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settled-reach/governance/rejected/architecture.md
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jpmschweitzerandClaude Opus 4.8 f936e503da docs(decisions): restructure into pql governance DQR tree
Phase 1 of the pql migration. Moves the flat decisions/*.md layout into
governance/{decisions,questions,rejected}/<domain>.md — the tree pql's
`decisions sync` parses natively (record type from subdir, domain from
filename stem). Proven against pql 1.6.2: sync reports 357 records
(237 D / 108 Q / 12 R), 1057 refs, broken: 0; validate ok.

- 6 D-domain files -> governance/decisions/ (git renames)
- 5 questions-<domain>.md -> governance/questions/<domain>.md (prefix dropped)
- rejected.md split by domain -> governance/rejected/{architecture(R-001..010),
  economics(R-011),perception(R-012)}.md
- decisions/README.md + questions.md index folded into governance/README.md;
  pql's `decisions sync` now auto-maintains the record index appended below
  the hand-written domain guidance (no more manual ID-list table upkeep).
- .pql/config.yaml: canonical vault config (tracked, not ignored).

Link rewrites are token-preserving: only the relative `foo.md` path portion
changes (e.g. `rejected.md#r-011` -> `../rejected/economics.md#r-011`); every
`[D-NNN]` bracket text and `#anchor` stays byte-identical, so pql's reference
extraction is unaffected. The one-shot transform is committed at
tooling/pql-migrate/restructure_decisions.py for provenance.

Codebase path references to decisions/ (CLAUDE.md, rules, skills, docs) are
updated in a follow-up commit.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-06 12:12:45 +02:00

3.8 KiB

Rejected Alternatives — Architecture

Rejected proposals in the architecture domain, rationale preserved for the audit trail.

R-001: Stellaris mod

  • Rejected: 2026-02-08
  • Reason: Character system too shallow, multi-empire assumption conflicts with the Settled Reach's single-civilization focus, wormhole-as-infrastructure not achievable within Stellaris modding. Team Leader's experience with Star Trek: New Horizons confirmed that even well-suited IPs struggle with character connection in Stellaris.

R-002: CK3 total conversion

  • Rejected: 2026-02-08
  • Reason: Would require building a space map from scratch within CK3's framework - essentially building a game inside a game. The map system fundamentally doesn't support the complexity needed.

R-003: Other existing games (Distant Worlds 2, GalCiv IV, Sins of a Solar Empire II, Victoria 3)

  • Rejected: 2026-02-08
  • Reason: Each captures at most 40% of what's needed. Smaller modding communities, less mature tools, and none solve the core CK3+Stellaris hybrid requirement.

R-004: Pure Bevy (Rust) — no Godot

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: No visual editor (level design is code-only). UI framework in flux. API breaks significantly between versions. For a solo developer who needs visual tools for hand-crafted buildings (D-014), Godot's editor is a massive productivity advantage. Bevy's ECS is used — just not its renderer.

R-005: Pure Godot (GDScript or C#)

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: Scene tree paradigm fights ECS-style simulation. Perception queries (D-017) and information boundaries (D-010) map naturally to ECS component queries, not scene tree traversal. Multi-core scaling for expanded content impossible in GDScript. Kept as kill-switch fallback if Rust architecture exceeds time budget.

R-006: Godot + Rust via GDExtension

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: gdext is pre-1.0 with breaking API changes. Godot version upgrades break GDExtension ABI. Thread safety at FFI boundary is CRITICAL risk (Gd<T> is !Send/!Sync). Couples Rust and Godot learning curves. Subprocess/IPC achieves the same architecture without the FFI risk surface, and maps directly to D-010 client-server. See docs/architecture/risk-godot-rust-bridge.md for full analysis.

R-007: Godot + C++ via GDExtension

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: More mature bindings than gdext, but trades Rust's safety guarantees for C++ memory unsafety. No advantage over subprocess/IPC approach. Developer not experienced in C++.

R-008: Fyrox (pure Rust engine)

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: Single maintainer. ~1/50th of Godot's community. Less documentation, fewer tutorials, weaker AI training data for Claude Code. Single-maintainer risk unacceptable for multi-year project.

R-009: Custom framework (Rust + raylib/macroquad)

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: Maximum control but you build everything — tilemap rendering, camera, UI, audio, input, asset pipeline. Months before testing a mechanic. The game's hard problems are simulation, not rendering — don't reinvent the rendering wheel.

R-010: protobuf for client-server serialization

  • Rejected: 2026-02-09
  • Reason: Schema evolution across independent deployments is a problem we don't have (one developer, client and server ship together). Poor GDScript support. Rigid schema fights dynamic HUD composition driven by perception modes (D-017). MessagePack's schema-optional nature fits better.