feat(mastervega): contact-gate relationsRows and expand alert suppression to tech

- relationsRows now filters out empires the human hasn't contacted, matching
  the existing contact-gating behavior of rankingRows (Brian, 2026-08-14)
- Expand GNN alert suppression from espionage-only to include tech breakthroughs
  via new ALERT_STORY_KINDS set, skipping ranking/relations pages for these
  one-off notifications
- Update verifyMasterOfVega tests to assert uncontacted empires are excluded
  from relationsRows while confirming names can still appear in contacted
  rows' war/trade/ally lists

src/games/mastervega/VegaGnn.js

@@ -204,15 +204,24 @@ export function rankingRows(rules, state, metricId) {
 
 // --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // Diplomatic relations — the always-accessible page listing who's at war,
-// who has a trade agreement, and who's allied with whom. Deliberately NOT
-// contact-gated like rankingRows: war/peace/alliance are already broadcast
-// galaxy-wide regardless of whether the human has met either party (see
-// VegaTurnReport.js's PERSONAL_TYPES — diplomacy events are never personal),
-// so this page is just that same "public knowledge" precedent laid out as a
-// standing reference instead of one-off headlines.
+// who has a trade agreement, and who's allied with whom. Contact-gated same
+// as rankingRows (Brian's ask, 2026-08-14): a species the human hasn't met
+// yet gets a full name/portrait row on a page that otherwise reads as "here
+// is everyone" before the human has actually discovered them, which spoils
+// the reveal that first contact is supposed to be (checkContactAt's own
+// comment in VegaLogic.js). War/peace/alliance news for two OTHER empires
+// still broadcasts galaxy-wide as its own headline regardless of contact
+// (VegaTurnReport.js's PERSONAL_TYPES) — that is unaffected, since this only
+// gates which rows appear on the standing reference table, not whether the
+// one-off headline fires. An uncontacted empire's NAME can still show up
+// inside a contacted row's war/trade/ally list; only the row itself is
+// gated.
 export function relationsRows(rules, state) {
+  const me = state.humanIndex;
   const name = (i) => state.empires[i]?.name ?? '?';
-  return state.empires.filter((e) => e.alive).map((e) => {
+  return state.empires
+    .filter((e) => e.alive && (e.idx === me || state.empires[me].contacted[e.idx]))
+    .map((e) => {
       const atWar = [];
       const allied = [];
       const trade = [];
@@ -222,9 +231,9 @@ export function relationsRows(rules, state) {
         if (treaty === 'war') atWar.push(name(o.idx));
         else if (treaty === 'alliance') allied.push(name(o.idx));
         // A trade agreement is a separate, coexisting relationship (see
-      // VegaDiplomacy.js's formTradeAgreement comment) — not another rung of
-      // the treaties[] ladder — so it's checked independently of the switch
-      // above rather than as another `else if`.
+        // VegaDiplomacy.js's formTradeAgreement comment) — not another rung
+        // of the treaties[] ladder — so it's checked independently of the
+        // switch above rather than as another `else if`.
         if (e.tradeAgreements[o.idx]) trade.push(name(o.idx));
       }
       return {

src/games/mastervega/VegaGnnScreen.js

@@ -71,6 +71,12 @@ const STORY_COLORS = {
 const hex = (c) => `#${c.toString(16).padStart(6, '0')}`;
 const fmtValue = (v) => Math.round(v).toLocaleString();
 
+// Story kinds (Gnn.describeGnnStory's `kind` field) that read as a targeted,
+// one-off alert rather than a newscast — openGnnScreen skips the ranking and
+// relations pages for these so a fresh notification doesn't get buried under
+// unrelated charts. See openGnnScreen's isAlertPage for the full reasoning.
+const ALERT_STORY_KINDS = new Set(['espionage', 'espionageResult', 'tech']);
+
 // -------------------------------------------------------------- anchor panel
 
 function buildAnchorFallback(scene, container, w, h) {
@@ -583,27 +589,28 @@ export function openGnnScreen(scene, rules, state, art, opts = {}) {
   const storyEvents = usingHistory ? (state.gnn?.history ?? []) : pending;
 
   const storyPages = storyEvents.map((ev) => ({ kind: 'story', desc: Gnn.describeGnnStory(rules, state, ev) }));
-  // A spying/sabotage notification is a targeted alert, not a newscast —
-  // skip the ranking/relations pages so it reads as "here's what just
-  // happened," not "here's what just happened, now flip through five
-  // unrelated charts" (Brian's ask). Only suppresses on a FRESH pending
-  // notification; reopening GNN on demand with nothing pending
-  // (usingHistory) always gets the full experience back — that reopen IS
-  // the escape hatch for a player who does want the charts.
-  const isEspionageAlert = !usingHistory
-    && storyPages.some((p) => p.desc.kind === 'espionage' || p.desc.kind === 'espionageResult');
+  // A spying/sabotage notification — or a tech breakthrough — is a targeted,
+  // one-off alert, not a newscast — skip the ranking/relations pages so it
+  // reads as "here's what just happened," not "here's what just happened,
+  // now flip through five unrelated charts" (Brian's ask; tech added to the
+  // same set on the same ask, 2026-08-14). ALERT_STORY_KINDS is the place to
+  // add another kind later. Only suppresses on a FRESH pending notification;
+  // reopening GNN on demand with nothing pending (usingHistory) always gets
+  // the full experience back — that reopen IS the escape hatch for a player
+  // who does want the charts.
+  const isAlertPage = !usingHistory && storyPages.some((p) => ALERT_STORY_KINDS.has(p.desc.kind));
   // The charts rank the human against every empire it has met (rankingRows
   // is contact-gated) — with nobody met yet that's just a one-bar "race"
   // against yourself, which reads as broken rather than informative. So the
   // whole ranking rotation stays off the page list until first contact
-  // (Brian's ask), same suppression flag as the espionage-alert case above.
+  // (Brian's ask), same suppression flag as the alert-page case above.
   const me = state.humanIndex;
   const hasMetAnyone = state.empires.some((o) => o.alive && o.idx !== me && state.empires[me].contacted[o.idx]);
-  const rankingPages = (isEspionageAlert || !hasMetAnyone)
+  const rankingPages = (isAlertPage || !hasMetAnyone)
     ? [] : Gnn.RANKING_METRICS.map((metric) => ({ kind: 'ranking', metric }));
   // Always-accessible otherwise: present every time GNN opens, independent
   // of whether there's a pending story — same footing as the ranking pages.
-  const relationsPage = isEspionageAlert ? null : { kind: 'relations' };
+  const relationsPage = isAlertPage ? null : { kind: 'relations' };
   const pages = [...storyPages, ...rankingPages, ...(relationsPage ? [relationsPage] : [])];
 
   const root = scene.add.container(0, 0).setDepth(D.gnn);

tools/verifyMasterOfVega.js

@@ -3231,9 +3231,12 @@ section('7b. Galactic News Network');
 
   // --- relationsRows: war/trade/alliance are three independent columns
   // (formTradeAgreement's own comment: trade coexists with any treaty rung
-  // rather than being another value on it), and — unlike rankingRows —
-  // NOT contact-gated, since diplomacy events already broadcast regardless
-  // of contact (VegaTurnReport.js's PERSONAL_TYPES).
+  // rather than being another value on it). Contact-gated same as
+  // rankingRows (Brian's ask, 2026-08-14): an uncontacted empire gets no row
+  // of its own, even though a NAME it's involved in can still surface inside
+  // a contacted empire's own war/trade/ally lists (those are public
+  // broadcast data — VegaTurnReport.js's PERSONAL_TYPES — untouched by this
+  // gate).
   {
     const st6 = Logic.createGame(RULES, {
       sizeId: 'medium', shapeId: 'elliptical', seed: 1010, difficultyId: 'normal',
@@ -3245,10 +3248,12 @@ section('7b. Galactic News Network');
     Diplo.declareWar(RULES, st6, 0, 1);
     Diplo.formAlliance(RULES, st6, 1, 2);
     Diplo.formTradeAgreement(RULES, st6, 0, 2);
+    st6.empires[0].contacted[1] = true; st6.empires[1].contacted[0] = true;
+    st6.empires[0].contacted[2] = true; st6.empires[2].contacted[0] = true;
 
     const relRows = Gnn.relationsRows(RULES, st6);
-    check('relationsRows returns one row per alive empire, contact or not',
-      relRows.length === 4);
+    check('relationsRows excludes an empire the human has never contacted',
+      relRows.length === 3 && !relRows.some((r) => r.idx === 3));
     const byIdx = Object.fromEntries(relRows.map((r) => [r.idx, r]));
     check('war is reciprocal', byIdx[0].atWar.includes(st6.empires[1].name)
       && byIdx[1].atWar.includes(st6.empires[0].name));
@@ -3257,10 +3262,12 @@ section('7b. Galactic News Network');
       && byIdx[1].atWar.length === 1 && !byIdx[1].atWar.includes(st6.empires[2].name));
     check('trade agreement is reciprocal and independent of treaty state',
       byIdx[0].trade.includes(st6.empires[2].name) && byIdx[2].trade.includes(st6.empires[0].name));
-    check('an empire with no relations at all has three empty lists',
-      byIdx[3].atWar.length === 0 && byIdx[3].trade.length === 0 && byIdx[3].allied.length === 0);
     check('an empire not at war with everyone does not falsely list the uninvolved',
-      !byIdx[0].atWar.includes(st6.empires[2].name) && !byIdx[0].atWar.includes(st6.empires[3].name));
+      !byIdx[0].atWar.includes(st6.empires[2].name));
+    // 3 is uncontacted, so it has no row — but it can still surface as a
+    // NAME inside a contacted empire's own lists, unaffected by the gate.
+    // No such reference exists in this fixture (3 has no relations at all),
+    // so there is nothing further to assert here beyond its row being gone.
   }
 }