The Sci-Fi Galactic-Squad Cell

This is V5's space opera. The Galactic-Squad cell is the Mass Effect surface — the genre where you build a commander, crew a ship, and spend fifty-plus hours deciding who you are one dialogue-wheel choice at a time, then learn at the finale that every one of those choices quietly decided who lives. The moment-to-moment loop is talk, recruit, build a power, plot an FTL jump, land, fight, and come home to a ship full of people who remember what you said — the genre that lives or dies on whether a squadmate's loyalty feels earned, whether a Paragon interrupt lands on the exact frame the scene gives you, whether a biotic combo detonates because two characters' powers actually chained, and whether the "all hands" suicide run at the end of the campaign turns your roster decisions into a body count you have to own. It is the most narratively ambitious of the five ruleset cells, and the one that most clearly proves V5's thesis from the story side: that a single engine can carry a modern crime sandbox and a trilogy-scale branching squad-RPG on the same spine.

The cell is one of two sub-rulesets in V5's Sci-Fi cell. Galactic Squad is the third-person squad-RPG campaign (V5Mode_SciFi_GalacticSquad); its sibling, the Expanse-style Hard Vacuum ship-sim, shares the same galaxy geography and faction map but flies a Newtonian spaceship instead of commanding a squad on foot — that surface is documented at ./scifi-hard-vacuum.md. This page inventories what the Galactic-Squad stack actually does on the player's side of the screen, and points at the exact Unreal C++ behind each feature. For the full mode taxonomy, roster, and the scope this slots into, start at the hub: ../V5_features.md.

What ships, honestly#

The cell's systems are real, compiled, and tested. The campaign module and every shared core it composes exist under V5/ue/Source/ with a Public//Private/ split, a *.Build.cs, and a Private/Tests/ automation spec, and the linker has been through them on this box: libUnrealEditor-V5SciFiGalacticSquad.so, -V5Squad.so, -V5StarMap.so, -V5Dialogue.so, and -V5Spaceship.so all sit in V5/ue/Binaries/Linux/, built by the ueagent user (the Squad, StarMap, and Dialogue cores carry 55, 55, and 49 .o objects in the build tree). The signature logic is real domain-specific code — a Dijkstra FTL router, a frame-exact interrupt window, a rank-scaled combo-damage formula, a loyalty-gated survival classifier, a bounded trait-vector persona — and each is pinned by UE IMPLEMENT_SIMPLE_AUTOMATION_TEST assertions (V5.SciFiGalacticSquad.CampaignInventory, .CreationDialoguePowers, .SquadGalaxyEndgame, .AIPersonaCompanion, plus V5.Squad.LoyaltySurvival) that check values, not truthiness.

"Cell" means a thin campaign module composing shared cores. Exactly like the urban-crime cell, V5 puts the frame-critical verbs in shared modules and makes the playable sub-ruleset a content-and-validation module. V5SciFiGalacticSquad.Build.cs declares dependencies on precisely V5Core, V5Dialogue, V5Spaceship, V5Squad, and V5StarMap — its job is to author and validate the campaign catalog (78 missions, six endings, the power tree, the eight companions, the opening dialogue tree, the VO plan, the persona) and to compose the shared narrative and locomotion cores into a Mass Effect shape. The novel per-frame algorithms live one layer down in those cores. Both facts are true at once, and the sections below keep them distinct.

The data is C++/JSON catalogs; the art and the in-world shooter are not in this module. Consistent with V5's 0-binary-.uasset accounting, the eight companions are a real validated JSON roster (Content/V5Squad/Data/squad_roster.json, 68 companions across all cells), the systems and bodies are catalog structs, and the VO is a line-count plan (FV5GSCVoiceOverPlan), not recorded audio — the MetaHuman protagonists, alien-species heads, environment meshes, and the ~98,000 recorded line variants those catalogs reference are described by FName/FSoftObjectPath/manifest path, not cooked. And two honest seams matter: the third-person cover-shooter tick is not in V5SciFiGalacticSquad — the module is the campaign/creation/dialogue/galaxy/squad-coordination brain, and the real-time biotic-and-gunfire combat runs on the shared combat/GAS stack it feeds. Where a claim depends on art, audio, or the in-world runtime, this page says so.

The galactic-squad experience — what the cell plays like#

Strip the campaign down and you get three interlocking authoring spines: a character you build, a galaxy you cross, and a crew you keep. All three are validator-enforced catalogs, and all three feed the same Paragon/Renegade identity that the cross-cell Bureau reads back.

Protagonist, class, and the 105-node power tree#

UV5_GalacticSquad_Catalog::BuildCampaignCatalog (V5/ue/Source/V5SciFiGalacticSquad/Private/V5SciFiGalacticSquadSystems.cpp) is the content spine, and ValidateCampaignCatalog (line 1144) refuses anything but the authored shape. Creation offers three backgrounds (Military / Colonist / Outlaw, each stamping a BackgroundFlag), 24 face presets, and six classes — three base (Soldier / Adept / Engineer) plus three hybrids whose primary/secondary power domains are real data: Vanguard fuses Biotic+Combat, Sentinel Biotic+Tech, Infiltrator Tech+Combat. BuildProtagonistProfile validates the whole selection (gender tag in-set, face index in range, background and class authored) and copies the class's starting power tags onto the profile before it returns true — a bad combination returns false, it does not silently coerce.

The power tree is 105 nodes — exactly 35 each across Biotic, Tech, and Combat (PowerNodesPerDomain = 35, TotalPowerNodeCount = 105), each node carrying a tier, a rank, a class gate, and an upgrade cost of 1 + Tier. GetAvailablePowerNodes filters by class: the V5.SciFiGalacticSquad.CreationDialoguePowers spec creates a Sentinel and asserts it sees 70 nodes (the Biotic and Tech trees, not Combat) — the class restriction is computed, not cosmetic. Three authored combos sit on top (BuildPowerCombos): biotic Lift→Warp detonates a Biotic Explosion, tech Overload→Incinerate a Tech Burst, combat Armor-break→Killshot a Combat Shatter — the same primer/detonator grammar the squad uses cooperatively below.

The dialogue wheel and Paragon/Renegade#

The signature Mass Effect verb is real and lives in the shared V5Dialogue core. UV5_Dialogue_Wheel::BuildWheelState (V5DialogueWheel.cpp) lays out six spokes at fixed clock angles — upper-left 135°, upper-right 45°, left 180°, right 0°, lower-left 225°, lower-right 315° — tinting Paragon/Charm options with the cell's blue flavor and Renegade/Intimidate with its red, and flagging bHasCharmOrIntimidate when a rep-gated spoke is present. The opening command tree (BuildOpeningDialogueTree) authors all six: a Paragon "evacuate the colony" (+8 Paragon), a Renegade "cut the relay and hit them now" (+8 Renegade), and a Charm spoke gated at Paragon ≥ 25 plus an Intimidate spoke gated at Renegade ≥ 25. That gate is enforced by UV5_Dialogue_CharmIntimidate::IsOptionUnlocked, which checks RequiredParagon/RequiredRenegade/RequiredReputation and any RequiredStateFlag against the running FV5DialogueRuntimeState — accumulating scores genuinely unlock downstream options.

The cinematic interrupt is the most precise piece: UV5_Dialogue_Interrupt::EvaluateInterrupt (V5DialogueInterrupt.cpp) fires only when bPressedThisFrame && CurrentFrame == Window.TriggerFrame — a literal single-frame window, exactly the "press now or miss it" beat the design promises. And the whole branching record is stateful: choosing an option grants a state flag (opt.paragon.rescue.chosen) that the spec confirms downstream blackboard reads can gate on. Crucially, the accumulated Paragon/Renegade pair is not a local score — it is one of the per-cell inputs that UV5_Honor_KarmaParagonBridge::ComputeMoralCompass folds into the cross-continuum MoralCompass [−1,1], the same spine the urban-crime cell and the rest of V5 share, detailed in ../architecture/hunter-period-systems-and-bureau-spine.md.

The squad and starship systems#

The crew is the cell's emotional anchor, and the V5Squad core is where its real algorithms live — the campaign module mostly delegates to it. The diagram below is the honest composition: a thin campaign catalog wiring four shared cores, with two of them (Dialogue's morality, Spaceship's boarding clamp) reaching outward to the rest of V5.

Eight companions, loyalty, and romance#

The roster is real, authored data. UV5_Squad_RosterLibrary::LoadRoster parses squad_roster.json and the validator (V5.Squad.RosterCatalog) insists on eight Sci-Fi squad companions — four human and four distinct alien species (the JSON authors Asterian, Keth, Orison, and Virell alongside the four humans), six of the eight romanceable, and at least five loyalty chapters each. The eight ids are stable (scifi.kade.roe, scifi.mira.vale, scifi.juno.hart, scifi.silas.crete, scifi.ara.vonn, scifi.talak.ren, scifi.nema.quill, scifi.vek.soro).

Loyalty is a real gated state machine. UV5_Squad_LoyaltyArc::EvaluateAvailability moves a companion from Recruited → TrustBuilding → MissionAvailable only when both the relationship score clears the arc threshold and the critical-path beat is complete; below half the threshold it falls back to Recruited. CompleteArc then walks every authored chapter, each with its own beat-and-relationship gate, and only the final chapter flips the arc to MissionComplete — the state the finale reads.

Romance is its own gate. UV5_Squad_RomanceGate::EvaluateRomanceGate checks, in order: the companion is romanceable, the orientation matches the player identity (Flexible accepts anyone; MalePlayer/FemalePlayer match masc/femme tags), the relationship and chapter thresholds are met, the critical beat is done, and no exclusivity conflict is active. The squad spec proves all three branches: a Flexible companion (Kade) unlocks for a nonbinary player at relationship 90 / chapter 4; a gender-locked companion (Mira) rejects a mismatched identity; and pursuing two arcs in the same ConflictGroup surfaces bConflict with an Ended state — the chapter-4 confrontation the design calls for.

The all-hands finale — who lives, who dies#

This is the cell's payoff, and it is a strict classifier, not a cutscene flag. UV5_Squad_DeathState::ResolveEndgameSurvival (V5SquadDeathState.cpp) walks every Sci-Fi mission companion against an FV5SquadEndgameAssignment (who runs the diversion, who pilots the escape, who holds the chokepoint) and resolves each one: a loyalty-complete companion is SurvivedEndgame ("survival branch locked in"); a companion assigned to a critical role without loyalty completion is Killed ("assigned to an all-hands critical role without loyalty completion"); everyone else is Wounded — alive but out of the epilogue defense. bPerfectSurvival is true only when every squadmate survives and the death list is empty. The V5.Squad.LoyaltySurvival spec drives both outcomes: with all eight arcs complete, perfect survival, zero deaths; demote Kade to TrustBuilding while keeping him on the chokepoint, and the report names him a death. Loyalty is mechanically the survival currency.

Squad power combos#

Out in the field, the combo grammar goes cooperative. UV5_Squad_PowerCombo::EvaluatePowerCombo requires two distinct companions, each genuinely exposing the requested primer/detonator tag, then matches the pair against the authored combo table (lift+warp → Biotic Explosion, overload+incinerate → Tech Burst, armor-break+killshot → Combat Shatter, plus a cross-cell takedown for frontier/hunter/urban tag pairs). The damage is rank-scaled, not a constant: DamageMultiplier = 1.5 + (clamp(PrimerRank,1,5) + clamp(DetonatorRank,1,5)) · 0.15 — 3.0× at twin rank-5 powers (the SquadGalaxyEndgame spec's case), 1.8× at the rank-1 floor. The campaign module's CoordinatePowerCombo wraps this with a "Squad combo synchronized." tactical callout and an ordered two-power queue, every failure path returning a human-readable reason rather than a silent no-op.

Kade Roe — the adaptive persona, labeled honestly#

The "Full-Vision AI-persona companion" is sci-fi-cell-only, and it is worth being exact about what it is: not a generative model or an LLM, but a deterministic, privacy-bounded trait-vector accumulator. BuildAIPersonaCompanion authors Kade with five trait vectors (Empathy 0.62, Resolve 0.58, Caution 0.50, Curiosity 0.66, Candor 0.54), six learning signals, and six memory slots. ApplyPlayerChoiceSignal only mutates state when the signal is one of the six authored signals (matched by id and choice tag) and the cell-guard passes — the persona must be EV5Cell::SciFi, bSciFiCellOnly, bLocalProfileOnly, and bNoCrossCellTraining, or the call returns the input state unchanged. When it does apply, it bumps ObservedChoiceCount, clamps trust into [0,100] (starting at 50), shifts Paragon/Renegade affinity, retains the choice and memory tags, and nudges each named trait by its authored delta — every delta validated to be ≤ 0.10 so the persona drifts gradually. The AIPersonaCompanion spec confirms a rescue choice raises trust and Paragon affinity by 8 while leaving Renegade at 0, and that flipping the cell to Urban blocks all learning. Release-gate data lives at fullvision_scifi_ai_persona_companion_manifest.json. It is a transparent, save-local, auditable state machine — the honest opposite of a black-box model.

The galaxy map and FTL#

Travel is the shared V5StarMap core, and its routing is genuine graph search. UV5_StarMap_FTLPlot::PlotFTLRoute runs Dijkstra's algorithm over the route graph weighted by fuel cost, returning a typed status — UnknownSystem, SameSystem, NoRoute, InsufficientFuel, or Valid — and reconstructing the system-and-route path by back-walking predecessors. Unknown routes are skipped unless the request explicitly allows them, and a plotted path is re-checked for missing route ids before it validates. The campaign's galaxy is the 32-system, 120-body map the catalog asserts; arriving plays a 15-second FTL cinematic (BuildTransitCinematic) with five keyframes at 0 / 2.25 / 7.5 / 12.75 / 15 s, lerping the camera between system coordinates and pulsing a sin(α·π) star-stretch at mid-transit. At a body, the orbital-scan minigame (UV5_StarMap_OrbitalScan) computes a clamped reveal: gain = clamp(accuracy·52 + scannerGrade·13 − scanDifficulty·4.5, 5, 60), and only at 100% does it surface the body's minerals, anomalies, and any derelict signal — a real formula over pulse accuracy, scanner grade, and authored difficulty.

Ship-hub and the corvette — the seam to Hard Vacuum#

Between missions the player's ship is the hub. BuildShipHubState authors a five-room interior (Bridge, Mess, Wardroom, Engineering, Bunks) and schedules all eight companions through UV5_Squad_HubInteraction::BuildShipWalkingSchedule, which roams each companion along their authored route and carries their banter tags — the "walk the Normandy and talk to your crew" loop, as data. The starship flight itself is the shared V5Spaceship Newtonian solver, which this cell touches at exactly one seam: boarding. The Year-1 privateer corvette is an FV5GSCCorvetteVariantDefinition whose validator requires an EV5ShipClass::Corvette tuned for 3–6 crew and a hardpoint.boarding_clamp — and boarding hands off to the squad-combat ruleset described here. The deterministic Newtonian integrator, the magnetic clamp gate, and the PDC/railgun/torpedo intercept math belong to the Hard Vacuum cell and are documented in full, with line citations, in the architecture companion ../architecture/spaceship-vehicles-and-mounts.md.

Endings and Year-1 expansions#

The campaign resolves into six endings — three factions (Alliance, Colonial Assembly, Black Star Syndicate) each in an Aligned or Independent state. BuildEndings makes the Independent branches cost more: a required faction score of 75 and perfect squad survival, versus 65 for Aligned — so the cleanest ending demands both the political capital and the loyalty work. Three validator-gated expansions extend the galaxy without drift. The Year-1 Pirate Coast DLC authors 12 missions totalling 10 hours, the low-security Nereid Reach system (five bodies, security 0.18), a fully-authored new companion (Lyra Voss, five loyalty chapters), and the privateer corvette — with EvaluateMissionAccess gating later missions on both Lyra being active and the corvette equipped. The Year-1 Helio Verge sector adds six systems, fifteen bodies, and one new faction (Helio Forge Compact), its validator demanding every body type and at least two derelict signals. The Full-Vision Long Tomorrow DLC adds four systems, twenty bodies, and six FTL routes behind a real BFS reachability proof — IsLongTomorrowRouteGraphConnected confirms every new system connects back to the Maia Shoal anchor before the catalog validates, with two hidden late-sector routes. These are authored catalogs with id-drift guards; the playable geometry behind them is described, not cooked.

Where this connects#

The Galactic-Squad cell is one face of a single game, and it hands off at well-defined seams:

• Its own sibling. The Expanse-style Hard Vacuum ship-sim shares this cell's galaxy, factions, and the V5Spaceship boarding seam, but flies a Newtonian spaceship instead of commanding a squad — see ./scifi-hard-vacuum.md.
• The other expert-RPG cell. The Monster-Hunter cell shares the companion roster library, the dialogue core, and the cross-cell honor bridge but spends them on a Witcher-style contract hunt — see ./monster-hunter-cell.md.
• Architecture companion. The deterministic ship solver, the boarding clamp, and the PDC/railgun/torpedo intercept math the corvette plugs into are documented with line citations in ../architecture/spaceship-vehicles-and-mounts.md, and the Paragon/Renegade → MoralCompass → Bureau-XP spine in ../architecture/hunter-period-systems-and-bureau-spine.md.
• The feature hub: ../V5_features.md.