CAMPAIGN.md

Campaign

The campaign is data in src/campaign/. Each Mission has a starting design (preset()), a list of objectives, the handbook concepts it unlocks and the bureau features it introduces. A mission is playable when every earlier one is complete; features and concepts accumulate.

Missions

#	id	goal	payload	new in the bureau
1	first-flight	1 km, touchdown ≤ 8 m/s	1 kg	three catalogue solid motors, fins, nose shape, recovery
2	karman-line	100 km	4 kg	full solid-motor design, case and fin materials
3	liquid-fire	150 km	20 kg	pressure-fed liquid engine: MR, p_c, ε, thrust; tanks
4	pumps-and-power	250 km	50 kg	gas-generator and electric-pump cycles, throttle bucket
5	two-steps	500 km apogee, 400 km downrange	500 kg	second stage, interstage, fairing, pitch kick
6	gravity-turn	200 ± 25 km circular orbit, e ≤ 0.02	≥ 100 kg	prograde law, apoapsis cutoff, launch latitude
7	every-kilogram	400 ± 40 km circular orbit, cost ≤ 750	1000 kg	Al-Li and 301 stainless, common bulkhead, staged combustion, cost
8	high-energy	GTO: apoapsis 35 786 ± 2000 km, periapsis ≥ 180 km	500 kg	LOX/LH₂ upper stage, insulation, restarts, GTO injection

Every mission also requires no loss of vehicle. Missions 1–5 launch from 32° N, missions 6–8 from 28.5° N; the sounding missions use launch rails of 6–20 m.

The presets are deliberately flawed: mission 1 tumbles, mission 2 flutters, mission 6 lofts into the wrong orbit. golden.ts holds, for each mission, the patch a player would plausibly arrive at after two to four flights, and the test suite checks that every golden design meets every objective.

Objectives

Objectives are small predicates over the flight result, the design and the tier-1 derived performance (objectives.ts):

constructor	passes when
apogeeAtLeast	maximum altitude ≥ target
landingAtMost	touchdown under canopy at or below the given speed
downrangeAtLeast	final surface arc ≥ target
vehicleIntact	no failure of severity loss-of-vehicle
orbitCircular	periapsis > 140 km, mean altitude within tolerance, e ≤ limit
gtoReached	apoapsis within tolerance of the target, periapsis ≥ minimum
costAtMost	program cost ≤ cap

Each returns { pass, actual, target } as display strings; the same grades appear in the bureau preview, the FRR and the debrief.

Design bureau

The left column holds up to 26 decision cards (design/cards.tsx), grouped as propulsion, staging, structures, aero and stability, recovery, guidance and program. A card appears once its feature is unlocked. Each card has its controls, a live equation with the current values bound into it, a status light, and a link to the handbook concept it teaches.

The centre column is the cutaway drawing in real metres, with CG and CP marked for finned vehicles. The right column shows GLOW, Δv against the mission requirement, liftoff T/W, Isp, predicted max-Q, static margin or cost, the mass tree, and the worker's trajectory preview with objective grades.

The findings strip at the top lists designWarnings: low T/W, sea-level flow separation, tank SF under the weld floor, uninsulated LH₂, a common bulkhead between cryogenic and storable propellants, static margin outside 0.5–3 calibres, and structural margins under 15 %.

Flight readiness review

The FRR is the gate between design and flight. It runs the full simulation for the next revision and polls each line:

section	lines
structures	wall margins per stage at max-Q and max-acceleration (≥ 15 %), predicted max-Q, fin flutter at sea level against peak airspeed below 40 km, static margin (0.5–3 cal)
propulsion	liftoff T/W (≥ 1.25), stage-1 nozzle exit pressure (≥ 0.35·p₀), tank SF (≥ 1.15, 1.25 recommended)
recovery	dynamic pressure at canopy deployment (≤ 1.2 kPa)
range	10 m surface wind (≤ 8 m/s), jet stream at 10 km (≤ 12 m/s), rail-exit speed (≥ 20 m/s)
trajectory	Δv budget, every mission objective, every failure the simulation predicts

Every MARGINAL and NO-GO line must be accepted individually before launch is armed. The accepted lines are stored with the flight record, and the debrief quotes them back. Because the FRR runs the same deterministic simulation as the flight, a predicted failure is the failure that will happen.

Debrief

debrief/report.ts builds the post-flight document. A flight that lost the vehicle produces a mishap investigation report (MIR-<mission>-<rev>); any other flight produces a flight report (FR-<mission>-<rev>). Sections:

1. Synopsis — vehicle, revision, mission, apogee, flight time, landing point or final orbit.
2. Timeline — flight events and failures merged in time order.
3. Findings — one per failure, with the catalog's cause template filled from the numbers the simulator recorded at the moment of failure, the decision it implicates and the blueprint part to highlight.
4. Performance — apogee, max-Q, Mach, peak g, range, Δv spent, gravity, drag and steering losses, orbit.
5. Probable cause and recommendations — each recommendation links back to the bureau with the relevant part selected.
6. Objectives — graded.

The margin timeline (debrief/margins.ts) replays four checks over every trajectory sample using the simulator's own formulas — structural load against buckling capability, airspeed against the flutter boundary, static margin against the 0.5 cal floor, and T/W against 1 — and plots proximity to each limit, marking the closest approach.

A successful flight that meets every objective can be accepted. The vehicle then enters the museum with a short epitaph derived from its revision history.

Handbook and museum

The handbook has 40 concepts in campaign order. Each has a governing equation rendered with the numbers of the current frontier mission's design, a short text with cross-links, and a note on where the idea appears in practice. Concepts unlock with their mission.

The museum draws every completed vehicle's silhouette at one common scale, with the program's records.