Changelog v3 10s - Heliomance/Uncharted-Horizons GitHub Wiki

_{Changelog · Design document — Changelog}

Breakthrough IDs link to the breakthrough that holds the ID today. A few early entries predate a renumbering or a merge, so an ID there may since have passed to another breakthrough.

Summary: Cleanup pass. Lockout window defined as UNCOMMON obsolescence (CORE/STANDARD never lock out); FTL sampling order corrected to Matter-then-FTL with D/F candidate gating; Rule 3, never-tell list and Periodic Table weight corrected; ten prerequisite labels fixed (incl. WA02→WA06 in F15/WA24); Water Wheel merged into Water Mill (~512). Elemental-world prerequisite unblocks deferred to the physics-derived pass.

Pure consistency fixes arising from the v3.18 design review; no design changes.

• Lockout window defined as obsolescence. The three references to a "lockout window" now say what they meant: a Revealed UNCOMMON breakthrough being obsoleted before discovery. Made explicit that only UNCOMMON breakthroughs can lock out — CORE and STANDARD never do — which reconciles the Paths Not Taken and Grand Endeavour text with §1.2's eventual-availability promise.
• FTL sampling order corrected. Since v3.17 the FTL candidate set depends on the Matter axis (D atomic-only, F elemental-only), so FQ9 is now sampled before FQ1; the FQ1 row, Principle 3 and §6 updated accordingly, and §6's claim that FTL selection is independent of the other axes removed. FQ6 (Biological Depth) recorded as moot in Elemental worlds.
• Stale claims fixed: Guarantee Rule 3 now names the Quintessic Power Plant as the Elemental-world energy fallback; the never-tell list no longer says "exactly five" methods; the Periodic Table's Elemental-world weight corrected from ~30% to ~45%.
• Ten prerequisite labels corrected to name the breakthrough actually cited (Fortification Design for WA06 in F15/WA24 — the intended node, not Phalanx Tactics; Archery in WA23; Atmospheric Science in RC05; Set Theory in QP13; Tribal Law in CO22 and the Culture header; Laws of Thermodynamics in the Energy header; clarifying glosses on CO09, AE01).
• Duplicate removed: ES01 (Water Wheel) duplicated WM05 (Water Mill) — same prerequisites, same effect. WM05 is now dual-path (also discoverable through Energy Systems). ~513 → ~512 breakthroughs; tier-philosophy bullets aligned with the statistics table.
• Not in this pass: the twelve Elemental-world prerequisite unblocks identified by the review (Programmable Computer, Integrated Circuit, etc.) are design changes and are deferred to the pass that derives Elemental technology from the physics model.

Summary: Laser resolution. OP07 reframed as theory-agnostic coherent light: atomic worlds by stimulated emission (QP02), elemental worlds by resonant aetheric/phase emission (QM-E03). Unblocks laser-dependent tech (incl. the RC03 gravitational-wave route) in elemental worlds. No change to breakthrough counts. Closes the last parked FTL-adjacent dependency; "Phase Ascendancy" remains the sole open design item.

Resolved the parked laser dependency: elemental worlds now field lasers by their own account, rather than being locked out of all coherent-light tech.

• OP07 (Laser) made theory-agnostic. Coherent light is a phenomenon, dual-framed like Electricity and Relativity. Atomic worlds reach it by stimulated emission (quantum, QP02); elemental worlds by a resonant cavity forcing the aether / fire-phase into a single pure mode — a "Resonant Ray" (Substance) / "Harmonic Ray" (Process) — drawing on QM-E03 (Resonant-State Computing), the resonance mastery those worlds already use to compute. Prereq is now OP02 + (QP02, or QM-E03), so lasers arrive at a comparable era in both kinds of world.
• Downstream unblocked. Laser-dependent tech (laser weapons, beamed power, fibre optics, and the orthodox RC03 gravitational-wave route) is now reachable in elemental worlds; the §4 note is updated accordingly. The Grand Athanor stays as an alternative tachyonic-signal carrier.
• Rationale: blocking all laser tech from non-atomic worlds hinged on the fact that stimulated emission is specifically quantum — unintuitive without graduate physics, and out of step with the Symmetry Principle that every phenomenon gets a per-ontology account. No breakthrough count change (OP07 reframed, not added).

Summary: FTL pass for elemental worlds, built ontology-first. Reframed the six methods as claims about reality reaching shared capability primitives (malleable space, exotic matter, medium energy, higher realms, superluminal matter) by atomic or elemental accounts, so each universal method (A/B/C/E) keeps the same research lane in both kinds of world. Formalised Method D (Quantum Tunneling) as atomic-only and added Method F (Plenum Drive) as its elemental-only mirror — the matter axis grants each world one exclusive method. Added QM-E12 (Supernal Spheres) and QM-E13 (Aetheric Vacuum) as the higher-realms and medium-energy primitives (~513 total); made Relativity & Cosmology dual-framed via Lorentzian aether-mechanics; wired elemental guidance reports; fixed the EXOTIC_MATTER token overclaim and extended HIGH_ENERGY_PHYSICS to QP08; updated Guarantee Rule 2. (Laser/OP07-in-elemental-worlds parked separately.)

Made faster-than-light genuinely reachable and guidable in non-atomic worlds, by reframing what the methods are rather than patching node lists.

• Capability-primitive framing. Each FTL method is a claim about reality (space is malleable / foldable / has higher realms / matter has a superluminal mode / reality is discrete / space is a plenum). Five claims are ontology-neutral; the atomic and elemental worlds reach them through the same five capability primitives by different accounts, so the research lane of every universal method (A/B/C/E) is identical across worlds. New §4 subsection FTL in Elemental Worlds lays out the primitive-by-primitive mapping.
• D/F as the matter-axis mirror. Formalised Method D (Quantum Tunneling) as atomic-only (needs discreteness) and added Method F (Plenum Drive) as elemental-only (needs a continuous rideable medium — Aetheric/Celestial Current Drive). Each world has five candidates (four universal + its axis method), exactly one viable; six methods across all worlds.
• Two new primitive nodes (~511→513): QM-E12 Supernal Spheres (higher realms → Hyperspace) and QM-E13 Aetheric Vacuum (medium energy → Wormhole), both STANDARD, dual-framed.
• Relativity dual-framed via Lorentzian aether-mechanics — same predictions, aether-density account instead of curvature — resolving the aether-vs-relativity tension without forking the RC focus.
• Guidance wired across QM-E04/E06/E08/E12/E13 in elemental idiom; fixed the EXOTIC_MATTER token's false "all five methods reachable" claim; extended HIGH_ENERGY_PHYSICS to cover QP08; updated Guarantee Rule 2.
• Parked: whether elemental worlds field lasers at all (OP07 is defined as quantum) — broader than FTL; logged separately.

Summary: Quintessic Physics fleshed out and given divergent elemental identities. Added four nodes (Grand Athanor/Great Observatory, Incorruptible Matter, Elixir of Life, Great Harmony), taking the focus 7→11 (~511 total). Substance now rewards depth/self-sufficiency (transmutation, perfected matter, the Elixir); process rewards breadth/balance (net-gain generative cycle, Five-Phase Balance). Fixed CH23, which assumed Civ VI districts (removed the tile-adjacency; kept non-spatial conversion-at-a-gain). Deferred to later passes: the FTL elemental-guidance fix (incl. Method F "Plenum Drive", elemental-only, mirror of the atomic-only Quantum-Tunneling method) and the "Phase Ascendancy" tempo mechanic.

Gave the elemental-world physics pillar real body and made its two traditions mechanically distinct (grounded against Unciv's actual capabilities).

• Four new nodes (7→11 in the focus; ~511 total). Shared: QM-E08 Grand Athanor / Great Observatory (elemental Particle-Accelerator analogue — prestige + Insight; intended FTL-guidance carrier, wiring deferred). Substance-only: QM-E09 Incorruptible Matter (perfected, low-maintenance, durable materials — the substance materials route) and QM-E10 Elixir of Life (prosperity capstone: happiness, stronger Golden Ages, Great People — explicitly not disease/vitalism). Process-only: QM-E11 Great Harmony (Five-Phase Balance) (escalating bonus for holding all five phase-classes; amplifies the generative cycle).
• Divergent identities: substance = depth & self-sufficiency (synthesise your way out of scarcity, prosper tall); process = breadth & balance (thrive on wide, diverse, well-connected territory). Shared 7-node spine retained for the tokens and endgame.
• Fixed a pre-existing bug in CH23, which described "industrial districts placed in phase-adjacency" — Civ V/Unciv has no districts and buildings aren't tile-placed. Reworked to a non-spatial net-gain conversion (Cycle Forge), sidestepping both the hex-geometry and fixed-city-layout problems.
• Dropped the proposed sympathetic/resonant detection node: Civ V/Unciv's only invisible units are Submarines, detected by Destroyers/Missile Cruisers — there is no physics-sensor niche to fill.
• Confirmed and logged the FTL-guidance gap for elemental worlds (all guidance reports hang off atomic QP/RC nodes). Deferred as its own pass, together with a new elemental-only Method F ("Plenum Drive": Aetheric/Celestial Current Drive) mirroring the atomic-only Quantum-Tunneling method. "Phase Ascendancy" (rotating-phase tempo) parked to Phase 2.

Summary: Added the Insight Scale & Calibration note to §1.2: Insight maps 1:1 to base-game science (inheriting Unciv's science curve as the threshold anchor), per-focus Insight stored as float to stop the 20% spread underflowing, and Civ V's per-city cost modifier retained by applying it to the breakthrough threshold (preserving tall-vs-wide balance). Prose-only; all 507 breakthrough rows unchanged.

Added an Insight Scale & Calibration note to Section 1.2 (prose-only; no breakthrough rows touched).

• Insight = base-game science, 1:1. Per-turn science output is routed to Focus Areas rather than spent on a chosen tech, inheriting Unciv's balanced science scaling and using the vanilla tech-cost curve (20 → … → 9500) as the anchor for how thresholds grow across eras.
• Per-focus Insight stored as float, not Unciv's integer techsInProgress — otherwise the 20% spread's fractional per-focus share rounds to zero and never accumulates.
• Per-city cost modifier retained, applied to the threshold. 1 + (cities − 1) × techCostPerCityModifier (from TechManager.costOfTech) is applied to breakthrough thresholds so wide empires don't out-research tall ones — preserving vanilla balance. Vanilla's getScienceModifier catch-up is dropped (Knowledge Diffusion replaces it).
• Noted an optional split variant (higher threshold + roll bonus = "more eyes on the problem": wide = slower-but-steadier) as a tuning idea, not adopted.

Summary: Early-game pacing pass. Replaced the building/terrain passive-Insight scheme with an explicit 80/20 active/spread routing model (spread weighted by environmental modifiers), added the soft Specialisation-of-Labour gate (50/50 before SO05, 80/20 after) so the opening is always steerable, front-loaded CORE difficulty, and noted a focus-queue UX affordance. Prose-only: all 507 breakthrough rows unchanged.

Reworked how Insight is distributed and how the early game paces (Section 1.2), prose-only — no breakthrough rows touched.

• 80/20 active/spread routing replaces the old building/terrain passive-Insight scheme. The active focus takes the bulk of Insight; the remainder is spread across every other qualifying Focus Area, weighted by environmental modifiers (coastal → Seafaring/Trade, highland → Mining/Observation) rather than flat. Cleaner as a routing rule than the building-fed model, and the leak exists from turn 1 (before any infrastructure), which is exactly when the anti-switching-tedium property is needed. The spread thins automatically as the tree fans out, giving broad-early/concentrated-late with no decay rule.
• Soft Specialisation-of-Labour gate. Before SO05 the split is a gentle 50/50; discovering SO05 moves it to 80/20 (roughly doubling concentration power). Chosen over a "hard" 0/100→focus-unlock variant to avoid a dead-agency opening. Verified the SO05 pop-5 gate lands ~turn 25–40 on standard speed against Unciv's actual growth formula (15 + 8·(pop−1) + ⌊(pop−1)^1.5⌋, read from CityPopulationManager.kt), so it arrives after the Primitive CORE flurry as the tree begins to branch.
• Front-loaded CORE (low thresholds / high base roll in Primitive–Ancient, bursts via per-breakthrough rolls) and a focus-queue auto-advance UX affordance. Roll percentages left to a tuning pass.
• Necessity-modifier and serendipity wording realigned to the active/spread vocabulary.

Summary: Mapped every base-game unit to a breakthrough (64 generic; civ-uniques inherit their base unit's gate) and fixed the fragile "Founded a Religion" prerequisite on CO21/CH15/CU10 by repointing them to CU02 (Monumental Architecture), since Civ V seeds fewer religions than players. ~507 breakthroughs, 36 focus areas.

• Fixed the "Founded a Religion" prerequisite. Civ V/Unciv seeds fewer religions than players, so a civ that never founds one would be permanently locked out. The three affected breakthroughs (CO21, CH15, CU10 — all UNIQUE/RARE, so no CORE path was broken, but the gate was still fragile and re-coupled the tree to the religion system) now require CU02 (Monumental Architecture) instead, keeping the ceremonial theme via an always-achievable breakthrough.
• Mapped every base-game unit to a breakthrough (Section 7, new Units table): 64 generic tech-gated units assigned; the 54 civ-unique units inherit the breakthrough of the generic they replace; Great People, faith-purchased Missionary/Inquisitor, and Barbarian units documented as ungated. Vanilla spaceship-part units are flagged as superseded by the FTL/sub-light victory system.

Summary: Policy/Belief cleanup for the Unciv port. Removed 13 breakthroughs that belong in Civ V's untouched Policy/Religion systems (including the dissolved Economics focus), repointed all prerequisites, and renamed three items that clashed with belief/worship-building names. Added Section 7 mapping every base-game wonder, building, and tile improvement to the breakthrough that unlocks it. ~507 breakthroughs, 36 focus areas.

Making the tree fit a Unciv fork that replaces the science tree but leaves the Policy and Religion systems untouched.

• Removed 13 breakthroughs that are really Civ V Policies, Ideologies, or Religion content (those systems already provide them): SO07 Bureaucracy, SO12 Common Law, PH02 Ethics Systems, PH05 Political Philosophy, PH06 Humanism, PH13 Ascetic Tradition, EC01 Mercantilism, EC02 Capitalism, EC03 Central Banking, EC04 Keynesian Economics, EC05 Planned Economy, CU01 Organised Religion, CU09 Ancestor Veneration. All inbound prerequisites were repointed to surviving breakthroughs; CU01's dependants (ME16, CO21, CH15, CU10) were repointed to CU02 (Monumental Architecture), keeping the ceremonial theme without gating on the capped, competitive religion-founding mechanic.
• Dissolved the Economics focus (its five entries were economic-doctrine Policies). Survivors relocated to Trade: Bazaar Economy → TR14, Post-Scarcity Economics → TR15. Banking (SO11) no longer "unlocks Economics." Focus Areas 37 → 36.
• Belief-redundancy audit against Unciv's 56 Gods & Kings beliefs confirmed PH13 (Asceticism/Monasteries beliefs) and CU09 (Ancestor Worship pantheon) were duplicates; both cut. Retained techs that merely sound institutional but are genuine Civ V techs (Guilds, Banking, Civil Service).
• Renames to avoid belief/worship-building name clashes: SO02 Oral Tradition → Storytelling (an "Oral Tradition" pantheon exists); CO06's Cathedral building → Basilica; CO20's Pagoda Tower → Seismic Pagoda.
• New Section 7 — Base-Game Object Assignments: every Gods & Kings wonder (40 world + 14 national), building (70), and tech-gated tile improvement (20) is mapped to the breakthrough that unlocks it, with the original requiredTech recorded for provenance. Great-Person improvements and faith-purchased worship buildings are documented as ungated.

Summary: Civ V / Unciv platform fit. Removed the non-existent "health" stat throughout (converted to happiness / food-growth; pollution is now −happiness). Removed the baseline marsh penalty, which was both unimplementable and a diagnostic tell for miasma worlds; all disease worlds now share identical pressure and differ only in their (initially hidden) counter. Insight retained as the mod's custom research resource. ~520 breakthroughs, 37 focus areas.

A pass to ensure every effect is expressible in the target platform (a fork of Unciv / Civ V, with the science tech tree replaced by the Focus/Insight system).

• The "health" stat is gone. Civ V and Unciv have no health stat (that was Civ IV); the platform uses happiness (empire-wide) and food/growth (per city). All ~30 uses of "+health / +city health / +population health" across the tree were converted: medical and sanitation effects now read as +happiness (or +growth / +food where the effect was about city size), and fossil-fuel pollution now reads as −happiness rather than −health. Only the ordinary English word "health" remains (e.g. "holistic health system"), never as a stat.
• The marsh signal is removed. The v3.10 approach — a baseline health penalty on marsh/fen tiles in miasma worlds from turn one — was both unimplementable (no health stat) and a diagnostic tell: an experienced player could read "less-healthy-than-expected marshes" as "this is a miasma world" long before the decisive experiment. FQ10 now gives every disease world the same underlying pressure (plague events, growth penalties in large cities); only the counter differs, and nothing about the counter is visible until MD15 resolves the axis. MD16 (Miasma Engineering) now simply grants the miasma world's counter — a Sanitation Works building (+happiness, removes the growth-penalty) and marsh-drainage that yields a happiness bonus other worlds don't get — with no retroactive terrain effect.
• Design rule updated accordingly: a discovery must never become a diagnostic tell for an unresolved axis. The illustrative example switched from the (now-removed) deadly-marsh case to resource reveals and the disease axis.
• Platform-fit note on Insight and on governance/religion entries — see discussion; Insight is the mod's custom resource replacing "science spent toward a chosen tech" and is retained. Several governance/economic and faith entries are mechanically legal as Unciv Techs (a Tech can carry empire-wide Uniques) but are more idiomatic as Policies/Beliefs; that reclassification is tracked separately as a design decision, not a correctness fix.

Summary: Discovery reveals reality, never rewrites it. Fixed MD16 (Miasma Engineering), which wrongly created terrain health effects on discovery; marsh danger is now a baseline fact of miasma worlds from turn one, and MD16 reveals and counters it rather than causing it. Added a durable authoring rule so breakthrough effects describe new knowledge/capability, not changes to the world. ~520 breakthroughs, 37 focus areas.

Fixed a category error in how a Truth's consequences were modelled, and codified the rule so it can't recur.

• MD16 (Miasma Engineering) reworked. It previously created terrain health effects on discovery ("marshes dangerous, highlands healthy") — as if learning the theory made marshes deadly and highlands salubrious. But the miasma was always there; the discovery is knowledge, not a change to the world. MD16 now reveals and counters a pre-existing danger: it removes the marsh-miasma health penalty through drainage/purification and lets you weaponise foul air. It no longer touches highlands at all (nothing about them changed).
• Baseline marsh danger moved to the FQ10 world condition. In a Miasma world, stagnant low ground carries an unexplained health penalty from game start, independent of whether miasma theory has been discovered. The threat predates the knowledge.
• New durable design rule added to Section 5 ("Discovery reveals reality; it never rewrites it"): breakthrough effects must be framed as knowledge, capability, or infrastructure — never as terrain/resource/map changes that switch on at discovery. Prefer reveals/enables/counters/exploits over makes/becomes/turns X dangerous.
• Audited the other Truth axes and all decisive-experiment breakthroughs; MD16 was the only offender. The rest already used reveal/enable/validate framing.