settled-reach/decisions/questions-scope.md

Open Questions — Scope

Game concept, prototype boundaries, production pipeline, and feature decisions.

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Q-002: Scope of v0.1 playable prototype

• Status: Map spec resolved (D-014). Remaining: mechanics, characters, interactions for minimum playable build.
• Assigned to: Full team

Q-004: One campaign spanning all eras or separate era scenarios?

• Status: Not yet discussed
• Context: Gore raised that different historical eras of the Settled Reach play very differently. Prototype focuses on a single era.
• Assigned to: Gore, Miri to lead discussion

Q-005: Scale for prototype - locations, characters, factions

• Status: Partially scoped
• Early signal: Institute/Armstrong City hub, ~10-20 characters, Guardians + institutional + political factions
• Assigned to: Gestalt, Tyre, Miri

Q-007: Target platform(s)

• Status: Not yet discussed
• Context: Team Leader has Linux background (Fedora). Cross-platform considerations?
• Assigned to: Tyre

Q-008: Licensing / distribution model

• Status: Not yet discussed
• Question: Open source? Free? Commercial? This affects engine choice and asset decisions.
• Assigned to: Team Leader

Q-011: Character selection and playable characters

• Status: Resolved → D-117, D-115, D-122
• Resolution: v0.2 has one playable character type: the tycoon (small business owner starting state, D-118). One bookmark. All NPCs are generated — no canon named characters. Character creation is skills + bookmark only. The "how different are their starting positions?" question is answered by the small business owner economic variation (D-118: bar, logistics contract, storage franchise as starting configurations). The "canon characters vs original" question is answered by D-122: all NPCs generated, no canon characters exist in v0.2.
• Date resolved: 2026-03-05 (Where's the Fun? Workshop)
• Question: Which characters are playable in the prototype? How different are their starting positions? Can you play canon characters or only original ones?
• Assigned to: Miri, Paula

Q-027: Fast-travel system design

• Status: Open
• Question: How does inter-system travel work in production gameplay? The current hub teleport (Home key, #501) is scoped as Gauntlet-only dev tool. Production travel must be diegetic and respect asymmetric information. Proposed flow: player goes to local gate → warps to system gate → interacts with target menu → jumps to destination system gate. Key constraints:
  1. Region gating: fast-travel only available from safe or fast-travel-enabled regions. If you rented transport to reach a remote location (e.g. mountain colony), you must return the transport to civilization first — this can be a skip-travel interaction but must happen in-world.
  2. Asymmetric information: NPCs observe arrivals and departures. Travel choices leak information (who saw you leave, who sees you arrive, what transport was used).
  3. Home key in production: at most, Home could prompt "Do you want to fast-travel to the system hub?" if in a safe/enabled region — never instant teleport.
  4. Transport types: walking, rented vehicle, public transit, gate network — each with different information exposure profiles.
• Context: #501 implemented instant Home key teleport gated behind gauntlet_mode. Re-scoped to Gauntlet-only after design review. Production fast-travel needs separate design and implementation.
• Assigned to: Gestalt, Paula, Tyre
• Source: Sprint 10 PR review discussion (2026-02-19)

Q-032: Cultural ingredients menu

• Status: Open
• Question: Should world generation use a 6-category cultural ingredients menu (Heritage Roots, Settlement Motivation, Economic Function, Philosophical Alignment, Corporate/Faction Presence, Drift Stage) where each culture is composed by selecting from ingredient lists? The lead approved the "ingredients menu" model over fixed cultural taxonomies. Full specification needed: category definitions, ingredient lists per category, composition rules, absence-as-signal mechanics.
• Assigned to: Miri, Gestalt
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4, lead interview

Q-034: PC archetypes

• Status: Partially resolved → D-117 (v0.2 scope only: tycoon bookmark, zero investigation)
• Partial resolution: v0.2 scope is settled — one bookmark (tycoon, small business owner start per D-118). Smuggler and detective are abandoned for v0.2. The full 8-archetype model, fluid archetype transitions, and "vulnerable window" mechanics remain undesigned for the full game. The "detective, smuggler, tycoon are jobs you can have, not the game's identity" framing (Where's the Fun? Workshop) is the guiding principle for future archetype design.
• Question: Should the full game support 8 fluid PC archetypes (Smuggler, Detective, Engineer, Diplomat, Medic, Scholar, Soldier, Merchant) with transition mechanics where archetype shifts during play based on player behavior? The lead approved 8 archetypes with fluid transitions as a game mechanic. v0.1 ships smuggler + detective only (D-027). Full archetype spec, transition triggers, and "vulnerable window" mechanics are undesigned. NOTE: The character-creation-game-setup workshop (Q-011) will address this — coordinate.
• Assigned to: Nigel, Gestalt
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4, lead interview

Q-035: Sacred/Profane/Middle Kingdom framework

• Status: Open
• Question: Should all game systems map to a Sacred/Profane/Middle Kingdom architectural framework? The lead approved this model where Sacred = what the system protects, Profane = what threatens it, Middle Kingdom = where the player navigates. The wiki-review workshop produced a full mapping table covering information, social, economic, spatial, temporal, and narrative systems. Needs formal specification and validation against current architecture.
• Assigned to: Gore, Gestalt
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4, lead interview

Q-036: District skeleton as generator output

• Status: Open
• Question: For the 300-world model, should the district skeleton (social sites, NPC slots, triangle templates, economic function, access topology) be the atomic output unit of the world generator? D-025 defines social sites as the atomic template unit for hand-authoring. The generator model reframes the district as a composed output from ingredient inputs. How does this interact with D-025?
• Assigned to: Tyre, Gestalt
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4

Q-037: Generator development pipeline

• Status: Partially resolved → D-119 (Sprint 25 generator spike confirmed as first step)
• Partial resolution: The first phase is confirmed — Sprint 25 generator spike. The 6-phase pipeline spec (Ingredient Authoring, Template Authoring, Generator Development, Validation Development, Generation + Review, Hand-Elevation) remains unformally adopted. Generator-first approach (D-114) and the confirmed Sprint 25 spike (D-119) define the immediate critical path. Full pipeline spec remains open pending post-spike assessment.
• Question: Should content production follow a 6-phase generator pipeline (Ingredient Authoring, Template Authoring, Generator Development, Validation Development, Generation + Review, Hand-Elevation)? The wiki-review workshop proposed this as the production model for 300 worlds. SI mapped a release path (v0.1 hand-authored, v0.2-0.5 template expansion, v0.6-0.10 generator development, pre-v1.0 validation). Needs scope assessment and sprint planning integration.
• Assigned to: SI, Tyre
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4

Q-038: Authored content estimate at 300-world scale

• Status: Open
• Question: What is the irreducible authored content volume for 300 worlds? The wiki-review workshop estimated ~1,600-2,800 hours of hand-authoring for generator inputs (ingredient definitions, template specifications, validation rules, hand-elevation passes). How does this compare to the 20-district hand-authoring model it replaced? Is this estimate still valid given subsequent architectural decisions?
• Assigned to: Mellanie, SI
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4

Q-039: Gate topology generation

• Status: Resolved → D-095 (amended), star-map.json, systems.db
• Question: How should the world generator produce gate (wormhole) network topology for 300 worlds? The wiki-review workshop proposed: gate connectivity = Sacred (what connects), which worlds connect = Profane (what separates), accessible world count = Middle Kingdom (where the player navigates). Small-world network properties, hub-and-spoke vs mesh topology, and Sacred/Profane constraints on gate placement are all unresolved. D-012 covers chunk-based map architecture but predates the 300-world model.
• Resolution: 301-system star map generated and populated. Topology is alien-determined (horizon station infrastructure), producing a small-world network with hub-and-spoke characteristics: 3 hub systems (5 apertures), junction nodes (3-4 apertures), loop members (2), and spur ends (1). The distribution was sculpted through iterative passes (generate-star-map.py, sculpt-star-map.py, tune-star-map-topology.py, patch-core-sector.py) to produce realistic network properties. Gate connections are stored in star-map.json (334 edges) and server/data/systems.db (system_gates table). Sacred/Profane framing resolved: connections are Sacred (alien-given, not human-chosen); what humans do with them is Profane.
• Assigned to: Tyre, Nigel
• Source: Wiki Review Workshop R4

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Q-058: Runtime behavior text serving system

• Status: Open
• Question: How should NPC observable behaviors be served to the client at runtime? NpcBlueprint.observable_behaviors exists as generator output but no runtime system reads it or sends behavior text to the client. The voice pipeline (D-138) needs an integration point: voice cache lookup replaces base text with re-voiced text before delivery. Needs: which system selects the current behavior, how it's delivered in ObserverSnapshot, and how tell behaviors (always passthrough) are distinguished from voiceable behaviors.
• Assigned to: Tyre, SI
• Source: Voice pipeline Spike 2 Phase 3

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15 questions (2 resolved, 3 partially resolved, 10 open). Last updated: 2026-03-14 (Q-039 resolved — gate topology generated)