- Assign each jump-tree branch a faction (apex/mindweave/zenith) with seeded
shuffle; territory = depth 2..maxDepth-1 per branch, ring + tips stay neutral
- Designate four capital worlds (neutral + one per faction) as the outermost
planet of their system, with fixed frames 18-21 and faction-owned settlements
- Add cross-branch bridge gates in the middle belt so factions can reach each
other without routing through the trunk; Dijkstra picks the shorter route
- Introduce arid planet class (always habitable, settles as colony) across all
system types with rebalanced class weights
- Wire Trestle's last brief to auto-set destination to the neutral capital on
acknowledgment (CommsHub onEnd → GameScene._commEnded)
- Render faction ring layer + capital seat marks on the galaxy plate; style
bridge lanes distinctly from trunk edges
- Populate settlement owner from system faction (reputation seam now live);
SystemReport reads faction label/color
- Add dev/factions.test.mjs covering config, branches, capitals, territory,
arid, bridges, determinism; update existing tests for new invariants
- Galaxy shrunk to 200 systems (data/galaxy.json) — always fully known,
generation ~15 ms; roster/content two-level design unchanged.
- Object composition replaces planetCount (data/systems.json → objectCount):
10% barren (jump-gate-only), else 2/3/4/5 objects (planets + free-space
stations) at 15/30/30/15. One unified roll (rollSystemComposition) shared
by the content generator and the frame pass.
- Barren systems: no planets, no stations, no asteroid clusters; their
single gate sits on the star→destination ray at barrenDistance (8192 px).
Strong connectivity keeps them reachable.
- Jump gates are DORMANT by default: every gate record carries
active:false, the entity renders dim with a still field. Activation is
the seam for the tether mechanic (an activated gate anchors a level-1
tether). data/gates.json gains barrenDistance.
- Frame diversity (js/galaxy/PlanetFrames.js): one galaxy-wide pass spreads
(class, frame) across the galaxy — fixed spatial order, least-used face
among already-assigned nearest stars, seeded tie-breaks. Stamps
planet.frame + content.homeFrame, read by GameScene.
- Tests: dev/frames.test.mjs added; jumps/galaxy/discovery/jumpgate/asteroids
suites updated to the new rules (composition buckets, barren gates,
active flags, frame determinism/spread, 5-object max, index clamps).
- Docs (README, PROJECT_NOTES) and stale 40k references updated.
Brian Fertig