orion-wars

Distant Sectors: The Achernar Campaign

A single-player strategic wargame in the browser. Four powers — the Earth Federation (blue), the Vraygon Star Realm (gold), the Zandrax Horde (red), and the Krelath Empire (green) — fight a limited war over a contested zone of independent worlds where their spheres meet. Mutual deterrence closes each power’s home sphere to invasion, so the war is fought entirely over the independents. Victory is worlds held when the war ends.

Original setting and ships; no licensed material.

Status: strategic prototype + tactical playtest

The repository contains a headless strategic prototype (placeholder world graph, seeded PRNG, save/load and a WEGO turn loop) and the current tactical game: a deterministic fleet-combat engine, scenario editor, replay viewer and interactive one-side-vs-AI playfield.

node test/harness.js

runs a full 48-turn war on random legal orders from all four powers and verifies: determinism (seed + order log replays exactly), lossless mid-war save/load, and the deterrence rule (no foreign fleets in home spheres).

Powers

Power	Color	Doctrine
Earth Federation	Blue	Deep shields, torpedo throw-weight; absorbs independents slowly, holds durably
Vraygon Star Realm	Gold	Richest treasury, sturdiest hulls, slowest yards; buys what it cannot storm
Zandrax Horde	Red	Speed and heavy beams on thin shields; conquers fastest, holds worst
Krelath Empire	Green	Short-range warp jump and ambush volley; smallest economy

The common tactical ladder is Frigate 2, Destroyer 4, Missile Destroyer 4, Light Cruiser 10, Heavy Cruiser 16 and Battleship 32 — six hulls, and every power fields all six. Unique roster hulls are Earth Gunstar Battlecruiser 16, Vraygon Monitor 24, Zandrax Corvette 1, and Krelath Strike Cruiser 8 plus Carrier 16. The Earth Command Ship is retired from the roster and retained only for old replay compatibility. data/tactical-tuning.json is the source of truth for points and rosters.

Tactical combat trials

node test/fleet-trial.js

Runs point-buy fleets against each other and reports win rates, plus a concentration-of-force matrix. --watch EAR KRE narrates a single battle. Design and current findings: docs/tactical-design.md.

Layout

• src/tuning.js — strategic-layer tuning constants
• src/prng.js — seeded PRNG (mulberry32); all engine randomness flows through it
• src/map.js — warp-lane graph, pathfinding, deterrence rule, supply tracing
• src/model.js — game state, new game, save/load
• src/orders.js — order validation + random legal-order generation
• src/combat.js — strategic-layer combat interface (still a stub)
• src/engine.js — WEGO turn pipeline: movement → combat → assault → economy → unrest
• data/worlds-placeholder.json — placeholder graph: four home spheres around 12 contested worlds (to be replaced by the Achernar Campaign map)
• data/factions.json — four orders of battle, first-draft stats for review
• assets/models/ — original fleet STLs plus the later gunstar-battlecruiser/carrier prototypes
• src/tactical/ — hex geometry, ship model, and combat resolver
• data/tactical-tuning.json — all tactical balance constants
• data/loadouts.json — which weapons each power fits to each hull
• test/harness.js — full-war harness
• test/fleet-trial.js — fleet action trials

Tactical browser tools

The browser tools now include a scenario editor, static replay viewer and interactive turn-by-turn playfield. Start them with npm run arena; operating details are in arena/README.md. The original viewer brief is kept as implementation history in docs/arena-brief.md.

Ship visual assets

The original 24-hull Blender pass is complete, with later Earth Gunstar Battlecruiser and Carrier prototypes also present. The starting brief and subsequent intake notes remain in docs/ship-asset-brief.md and docs/*inspection*.md.

Open rulings (Chris’s — the build does not decide these)

• Assault capacity. The dedicated planetary-assault hull is gone with the five-class ladder. Provisional: assault capacity rides on Heavy Cruisers and Battleships, screening on Frigates and Destroyers. This keeps “kill the troop carriers to save the world” alive, but now the assault ships are also the line-of-battle ships — a real change to the original design tension.
• Map. Chris is supplying the Achernar Campaign map, which replaces the placeholder graph. World count, lane topology, and home-sphere placement come from it.
• War length (default 48 monthly turns), turn cadence (monthly WEGO).
• Player seat: all four powers are symmetric at engine level; UI will expose the Earth Federation first.
• Flagship mechanic: omitted, but the engine does not preclude it.

Play online

The scenario editor and battle arena are published by GitHub Pages: https://candc3d.github.io/orion-wars/arena/editor.html