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Andromeda Design Overview

Working Identity

Andromeda is an orbital salvage station work-sim and forensic salvage game.

The player operates a fixed salvage processing bay inside a larger orbital logistics facility. Cargo ships land at the Cargo Hangar, salvage containers are brought down into the facility, and objects are moved through controlled work areas for inspection, scanning, classification, containment, storage, reporting, sale, quarantine, archive, or disposal.

Guiding sentence:

The player is not exploring space. Space is coming through the hatch.

This is a fantasy and pacing statement, not a requirement for magic item hatches. The physical station layout should make the logistics believable: salvage arrives through the Cargo Hangar, enters the Salvage Bay through blast doors, and is moved into the Warehouse after processing.

Core Fantasy

The player is a lonely licensed salvage operator working inside a small orbital facility. The work is tactile and procedural, but every recovered object may also be evidence.

Each salvage item can carry:

  • price
  • hazard rating
  • legal handling requirement
  • manifest claim
  • physical condition
  • hidden truth
  • story implication

The main differentiator is:

Every object is evidence.

Gameplay Loop

The core loop is:

receive -> inspect -> scan -> classify -> process -> consequence

Primary player verbs:

  • inspect
  • rotate
  • scan
  • compare
  • classify
  • sell
  • quarantine
  • dismantle
  • report
  • archive
  • dispose
  • falsify
  • decode

Interactions should feel physical where practical. Menus are acceptable for terminals, scan readouts, and legal records, but the game should not become pure menu sorting.

Scanner Direction

The first vertical slice uses a fixed station scanner. The intended early flow is:

place or assign item to scanner station -> use scanner terminal -> review scan data

A handheld scanner is a good later upgrade or tool progression option, but it is not part of the MVP. Keeping scanning station-based first supports the contained work-sim fantasy and avoids early scope growth into tool equipping, first-person scanner animations, and extra aiming modes.

Station Layout Direction

The early facility should be designed around three connected spaces:

Cargo Hangar <-> Salvage Bay <-> Warehouse

The Cargo Hangar is the believable arrival point. Ships dock or land above it, and salvage containers are lowered or transferred into the hangar. This does not require flight, ship simulation, or exterior gameplay in the MVP; it is a spatial explanation for where salvage comes from.

The Salvage Bay is the main playable workroom. It contains the inspection table, scanner station, tagging area, operator terminal, and controlled access points. It should feel like a regulated industrial evidence-processing space rather than a generic cargo room.

The Warehouse is the storage and consequence space. After an item is scanned, classified, bagged, and tagged, it is placed into an appropriate package, loaded onto a cart, moved into the warehouse, and stored. Later, warehouse placement and stacking can become part of the game loop, but the MVP should start with one simple marked drop-off or storage zone.

Doors between the Salvage Bay and adjacent spaces should be blast doors or controlled industrial doors, not small item-only hatches. This prevents the design from implying an arbitrary maximum item size and supports future larger salvage objects.

Package Handling Model

Processed salvage should not simply vanish after a terminal decision. The preferred physical result is:

cargo hangar arrival -> carry item -> scan -> carry item -> bag/tag/package -> carry packaged item -> warehouse zone -> consequence

Packages are the smaller player-handled storage units used after scanning. This keeps them distinct from the large freight containers that arrive in the Cargo Hangar.

The scanner should reveal information, not finalize the job. Sale, quarantine, and other final outcomes should happen only after the player physically moves the packaged item into the correct warehouse zone.

Packages are defined by two separate concepts:

  • Package Category: what protection or handling requirement the package satisfies.
  • Handling Size: how large an item it can accept.

Early package categories:

  • Normal: general inert salvage and legal goods.
  • Quarantine: unknown, contaminated, legally restricted, or otherwise isolated items.
  • Freezer: temperature-sensitive biological, medical, or evidentiary material.
  • Radiation: shielded storage for radioactive components and reactor fragments.

Handling sizes:

  • XS: document pouch, data wafer, jewelry box, or small evidence bag.
  • S: one-hand object, helmet, hand tool, sealed case, or small component.
  • M: two-hand object, compact reactor coil, instrument-sized case, or panel fragment.
  • L: cart-recommended object.
  • XL: powered cart or hoist-recommended object.
  • XXL: special-handling or hangar-only object.

The MVP should only author XS, S, and M salvage items. L, XL, and XXL remain available in the data model for later expansion.

The models should be shared by size, not duplicated for every category. Category differences should mostly come from material color, label plates, hazard panels, decals, and signage.

Example asset split:

Meshes:
SM_Blockout_Package_XS
SM_Blockout_Package_S
SM_Blockout_Package_M
SM_Blockout_Package_L

Materials:
M_Blockout_Package
MI_Blockout_Package_Normal
MI_Blockout_Package_Quarantine
MI_Blockout_Package_Freezer
MI_Blockout_Package_Radiation

The current Blender blockout meshes should remain material-free. The material names above are future Unreal-side presentation names for when package category readability becomes necessary.

Gameplay data can then combine category and handling size without requiring separate geometry for every variant. For example, a salvage item may require Radiation protection and at least M size. A Radiation_M package would pass, Radiation_S would fail due to size, and Normal_L would fail due to missing shielding.

Scope Guardrails

Andromeda should avoid becoming:

  • a space sim
  • a ship-piloting game
  • a combat game
  • an open-world game
  • a survival crafting game
  • an NPC-heavy game
  • a large procedural systems project

The project should prioritize a small, polished, memorable game over broad shallow systems.

Initial Experience Target

The first playable target is one contained work area with visible or blocked-out adjacent logistics spaces:

  • salvage bay
  • implied cargo hangar connection
  • implied warehouse connection
  • exterior space or planet view
  • blast door to cargo hangar
  • blast door or controlled door to warehouse
  • inspection table
  • scanner
  • terminal
  • tagging/package area
  • one cart or storage drop-off
  • one salvage item
  • one decision
  • one consequence

The first vertical slice should prove the emotional and mechanical core before adding item variety.

Presentation Goals

The intended feel is:

  • atmospheric
  • tactile
  • contained
  • industrial
  • mysterious
  • polished
  • readable
  • replayable through decisions and item variety

Visual quality should come from lighting, composition, UI, audio, interaction feel, and strong object design rather than large asset volume.