docs: establish official design documentation
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docs/STATIONS.md
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# Stations
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This document defines the intended role of stations in the simulation.
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Stations are persistent nodes in the world that own local bubbles, provide services, participate in the economy, and act through station commanders.
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## Core Principles
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- every active station should have a commander
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- stations are major market actors
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- stations exist at meaningful nodes in space
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- stations provide local services and strategic value
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## Station Identity
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A station lives at one location.
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It does not spread across multiple construction points.
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Station growth happens by adding modules to the existing station at its current Lagrange point.
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To create another station, a faction needs:
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- another valid location
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- another station
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- another station commander
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Before station construction itself, the faction should also secure the site through the Lagrange-point claim process defined in [SPACES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/SPACES.md).
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Station identity and capability should primarily come from module composition, as described in [MODULES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/MODULES.md).
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## Station Roles
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Stations may serve as:
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- markets
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- refineries
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- production centers
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- logistics hubs
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- shipyards
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- military outposts
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- defensive strongholds
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- staging points
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## Spatial Role
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Stations are nodes in `system-space` with their own `local-space`.
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Stations and other built structures should always be located at Lagrange points.
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Each Lagrange point can hold only one structure.
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Their local bubbles are where:
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- docking happens
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- cargo transfer happens
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- defense happens
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- local construction happens
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- player and AI interaction happens
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Local-space defense and contestation are described further in [COMBAT.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/COMBAT.md).
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## Founding A Station
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The intended founding flow is:
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1. claim a valid Lagrange point
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2. wait for the claim to activate
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3. create station construction storage
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4. publish buy orders for the required construction materials
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5. deliver materials
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6. have constructor ships build the station from those materials
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The construction storage should act as the early economic interface of the future station.
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That means a station can begin expressing demand before the full station is operational.
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Those construction requirements should be expressed through real goods as described in [ITEMS.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/ITEMS.md).
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## Commander Requirements
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A station without a commander should be limited.
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Without a commander, a station should not be expected to:
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- manage buy orders
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- manage sell orders
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- adapt production priorities
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- coordinate logistics
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- respond intelligently to shortages or dock congestion
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Important boundary:
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- a station commander is responsible for station operation
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- a station commander does not own ships
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Ships may still serve a station through assignment, doctrine, or market incentives, but that is not the same thing as station ownership.
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Station founding does not require a station commander at the first moment of construction.
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However, a fully operating station should require one to function normally.
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The commander must be brought to the station rather than appearing automatically.
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This implies stations will eventually depend on population and worker logistics.
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Workers should be treated as a real station resource, not as a free abstraction.
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See [WORKFORCE.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/WORKFORCE.md) for the workforce model.
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## Market Role
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Stations are the main local market-makers of the simulation.
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A station commander should:
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- publish buy orders
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- publish sell orders
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- manage stock reserves
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- control production priorities
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- request imports and exports
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Stations should be the primary place where the economy becomes concrete and visible to the player.
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That means stations should expose:
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- current shortages
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- current surpluses
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- active buy orders
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- active sell orders
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- dock activity
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- production intent
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Market visibility should be treated as open knowledge, subject to access and information rules defined elsewhere.
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The baseline assumption is that station market intent is visible, not hidden by default.
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Actual participation in trade and docking should still be policy-controlled. See [POLICIES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/POLICIES.md).
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## Ownership And Presence
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Station ownership is not local-bubble exclusive.
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The important hard rule is:
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- one structure per Lagrange point
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Not:
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- one faction per local bubble
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This means friendly or otherwise permitted factions may build stations within the same system, so long as they use different valid locations.
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## Failure State
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Without fuel there is no power.
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Without power, station function collapses.
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A powerless station should not continue normal market or industrial behavior.
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At that point, recovery should require outside intervention such as emergency restoration, delivered fuel, or a dedicated support operation.
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This also means:
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- no loading
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- no unloading
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- no ordinary trade handling
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- no ordinary production
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## Services
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Depending on modules and category, a station may provide:
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- docking
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- storage
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- refining
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- fuel processing
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- manufacturing
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- repair later
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- fitting later
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- rearm and resupply later
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- habitats
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The exact conversion and factory behavior behind these services is described in [PRODUCTION.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/PRODUCTION.md).
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## Workforce
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Stations track their own local population.
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That population determines workforce availability and therefore station efficiency.
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For now:
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- every module benefits equally from workforce
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- each module has a workforce target for peak efficiency
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- stations retain a small baseline efficiency even with zero workers
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Population growth and decline follow the rules in [WORKFORCE.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/WORKFORCE.md).
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## Relationship To Other Documents
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- [SPACES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/SPACES.md)
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- [COMMANDERS.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/COMMANDERS.md)
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- [ECONOMY.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/ECONOMY.md)
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- [SHIPS.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/SHIPS.md)
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- [WORKFORCE.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/WORKFORCE.md)
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- [ITEMS.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/ITEMS.md)
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- [MODULES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/MODULES.md)
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- [PRODUCTION.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/PRODUCTION.md)
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- [POLICIES.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/POLICIES.md)
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- [COMBAT.md](/home/jbourdon/repos/space-game/docs/COMBAT.md)
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