Multiplayer
Research Coalitions
Research Coalitions are persistent alliances between observatories. Coalition membership and leadership roles belong to ledger observatories rather than directly to player accounts, allowing institutions to develop their own history, contribution record, and succession path.
Membership roles
Primary coalition leadership. The Founder role belongs to one member observatory, not permanently to the player who originally created the coalition.
Membership administration and research-project management within role limits; first priority in Founder succession.
Can manage shared research projects and milestones; second priority in Founder succession.
Can participate, contribute eligible resources, and—when governance requirements are met—initiate or vote in confidence motions.
Shared projects
Coalition projects may set RP and Dataset Credit targets plus ordered milestones. Dataset requirements use the same icon/color science categories as the Data Archive. A project may accept one or several science types, or the ✣ Any Science wildcard.
Raw and unpublished datasets are not automatically excluded: eligibility depends on the project’s configured science type, minimum quality, processing-stage requirement, ownership, and whether that dataset has already been credited to the same project.
Dataset Credit
Contributing a dataset does not transfer its ownership to the coalition. Instead, the project receives scientific contribution credit and keeps a permanent record tying that dataset to the contributing observatory and project. The same dataset cannot be credited to the same project repeatedly.
Milestones
Milestones complete automatically when their configured research and dataset thresholds are reached. They can add coalition ranking bonuses and provide a visible progression structure within long-running projects.
Rankings
accepted contribution credit + 250 × completed projects + milestone bonuses + 10 × active membersScientific output dominates; simply recruiting a large membership is not enough. The public leaderboard also exposes statistics such as research contribution, dataset credit, completed work, scientific diversity, and member efficiency.
Founder succession
If the Founder observatory is retired or leadership changes after a successful confidence vote, the coalition chooses among active member observatories by role priority → accepted coalition contribution credit → membership seniority → stable member ID. If no active successor exists after founder retirement, the coalition is archived.