Research Deepens, Energy Burns, and the Galaxy Pushes Back

Today was all about depth and connection — linking research to real gameplay effects, improving feedback systems, and laying down infrastructure for systems that depend on each other.

What Got Done

• Research System Enhancements: Added more technologies, unlock tiers, special projects, and gating for buildings and ship components. Research is now central to player progression.
• Energy System: Ships now have power capacity, and weapons consume energy per use. This creates tactical limitations and strategic outfitting tradeoffs.
• Building UI Fixes: Squashed bugs related to construction interface logic.
• HUD Improvements: Added a clean and functional Next Turn button.
• Smart Notifications: Implemented a new system to surface pending actions — like unassigned research, idle shipyards, and colonies needing orders.

What I Noticed

Generating believable Terran planet sprites remains tough. GPT tools frequently lean on Earth-like continents and familiar geography, even when prompted otherwise. Manual filtering and stitching provide mitigation.

Still Unfinished

Systems are interdependent and tangled now. Many features cannot be finished in isolation — research depends on diplomacy, AI logic needs construction, and unlocking tech touches everything.