- Replace the annular-band scatter (minOrbit/maxOrbit/minEdgeGap) with a ring-based placement: objects sit on one or two orbits around the home world, governed by center-to-center `minSpacing` and `maxNeighbor`
- Free-space stations (deep-space stations, waypoints) are now layout objects alongside planets; planet-bound settlements stay features of their planet
- Handle the N=11 case (9 planets + 2 stations) with an inner 3-ring + outer 8-ring; chain outward defensively for any larger N
- Update tests to verify the new spacing invariants, the two-orbit case, and determinism including station positions
- Refresh PROJECT_NOTES and the data-file comment to describe the orbit model
Two small naming/labeling fixes:
1. The home planet was always the generic "Terra". It now takes the first
name off the STARTING system's planet-name deck (SystemGenerator), so it
reads as a real place and can never clash with one of that system's
planets. Stored as content.homeName (only the starting system has one);
the old planets.homeName stays as a fallback. Used for the compass
home chip and the tether anchor label.
2. Confirmed/sharpened the compass name tag: each discovered off-screen
object's arrow chip already renders TYPE + NAME — now the home world
shows its bank name too (e.g. "HOME WORLD · ESHKAELURA").
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Planets and space stations were previously made by stitching a root word to
a kind noun ("Kest Skyspire", "New Natick IV"), which read like labels, not
names. They now draw from deep, hand-picked name BANKS in data/naming.json:
- banks.planet — colonial "New Denver"/"Port Tucson" worlds mixed with
alien "Klaxoria"/"Vexithunhal" worlds (269 names).
- banks.station — official designations ("Deep Space SC-145", "Nav Relay
V-77") mixed with smuggler hangouts ("Hell's Hideout",
"The Rusty Anchor") (165 names).
Assignment is a seeded shuffle of the whole bank (NameGenerator.planetDeck /
stationDeck), dealt out per-system in order, so a system never repeats a
name until the pool is exhausted (impossible at these sizes). The decks come
from dedicated Rng.derive(...) streams, keeping generation order-independent
(lazy === eager). Stars and the galaxy still synthesize from syllable pools
(unbounded), and the home world keeps its configured name.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Discovery rule: ship within `discovery.distance` (540 px) of a world's edge discovers it once per system; state is pure, save-ready (`Discovery.toJSON/fromJSON`)
- Off-screen compass (`DiscoveryCompass`): themed screen-edge arrows with type/name chips point back at discovered worlds; geometry helpers (`edgeAnchor`, `circleInView`, `lerpAngle`) exported for Node tests
- Solar-system layout: `layoutSystemPlanets` places generated worlds in a deterministic annular band around the home world, enforcing edge-to-edge separation and per-class scale/tint from `data/planets.json`
- All system planets are solid to the ship (collision + click-clamp), not just home
- Rim ping + HUD toast on discovery (`celebrateDiscovery`)
- New planet class pools (rocky/gas/ice/lava) with frames, `classScale`, `classTint`, and `typeLabels`
- Smoke-game dev hooks: `?ship=x,y` and `?near=px` for screenshotting discovery/compass states
- Node test suite (`dev/discovery.test.mjs`) covering rule boundaries, per-system state, JSON round-trip, layout bounds/determinism, compass geometry, and class pools
The galaxy was settled long before the player arrives. Systems now
host colonies on habitable worlds, mining stations over resource
worlds, cloud bases riding gas giants, stations adrift in open
space, and beacons — or report "charted · unclaimed" when empty.
- data/settlements.json: the shared kind vocabulary (label, theme,
population range, anchor type); add a kind = JSON + naming pool.
- Per-archetype rates in data/systems.json (chance + required
planet class) and a core→rim density gradient in data/galaxy.json
(falloff/floor), keyed off each record's new rNorm.
- Draws stay in a stable order on the system's own Rng stream, so
lazy and eager generation still produce identical content.
- Every settlement keeps owner: null, a reserved seam for the
factions/pirates that will claim them later.
- NameGenerator.station() names from anchor + kind ("Kest Skyspire").
- SystemReport.js is a pure, testable formatter (dossier lines,
"charted · unclaimed" for empty); GameScene's HUD renders it and
Node tests cover structure, mix, gradient, naming, lazy === eager.
- Main menu Galaxy Seed panel: displayed, editable, rerollable; the menu
previews what the seed builds (galaxy name, scale, archetypes) before
committing. Same seed always generates the same galaxy.
- js/galaxy/Galaxy.js: seeded roster of 40k systems (disk + core + spiral
arms, type weights, radial bands) with spatial hash for neighbor queries;
contents generated lazily on arrival — identical to eager generateAll()
because each system draws from Rng.derive(seed, 'system', id).
- js/galaxy/SystemGenerator.js + data/systems.json: six themed archetypes
whose attributes (star classes, planet count spread, class weights,
moons, belts, habitability, hazard) steer content generation.
- data/galaxy.json layout/distribution knobs, incl. distribution.rules[]
hook for future proximity/clustering rules; data/naming.json name pools.
- GameScene: current system name/identity HUD (lazy content generation
on arrival); dev boot without a menu falls back to a dev galaxy.
- dev/galaxy.test.mjs: determinism, distribution, bands, lazy==eager,
neighbor brute-force checks (40k roster in ~70ms).
- Docs: world model, determinism rules, roadmap update.
Brian Fertig
Brian Fertig