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Fleets

This section collects design exploration for what fleets are, how they are constrained, how they interact in combat, and what happens to them across their lifetime.

Fleets are the primary instrument of movement, trade, and military power in Living Universe Online. How they are designed has cascading effects on player archetypes, strategic depth, and the overall feel of empire management.

Topics

Fleet Identity

What is a fleet — a persistent named entity that outlives its orders, or a temporary grouping created for the duration of a single journey?

This question shapes everything else: whether specialists can be meaningfully attached, whether players develop a relationship with individual fleets, and how fleet management feels at scale.

See Fleet Identity.

Fleet Limits

How many fleets can an empire operate simultaneously, and how many ships can a single fleet contain?

These two caps create very different strategic pressures and affect different player archetypes in different ways. The research tracks that raise these limits are also discussed here.

See Fleet Limits.

Fleet Combat Coordination

Should multiple fleets attacking the same target gain a bonus for coordinating? And if so, how does that interact with fleet size limits and military player strategy?

This is one of the most consequential open decisions for how military play feels.

See Fleet Combat Coordination.

Fleet Lifecycle

What happens to a fleet when it arrives at its destination? Can fleets be merged? How is disbanding handled? Should fleets carry persistent state — damage, morale, history?

See Fleet Lifecycle.