Two gaps between the first quests, both of the same kind: a step the chain
assumed rather than asked for.
#142 - "collect 5 ore" was followed straight by "build the mothership",
which costs twenty. The first thing the chain ever asked for was four times
what it had just taught, with nothing in between saying so. A stockpile
quest sits between them now.
#141 - the crafter quest's brief said "spend ore on the Shipyards doctrine,
then put a ship crafter down", which is two unrelated things off one line:
open a menu the player has never opened, and place a structure. Researching
Shipyards is its own quest now, and it is the one that says where the
research tree lives. Every later quest that needs a doctrine still only
mentions it in passing - once is enough.
That needed a goal kind for researching a doctrine, which the model did not
have.
Both are pinned as properties rather than as positions in a list. The chain
must ask for at least as much ore as the first structure it wants costs; and
the first structure that is gated behind a doctrine must have that doctrine
as a quest of its own. Only the first - demanding one per building would
double the chain for no teaching.
One thing that fell out of writing those: the pile is exactly the starting
fleet's hold. An interceptor carries 20 and the mothership costs 20, and
before the mothership exists there is nowhere to bank anything, so the hold
is the only store there is. It fits with no slack at all, so there is now an
assertion saying so - a pile larger than the hold would be a quest that
cannot be finished, and nothing else would have caught it.
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