Split the cluttered progression_design.md and content_design.md into
separated documents by role:
- docs/balancing/rules.md - design rules and principles (moved from
progression_design.md, which is removed)
- docs/balancing/targets.md - the chosen base numbers: run shape,
factory curve, threat ladder (achieved
values adopted), combat anchors, pacing
anchors
- docs/balancing/derived.md - current tuned state of all derived
numbers, mirroring the configs
- docs/balancing/process.md - pass order, tuning discipline learned in
arena rounds 1-5, tools, next-round
checklist
- docs/balancing/history.md - chronological record: decisions, numbers
pass, calculator bugs, arena rounds,
pacing pass
- docs/balancing/README.md - index, status, open action items (moved
from progression_design.md)
content_design.md slims back down to actual content: footprint gating,
hull grids, gating matrix (module names updated to railguns), and the
production tree structure with its fiction - numbers, anchors, arena
logs, and pacing all moved to docs/balancing/. Stale references in the
config comments updated to the new locations.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Replace the everything-at--1 test setup with the real progression:
starting set is exactly drone/frigate/railgun_s/salvager; the ladder
runs destroyer+repair+armor at level 0, supports at 1, the quartz gate
(cruiser, railgun_m, afterburner, chip/hardened shortcuts) at 2,
battlecruiser at 4, battleship+railgun_l at 6, dreadnought at 8,
carrier+drone_hangar at 9, with unlock_requires edges cruiser ->
battlecruiser -> battleship -> dreadnought/carrier and railgun_m ->
railgun_l.
world.toml: threat_rate_formula 2*x + 0.15*x*x (below the player's
achievable military output early, crossing at the late boundary,
overwhelming by cycle ~24), starting_building_blocks 1000 -> 200,
expansion cost 200 -> 400 flat (placeholder until action item 4),
artifact_win_count 3 -> 5 (winning means choosing the artifact over a
schematic five times across ~7 cumulative offers).
Bug fix found during the pass: the building_block recipe carried no
unlock_at_station_level, and since building blocks appear in no
schematic's materials, implicit unlocking could never reach it - the
recipe was silently locked at game start. Now explicitly -1.
All values and derivations documented in content_design.md, "Pacing
pass - first values".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Round 5 (with fight durations): TTK anchor validated - mirrors run
22.7/71.2/94.6 s (drone/cruiser/battleship), most fights within
22-72 s, destroyers-vs-dreadnought the accepted 214 s outlier. All
matchups converged: mirrors 5-10%, swarm vs cruisers +15%, frigates
vs battleship +13% (dropped on its own, confirming the noise floor),
dreadnought +3%, glass vs armored +10%, two-to-one 78%, stations 44%.
Two two-round signals actioned per the convergence policy:
battlecruiser hull 2200 -> 2400 (mixed fleet won +20%/+18% twice) and
repair_amount 12 -> 9 (~0.7 HP/s per threat; escorted team held +24%
twice with all frigates surviving). Everything else frozen; further
refinement moves to real-game playtests. Removed the arena
end-condition action item (fixed upstream).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Round 4: mirrors 0-3%, swarm vs cruisers +7%, glass vs armored
resolved at +3% for armored (armor 1200 confirmed). Noise floor
established at ~+/-10% per single run (battleship margin ignored a
-10% EHP cut; repair drifted 14->24% with no repair changes).
Round-5 nudges for the armor-coupling overshoots: battlecruiser hull
2000 -> 2200, dreadnought/carrier 22500 -> 24000 (two-round
persistent deficit vs destroyers). The battleship's +23% over a pure
frigate fleet is accepted as doctrine texture rather than chased: the
edge is mechanical (range) and the fair anti-capital answer is the
mixed fleet, whose arena is balanced. Convergence policy documented:
act only on two-round signals, +/-20% counts as converged for v1.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Round 3 (narrow lanes; arena geometry is part of the fixture from
here): dreadnought closed to -11%, battleship improved to +22%, the
drone swarm flipped to +14% over cruisers under full engagement, glass
beat armored for the third consecutive round, mirrors/repair/
two-to-one healthy, stations cracked at 51% by the 3x swarm under the
new geometry (watch, not touched).
Round-4 knobs: armor_plates 1000 -> 1200 (~37 HP/threat; persistent
glass signal, also lifts armor-carrying cruiser/BC/destroyer/DN
loadouts), battlecruiser hull 2500 -> 2000 (net -300 EHP after its
armor gain), battleship 7000 -> 6300 (loadout has no armor, clean
-10%), dreadnought/carrier 19000 -> 22500 (opposing destroyers gain
armor too, so the larger step). Anchors doc notes the emerging shape:
the arena prices capitals as tanks with taxed guns.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Round 2 (with the new EHP-margin logging): mirrors healthy and the
round-1 side bias was noise; drones-vs-cruisers (10%) and
mixed-vs-battlecruisers (14%) near parity; battleship over at +33%
while dreadnought under at -37%; glass-vs-armored narrowed to 11%
(watch); repair escort fair at 11%; two-to-one decisive; the 3x swarm
now cracks the station set at 13%.
Round-3 knobs: weapon_stabilizer range multiplier 1.5 -> 1.3 (range is
the strongest stat under the orbit AI, and the stabilized battleship
was the one loadout still overperforming), plus per-hull HP trims with
the 15 HP/threat anchor demoted to a prior and per-hull HP documented
as the empirical trim knob: battlecruiser 2700 -> 2500, battleship
7500 -> 7000, dreadnought/carrier 15500 -> 19000.
Action items: mirror-bias and EHP-logging items resolved (the latter
implemented upstream); new item to verify the arena end condition seen
idling in round 1 with all ships dead.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Round 1 findings: concentrated fleets won all four equal-threat
cross-tier matchups flawlessly; glass destroyers beat armored; repair
escort beat raw numbers flawlessly; two stations annihilated a 3x
threat swarm through 200 m approach fire; team 1 won all three mirror
matches (possible sim bias, recorded as action item 6, plus action
item 7 for HP-margin logging).
Knob changes, deliberately few for clean attribution: concentration
tax on m/l gun DPS (railgun_m damage 17 -> 14, railgun_l 70 -> 52),
armor_plates 640 -> 1000 HP (~31 HP/threat: killing removes enemy DPS
while surviving merely delays, so HP must be cheaper than DPS), repair
25 -> 12 HP per cycle (~1 HP/s per threat: in-combat sustain removes
enemy DPS and must be priced like DPS), station range 200 -> 120. Gun
ranges untouched; if concentration still wins flawlessly in round 2,
the range ladder is the next suspect. Anchors and findings documented
in content_design.md; fitted threat values are unaffected by stat
changes, so the arena suite counts stay valid.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Derive all combat stats from documented anchors (content_design.md,
'Combat stat anchors'): weapon DPS ~0.6 per threat with a mild size
discount traded for range (railgun m/l damage 17/70), hull HP at 15
per hull threat (drone 60 up to capitals 15500), armor at a 20/threat
premium (armor_plates 640 HP), repair at ~2 HP/s per threat (25 HP per
cycle), salvager range fixed to 60 m with cargo 20, and a monotone
mobility ladder (the placeholder drone was the least agile ship).
Stations anchored to 'a fresh station holds one early parity wave';
enemy level 0 matches the player station and scales per push. HQ 5000
HP. scrap_despawn_seconds 30 -> 120 so capital-sized scrap drops are
collectable.
Rewrite balancing.toml as the canonical 12-arena suite: class mirrors,
equal-threat cross-tier matchups with counts from the verified threat
values, a two-to-one decisiveness check, armored-vs-glass and
repair-escort doctrine matchups, and station assault. The carrier
arena is expected to lose until drone launching exists (hangar is dead
threat) - documented, not stat-compensated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
recipes.toml: full v2 rewrite - iron/copper/quartz mining, smelting
incl. the value-losing scrap sink, reprocessing (4 scrap / 4 s,
voidsteel at 20% of the full pool), tiered intermediates, hulls,
module prefabs, and the three drop-only shortcut recipes.
modules.toml: lasers renamed to railguns (implementation unchanged),
prefab materials and numbers-pass production times; combat stats stay
placeholders for the arena pass.
ships.toml: hull-item materials, numbers-pass base production times,
and geometry-validated default_modules loadouts for every ship (waves
now spawn armed).
visuals.toml: item entries for the new palette (quartz, silicon,
copper_coil, control_chip, capacitor_bank, hardened_steel,
ceramic_plate, voidsteel, voidsteel_plate, railgun modules); retired
titanium/alloy/laser items removed.
world.toml: scrap_per_threat = 0.25 per the numbers pass.
threat_report.py: commit an item's threat only once every eligible
recipe is computable - the previous first-resolved-wins behavior let
shortcut recipes underprice items (same flaw exists in
ThreatCostCalculator, recorded as action item 9). Verified: all
default_modules placements valid, verify_recipes and verify_layouts
pass, and the report reproduces the numbers-pass tables exactly
(fitted: 10.5/47/99/233.5/354.5/722.5/1491.5/1436.5). Doc tables
updated for the three geometry-corrected loadouts.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Reads recipes/ships/modules/world.toml and reports per-item threat
values, module contributions, hull-only and fitted ship threats
(default_modules), producer:consumer ratio tables, and belt
feasibility against the single-belt cap.
Implements the agreed design semantics: per-unit threat (recipe threat
divided by output amount), the scrap-fallback rule, and fixpoint
resolution through reprocessing-only items. Running it against the
current configs surfaced two ThreatCostCalculator deviations, recorded
as new action items: multi-output recipes are double-priced (no
per-unit division), and items downstream of reprocessing-only items
never resolve, underestimating capital hull threat.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Refine the REQ-THREAT-ITEM fix per review: recipes taking scrap as
input participate in an item threat computation only when no
scrap-free recipe produces that item, mirroring the existing
reprocessing-path rule instead of a blanket exclusion.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
content_design.md: full recipe quantities and durations computed with
a recursive threat calculator - economy constants (scrap_per_threat
0.25, reprocessing 4 scrap / 4 s, voidsteel at threat 100), per-item
threat values, module contributions, and fitted ship threats vs the
ladder (96-124%, smooth ~x2-per-class curve). Checks recorded: ratio
curve realized (t1 1:1, t2 2:3, t3 strange), belt feasibility under
the single-belt cap, block at 4 threat implying ~18 blocks average
building cost for the 4-minute doubling target, and a small-end
deviation note recommending ladder adjustment over chain thinning.
progression_design.md: two new action items - amend REQ-THREAT-ITEM to
exclude scrap-consuming recipes from item threat (the max rule would
otherwise inflate basic materials via the scrap smelting recipe), and
port the calculator to tools/threat_report.py.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Add the tree structure draft to the v2 decisions section: mined and
smelted items, reprocessing pool, intermediates per tier with ratio
classes and archetypes, hull and module recipes as input lists, the
resolved m+ hull gate (hardened_steel plus control_chip), shortcut
recipe candidates, and a refactorability spot-check. Quantities and
durations are deferred to the numbers pass against the threat ladder.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
progression_design.md: rewrite the resource phases around the four
decided inputs (two mined everywhere, one deposit-gated mid resource,
one scrap-only late input), add the Resource deposits rule set
(freedom first / geography later, deposits only in expansions, patch
area as throughput cap, deterministic content, binary mining), note
the dual gating of the mid resource, and add the deposit-layer action
item.
content_design.md: mark the first-pass tree as superseded and record
the v2 decisions — iron/copper/quartz/voidsteel with their fiction
(M-type asteroid, quartz geodes, battle-forged voidsteel), titanium
dropped with its gating role moved to electronics and possibly a
quality-steel step, the material palette fingerprints, and the
laser-to-railgun rename with lasers reserved as a future weapon type.
Update the balancing target phase boundaries accordingly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
Record the six root numbers for the balancing pass: run length (win
within ~2 h game time, cycle 20-24), phase boundaries, factory size
curve, fitted threat-cost ladder, swarm fleet size (~25 ships), and
block economy roots (bootstrap, doubling time, expansion cadence).
Derived values are always re-derived from these roots, never patched
directly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DyCu8vwChKMbLJQ3xosYEN
