Stellar Throne Devlog #9: Visual Parity and Data Preservation

Following up on Monday's successful validation milestone, today focused on addressing visual inconsistencies that emerged during testing of Stellar Throne.

Fixing Star Rendering

The initial problem involved star type serialization mismatches. Godot represented star types as integer enum values, but the Zig engine expected string formats like "red dwarf" or "yellow star." The fix added proper enum-to-string conversion in the Godot serialization layer, ensuring correct color rendering across both systems.

Preserving Planet Data

Planets were resetting to default positions after each turn. The Zig layer wasn't serializing visual fields like orbital angle, orbital speed, and size. The fix extended planet serialization to preserve these cosmetic properties through simulation cycles without modification.

Restoring Entity Names

Stars, planets, empires, and fleets were displaying as unnamed after turns. The Zig structs weren't including name fields in serialized output. All relevant structures now explicitly include name serialization in their output.

Fleet Composition & Movement

Fleets were losing ship type data during processing. The Zig fleet struct was expanded to include a ship composition array, storing each ship group's type, count, and health percentage. Additionally, arrival positioning logic was corrected so fleets occupy realistic orbits rather than clustering at star centers.

Unit Test Cleanup

Conditional imports were implemented so Godot-specific modules only load when building the shared library, allowing standalone Zig tests to run cleanly.

Technical Summary

• 8 total commits
• 330+ lines of changes across serialization, positioning, and test infrastructure
• All visual data now preserves through simulation round-trips

Next Steps

• Stress testing visual data preservation across extended playthroughs
• Automated cosmetic data survival testing
• Serialization performance profiling
• Designing diplomacy and trade route systems