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Fleet Identity

This page explores what a fleet fundamentally is — how it is defined, whether it persists beyond a single order, and what that means for the player's relationship with their forces.

It does not describe final game behavior. It captures the current direction and unresolved design choices.

Goal

The goal is to define the fleet as a game object in a way that:

  • supports meaningful long-term investment (specialists, history, reputation)
  • scales cleanly when a player operates many fleets simultaneously
  • does not create unmanageable overhead for players who prefer simplicity
  • fits naturally with the real-time persistent world model

What a Fleet Is

A fleet is a group of ships dispatched together under a single order. The order defines the fleet's current purpose: movement to a destination, an attack, a trade run, an anchor at a location.

A fleet can contain any number of ships (subject to limits described in Fleet Limits) and may carry specialists assigned to augment its capabilities.

The Core Design Fork: Persistent vs. Transient

Persistent fleet identity

A fleet is a named, long-lived entity. It exists before, during, and after any individual order. Ships are added to and removed from it over time. Specialists stay attached to it. The fleet may accumulate a history — engagements fought, routes run, reputation earned.

A player operates a stable roster of named fleets. Fleet Vanguard is a thing the player cares about. It has a character.

Advantages: - Specialists attach naturally and meaningfully — the specialist travels with the fleet - Players develop a relationship with fleets as strategic assets - Fits well with fleet limits: the cap governs how many fleets you maintain, not just how many orders you issue

Tensions: - Requires the player to manage a fleet roster, not just issue orders - A fleet with no current order still occupies a slot against the fleet limit - More complex lifecycle management (idle fleets, disbanding, merging)

Transient grouping

A fleet is created when an order is issued and ceases to exist when the order is fulfilled. Ships are the persistent entities. Fleets are a temporary label for ships moving together.

Advantages: - Simpler mental model: ships exist, fleets are ephemeral - No fleet roster to maintain - Arrival and completion are clean — the fleet dissolves, ships return to pool

Tensions: - Specialists cannot attach to a fleet in any durable way — only to a specific order - Players cannot develop a relationship with a named force - Fleet limits become awkward: what exactly is being capped if fleets are transient?

Current Direction

The persistent identity model appears stronger for the kind of game Living Universe Online is aiming to be.

Players making long-term strategic decisions benefit from fleets having identity. A fleet with an attached specialist is an investment. A fleet with a history is something worth protecting.

The transient model trades depth for simplicity in a way that may underserve strategic players without meaningfully helping casual ones.

Specialists

Specialists are a separate feature to be defined in detail later. In the context of fleet identity, the key question is the attachment model: is a specialist assigned to a fleet (travels with it, their bonuses apply wherever the fleet is), a stellar object (governs local operations, does not travel), or an empire (passive bonuses that apply universally)?

Fleet-attached specialists are the most compelling expression for the persistent fleet identity model. They give players a reason to care about specific fleets and make decisions about where to place limited specialist capacity.

Open questions

  • Can the same specialist type appear in both fleet-attached and location-attached roles, or are specialist categories exclusive to one attachment model?
  • If a fleet is disbanded, what happens to its specialists — are they returned to an unassigned pool?
  • Can specialists be reassigned between fleets, or is the assignment permanent until disbanding?

Open Questions

  • Should fleet names be player-defined, auto-generated, or both?
  • Does a fleet have a visible identity to other players (name, composition, specialist) or is that information hidden until contact?
  • Should fleets accumulate any form of persistent state beyond specialist assignments — experience, damage history, reputation with factions?
  • If persistent, what is the minimum viable fleet entity at launch? Name + ships + order, with specialists deferred to a later update?