Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 2: Sci-Fi Tech Trees

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Sci‑Fi Tech Trees — A Toolkit for Environment Concept Artists (with Fantasy & Post‑Apoc Crossovers)

Why tech trees belong in environment art

Tech trees are usually drawn for game design, but they are just as powerful for worldbuilding the space itself. A city’s silhouette, street sections, prop ecosystems, and wear patterns all change predictably as technology advances along a few axes. When you define those axes and their dependencies, your concepts stop guessing: docks, doors, ducts, and districts place themselves. For production, a clear tech tree becomes a kit plan—what modules you need at Tier 1 vs. Tier 4, how materials and lighting shift, and which states to swap when the world upgrades (or collapses).

The axes that organize sci‑fi worlds

Most futures can be composed from six linked ladders: energy, materials, computation, mobility, habitation, and fabrication/medicine. Energy decides population density and night lighting. Materials decide spans, skins, and joints. Computation decides interfaces and autonomy. Mobility decides street hierarchy and port logic. Habitation decides air, water, gravity, and comfort. Fabrication/medicine decide repair culture, prosthetics, and waste. Draw these ladders first and show their cross‑braces—energy unlocks mobility; computation unlocks autonomy; materials and fabrication unlock span and repair; habitation drives water and air infrastructure.

Tier language (0→4) you can sketch fast

Describe each axis in five pragmatic tiers you can thumbnail in minutes.

Energy. Tier 0 burns chemical fuel and hides generators in yards. Tier 1 centralizes turbines and solar with visible switchyards and tanks. Tier 2 closes loops: district energy, heat recovery, tidal, geothermal, with compact substations. Tier 3 adds compact fusion or aether‑analog with cryo jackets and radiation protocol. Tier 4 is field manipulation with minimal mass: beam collectors, space power, or vacuum taps; safety shows in Faraday skins, warning beacons, and field flares.

Materials. Tier 0 uses steel, concrete, glass; joints are bolts and welds. Tier 1 adds high‑performance alloys and composites; panels grow larger; seals and gaskets appear. Tier 2 uses ceramics, meta‑materials, and graded lattices; skins go lighter with tuned translucency. Tier 3 grows structural matter (self‑healing polymers, grown timber analogs, printed stone) with visible service veins. Tier 4 manipulates force fields; geometry floats; hard structure survives only at anchors and access points.

Computation. Tier 0 is local control; toggles and dials dominate. Tier 1 networks devices; signage echoes the net. Tier 2 pairs pervasive sensing with ML; predictive systems show in traffic and climate. Tier 3 gives agency to swarms and robotics; docks, farms, and hospitals adopt robot‑first plans. Tier 4 merges human and environment—ambient cognition with minimal interfaces; rooms anticipate intent.

Mobility. Tier 0 favors wheels and feet; curb radii and ramps rule. Tier 1 electrifies fleets; charging islands and battery swaps dot streets. Tier 2 separates modes: grade‑separated transit, drone lanes, air rights; ports stratify. Tier 3 manipulates gravity or maglev; sky lobbies, vacuum locks, and pressure doors are common. Tier 4 folds paths: portals and phased corridors; wayfinding is temporal as much as spatial.

Habitation. Tier 0 is atmospheric with rudimentary HVAC. Tier 1 zones air and water; graywater loops; HEPA and UV appear. Tier 2 conditions microclimate per room via radiant and phase‑change; façades breathe. Tier 3 supports exo‑environments: domes, spin rings, deep‑sea hulls; locks, gaskets, suit docks. Tier 4 edits environment in place—local gravity, tailored spectra, controlled biomes.

Fabrication & Medicine. Tier 0 is machine shops and clinics; spare parts on shelves. Tier 1 adds CNC and organ support; sterilizers and QA windows. Tier 2 prints parts and tissue; clean rooms and bio‑labs shape floor plans. Tier 3 grows and recycles matter; disassembly plants, tissue farms, spares grown in racks. Tier 4 rearranges matter at will; most rooms are safety envelopes around a core engine.

District reads along the ladders

Once you pick tiers, districts acquire identities. A Tier‑1 energy/Tier‑0 mobility town shows rooftop PV, tank farms, cable trays, and truck grids; nights glow warm and patchy. A Tier‑2 mobility/Tier‑3 computation port layers drone decks over maglines with numbered bays and predictive signage; nights are legible but subdued. A Tier‑3 habitation colony reads in skins and locks first—gaskets at every door, pressure warning stripes at floors, suit docks and wash cabinets at thresholds. A Tier‑4 research quarter strips signage, reduces clutter, and speaks through field beacons and subtle color bands; maintenance bays and anchor points betray the engine beneath the calm.

Dependencies and failure modes as design drivers

Tech rises along dependencies and fails along the same lines. If energy drops a tier, night lighting, transit, and water treatment collapse together; emergency corridors and hand pumps appear. If computation drops, autonomy fails and maintenance corridors repopulate with people and tools. If materials drop, spans shorten and braces return; shoring posts and repair trusses dot streets. Always draw the fail state: shutters and handlocks beside auto‑doors; stairwells shadowing lifts; gravity ladders next to maglevs. These redundancies are believable props and great gameplay affordances.

Shape, value, edge, and palette rules by tier

Shape simplifies as tiers rise: Tier 0 is truss‑heavy, bolt‑honest; Tier 1 rationalizes panels and ducts; Tier 2 smooths with diagrids and lattice shells; Tier 3 shows grown ribs and access bays; Tier 4 minimizes geometry and shows anchor points. Value shifts from low dynamic range and spotty night pools (Tier 0) to controlled mid‑key with precise accents (Tier 2) to high‑key calm with narrow accents (Tier 4). Edge doctrine moves from visible chamfers and gasket recesses to soft, continuous skins with crisp breaks only at access. Palette trends from industrial primaries and hazard bands (Tier 0–1) to disciplined neutrals with signal colors (Tier 2–3) to near‑monochrome materials with rare, sanctified accents (Tier 4). Keep these rules in a short bible so vendors can’t drift.

Interfaces and diegetic UI that match computation

At low tiers, chunky hardware dominates: levers, wheels, and analog gauges; decals and stencils carry instructions. At mid tiers, glass and e‑ink panels, dynamic floor lighting, and responsive signage guide flow. At high tiers, interfaces hide in edges, materials, and sound; rooms glow slightly where hands should go; wayfinding is scent, airflow, or micro‑vibration. Pick one language and repeat it; don’t mix neon HUDs with monastic Tier‑4 calm unless story demands a collision.

Prop ecosystems and maintenance culture

Props scale with tier. Tier‑0 yards are piles of spares, drums, paper logs, and lockout tags. Tier‑1–2 facilities have labeled totes, QR plates, calibrated tools, and standardized carts. Tier‑3 labs use sealed caddies, clean‑room hatches, color‑coded suit docks, and robot nests. Tier‑4 rooms are nearly empty: access panels, anchor rings, and a few sacrificial tools designed to fail before the core. Maintenance culture leaves residue: oil marks and rag bins; anti‑stat mats; glove boxes with frost at seals; lint traps; field‑flare scuffs near anchors. Dress by habit, not by noise.

Readability for gameplay across tiers

Keep a clear silhouette band from knee to head height along routes regardless of tier. Tier‑0 and 1 rely on strong hazard paint, numbered bays, and bright task lights to guide. Tier‑2 favors floor tracks, color‑coded lines, and dynamic panels; keep accents consistent across states. Tier‑3 and 4 rely on value, edge crispness, and subtle signal colors; exits get taller/brighter; false doors stay flush. Always provide breath pockets every few seconds—maintenance alcoves, rib bays, air‑lock vestibules—so stealth and combat can pace in dense sets.

Production translation: kits, modules, and canonical scenes

Turn each ladder into kit lists. Energy kits: tanks, switchgear, busbars, heat‑exchangers, fusion stacks, field crowns. Materials kits: truss bays, diagrid nodes, lattice shells, grown ribs, anchors. Computation kits: panels, sensor belts, drone nests, server halls, ambient nodes. Mobility kits: curb→EV bay, magline→sky lobby, lock→vac‑tube gate. Habitation kits: HVAC cores, façade lungs, lock families, spin‑ring galleries. Fabrication/medicine kits: machine shops, clean rooms, print farms, tissue racks. Publish modules and fastening logic for each tier. Validate assets in a canonical sci‑fi test scene with day, night, alert, and failure presets; render grayscale first to prove the value ladder, then color to check palette and edge discipline.

Crossovers with Fantasy and Post‑Apocalyptic

For Fantasy→Sci‑Fi, map magical infrastructure onto tech ladders: ley → energy grid, wards → access control, reliquaries → storage nodes. Keep palette roles distinct; let sigils become conductive traces and sancta become server‑chapels. For Sci‑Fi→Post‑Apocalyptic, drop tiers by axis with visible hacks: EV bays turned to market stalls, mag corridors to bike lanes, lock vestibules to shelters, server rooms to farms lit by scrounged panels. Publish downgrade kits so production can swap states fast without bespoke art.

Diagnosing drift and correcting course

When a district looks noisy or off‑brand, triage by ladder. If spans feel medieval, materials have slipped down a tier; re‑introduce diagrids or lattice skins. If nights glow like a theme park, energy and palette rules broke; reduce accent hues and push value balance back to the key. If UI screams in a calm world, computation/interface mismatch exists; strip panels and move cues into edges and sound. Fix the rule, not just the shot, and update the bible and kits so the correction scales.

A working loop from thumbnail to shipped district

Thumbnail the six ladders and pick a tier per axis. Draw dependencies and a failure arrow. Place districts by ladder strengths: power near coast, fab near quarry, habitation near shielded ridge, ports at wind eddies. Prove the value ladder in grayscale under day, night, alert, and failure. Choose palette roles and interface language; set edge and module rules. Build minimal kits per axis; block the district; age and residue by masks; validate in the canonical scene; iterate with design and audio. When the ladders sing together, your sci‑fi reads as a coherent future rather than a collage of props.

Final thought

The future isn’t a mood; it’s an arrangement of dependencies. Publish the ladders and their limits, then let streets, ports, labs, and homes accept their place in the system. Your worlds will feel engineered, legible, and ready to play—no matter how far up the tech tree you climb.