Today was a productive day of cleanup, visual iteration, and bug hunting during a full game playthrough. A number of major systems were refactored to stay compatible with Claude and GPT tooling, and the visual fidelity of the star map continues to improve.

🧹 Major File Refactors

To avoid hitting the token limits in Claude and GPT, the following massive files were split, modularized, or cleaned up:

1. fleet_composition_panel.zig – 1,435 lines

2. game_state.zig – 1,342 lines

3. ai_controller.zig – 1,192 lines

4. save_load.zig – 1,070 lines

5. colony_panel.zig – 1,056 lines

6. research_panel.zig – 844 lines

7. combat_visualization_panel.zig – 831 lines

This lays the foundation for better Claude-assisted iteration and long-term maintainability.

🎮 Playtest + Bug Fixes

During today’s live play session, several bugs were diagnosed and resolved:

• ✅ Fixed missing territory borders after loading a game

• ✅ Fixed debug fleet combat where no defenders appeared

• ✅ Fixed combat resolution stalling (ships now take damage again)

Remaining issues include:

• UI buttons needed for various subsystems (research, shipyard, etc.)

• Clicking persistent notifications doesn’t always route to the correct panel

• Loading a save can show incorrect research status notifications

• Ships in transit still being targeted in combat — may require a ruleset change

🌍 Visuals & Content

• Continued planet sprite sheet generation (desert, barren, arctic types)

• Generated a few new star map icons

• Posted the latest dev newsletter

🧠 What I Noticed

There’s a growing hostility toward AI tools in gamer communities. It’s worth being mindful of how this project is presented publicly. While AI is helping with tooling and content generation, the final design decisions remain very much human-led.