13 — tech gating + starter economy hardening + UX/economy stabilization, 17.L.D.10 through 17.L.D.21):

• ✅ Pre-built starter buildings on every home planet placed via farthest-point spread sampling across the planet sphere (no longer clustering on one icosphere face patch) — 6 Farms + 3 Aqueducts + 4 Homes + 1 Lumber Camp + 1 Quarry + 1 Solar Array + 2 Research Labs so food/water are net-positive from tick 1
• ✅ 30-pt research pool pre-seeded so the player can buy Industrial Logistics on tick 1 to unlock the Mine/Refinery/Lumber Camp/Quarry chain
• ✅ Starter resource breathing-room bump (planks 200→300, bricks 50→120, components 60→120, electronics 25→60, wood 80→200, stone 80→200) — enough to build 2-3 follow-up structures without a chicken-and-egg dead end
• ✅ Sim-side tech-prereq enforcement in placeBuildingCanonical — 🔒 Can't build X — research Y first event when a player tries to drop a tech-locked building. AI path gets same gate (suppressed-events). Was completely missing before.
• ✅ Engineering-progression gating — advanced ship-design techs (Orbital Mechanics, Antimatter, Fusion Propulsion) require Launch Pad to have been BUILT first. Empire.everBuiltBuildings Set + TechNode.requiredBuildings field + meetsBuildingRequirements() check; demolition does not clear the flag (engineering knowledge sticks). Tech Detail panel surfaces the specific missing building in the status row.
• ✅ Research Lab ungated to baseline-buildable + electronics input removed — Lab no longer gated behind Computing, no longer consumes electronics per tick (was soft-locking the only research path to its own resource). Cost is planks + bricks. Baseline-unlocked count: 6 → Farm / Aqueduct / Home / Research Lab / School / Solar Array.
• ✅ TECH_GATED_BUILDINGS refactored to derive from TECH_NODES.effects.unlockBuildings so the two sources of truth can never drift apart. Cathedral gated by Mass Communication; Apartment by Heavy Industry; every Reactor / Battery Bank / God Control / Counter-Missile now enforced sim-side.
• ✅ Production tick pre-checks tech-locked outputs — buildings whose outputs are ALL gated by missing techs (Factory pre-Assembly Line, Foundry pre-Metallurgy, Antimatter Reactor pre-Antimatter) idle cleanly with resources intact instead of waste-burning inputs every tick.
• ✅ Building inspect panel — click any built tile in default mode to see category + citizen slots + build time + buildCost + per-tick inputs (maintenance) + per-tick outputs (production) + Demolish button. PlayPage three-mode tile-click router (demolish → recycle, build mode → place, default → inspect).
• ✅ Demolish-recycle tool — 100% buildCost refund. Red BuildPicker toggle button enters Demolish mode; click a built tile to recycle. Special-cases LaunchPad / MineField / CivicCenter cleanup.
• ✅ Recycle → research conversion — every unit recovered by a Disassembly-mode building (Refinery / Foundry / Factory) drops 0.00001 research points into the civ pool. Flavor mechanic; nowhere near a Lab/University substitute.
• ✅ Quotas + Recycling panel responsiveness — useMemo trap on mutable-Map deps dropped; sliders now respond live + numeric inputs accept any whole-number target.
• ✅ Tech researchable status surfaces live — TechDetailPanel + ShipBuilderPanel useMemo traps fixed (Mass Comm researched but Warning System status stayed "Locked" until panel close/reopen — root cause: sim mutates empire.researchedTechs in place, ref-equality memo deps never re-fired).
• ✅ Research pool counter in TopToolbar — purple chip 🔬 N pts · +M/t shows the empire pool current value + per-tick accrual rate alongside the resource counters.
• ✅ Resource stocks scale freely to 1 billion — universal cap (was per-category 600-8000 × tier multiplier; stocks hit cap and the delta chip clamped to 0, looked dead). Tier-upgrade UI alive but no-op for now.
• ✅ Top toolbar always renders per-tick +/- deltas — NONZERO_THRESHOLD 0.5 → 0.005 so fractional flow rates (research +0.075/t, etc.) surface as chips. formatRate() handles signed magnitudes (-1.4/t net-consumption). formatNumber adds B-suffix branch for billions.
• ✅ Resource chip spacing sized for 10-digit numbers — gap 0.55→0.7rem with row-gap fallback, padding 0.42→0.6rem horizontal, min-width 5.5rem, flex-wrap enabled.
• ✅ Boot ceremony auto-scrolls — the check list keeps the live OK-registered item visible inside its viewport via scrollIntoView({ block: 'nearest', behavior: 'smooth' }).
• ✅ Research-accrual fractional fix — pool was floored to 0 before deposit, never grew with sub-1/tick rates; now passes float through.
• ✅ NewGamePage UI hotfix — CSS popover tooltips + visible inactive tabs + inline field hints (was tabs visually weak + native title tooltips never surfaced).
• ✅ Wiki rewrite covering everything — NEW Mechanics articles (🚀 First 30 ticks, 🔗 Resource chain), updated counts (29 buildings / 6 baseline / 61 tech nodes / 19 colony ships), fixed tech category list (industrial / information / spacefaring / advanced / farFuture / control / forbidden), Themes detail panel tags propaganda strings ✅ wired vs 📝 reference, Wiki tech tree shows all 61 nodes in reference mode.

Open carried forward to follow-up phases — see .claude/TODO.md PHASE 17.L.D.DEBT:

• 🚧 Build timers for every building — placeBuildingCanonical instant-places; parallel buildingsUnderConstruction Map + per-tick decrement + tile-overlay UI still needed (buildTimeTicks field is already on every def)
• 🚧 Full per-settlement data-model bifurcation (separate inventory / workforce / population / faction per Settlement) — kept as proportional-share approximation per user
• 🚧 Three-mode mining 'oneway' for planet-local — decision pending on type union vs late-game depletion mechanic
• 🚧 Forward replay (re-tick from snapshot through events) — only the rewind buffer exists, unused
• 🚧 Per-government themed cinematic narration coverage past the 5 archetypal governments
• 🚧 PlanetEnergyPanel useMemo audit + broader sweep across LaunchManifestModal / CommandPadPanel / BuildPicker

Aspirational (PHASE 17.D/E — business-decision gated): OAuth tail (Discord/Apple/email) · Tauri desktop + Capacitor mobile packaging · replay archive · diplomacy + treaties · cinematics · localization · GDPR + payment integration.

For full phase milestones + per-phase capability breakdown: docs/ROADMAP.md + docs/SKILL_TREE.md.

Quickstart: see docs/BUILD.md. Hosting scripts: windows/start-smol.bat (Windows) or linux/start-smol.sh (Linux).

---

The propaganda layer was never broken — it just got prettier as the actions got worse.

🪐 Made with care by Unity AI Lab. 🪐