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Universe Foundation

The Universe Foundation feature establishes the static world structure that all other gameplay systems depend on.

Purpose

Before any movement, routing, ownership, warfare, or economy can exist, the game needs a reliable world structure. This feature defines and stores that structure: the universe, the galaxy inside it, the regions inside that galaxy, the orbital systems inside each region, and the stellar objects inside each orbital system.

This feature must be in place before any other gameplay feature is built.

Player Value

Players do not interact with the Universe Foundation directly. Its value is indirect: it defines the spatial world that players navigate, control, and compete over.

The quality of this foundation determines how clearly territories can be identified, how routing can be calculated, and how gameplay systems can reference specific locations.

Rules

  • There is exactly one universe.
  • There is exactly one galaxy inside the universe.
  • The galaxy contains one or more named regions.
  • Each region contains zero or more orbital systems.
  • Each orbital system belongs to exactly one region.
  • Each orbital system contains zero or more stellar objects.
  • Each stellar object belongs to exactly one orbital system.
  • All universe foundation data is treated as relatively static. It changes rarely and only through administrative action, not through normal gameplay events.

Player Actions

The Universe Foundation does not expose direct player actions in its initial form. Players can:

  • view the universe map and region layout
  • view orbital systems within a region
  • view stellar objects within an orbital system

Write and administrative actions are reserved for game operators at this stage.

Constraints

  • Active gameplay logic — travel, combat, construction, extraction, sovereignty, economy — is out of scope for this feature.
  • Only one galaxy is modelled in the current scope. Multi-galaxy support is a future concern.
  • Connections between systems are not part of world foundation. They are player-built gates, described in the Gates feature.