acdream/docs/research/2026-05-16-session-handoff.md

Session handoff — 2026-05-16

What landed this session

M1 — "Walkable + clickable world" — ✅ LANDED on main at fb92122.

All four M1 demo targets work end-to-end retail-faithfully:

1. Walk through Holtburg without getting stuck (L.2 collision) — outdoor only verified
2. Open the inn door (B.4c)
3. Click an NPC and see dialogue (B.4b + Phase B.6)
4. Pick up an item from the ground (B.5 + Phase B.6)

Important caveat: the M1 demo specifically did NOT test:

• Walking around inside the inn (just the doorway)
• Going up stairs
• Indoor-to-indoor transitions
• Indoor lighting correctness

These were assumed to "probably work" because outdoor walking does. They likely don't.

Main branch history (newest first)

SHA	Title
5d79dd3	docs: session handoff 2026-05-16 (this doc; will be overwritten when you read this)
fb92122	milestone: M1 landed; flip "currently working toward" to M2
d640ed7	feat(retail): Phase B.6 — server-driven auto-walk done right
b5da17d	feat(retail): Commit B — retail-faithful AP cadence + screen-rect picker
e2bc3a9	(base — docs(CLAUDE.md): document Ghidra MCP + WireMCP availability)

Phase B.6 (today's big landing) — what it actually did

Replaced the chain of Commit-B workarounds that compensated for ACE's MoveToChain getting cancelled by a leaked user-MoveToState packet during inbound auto-walk. The fix was architectural:

• ApplyAutoWalkOverlay → DriveServerAutoWalk — auto-walk drives the body's velocity + motion state + animation cycle DIRECTLY from the wire-supplied path data. No player-input synthesis. Mirrors retail's MovementManager::PerformMovement case 6 (decomp 0x00524440) which never touches the user-input pipeline during server-controlled auto-walk.
• Wire-layer guard retained at GameWindow.cs:6419 as a semantic statement (user-MoveToState packets are for user-driven motion intent), NOT as the band-aid the deleted 500ms grace period was.
• Walk/run threshold = 1.0m (matches user-observed retail behaviour; ACE's wire-default 15.0f is ignored — overridden in BeginServerAutoWalk via const RetailWalkRunThresholdMeters). Formula from decomp 0x0052aa00 MovementParameters::get_command: running = (initialDist - distance_to_object) >= threshold, one-shot at chain start.
• Animation cycle plumbed for moving-forward (RunForward/WalkForward) AND turn-first phase (TurnLeft/TurnRight via _autoWalkTurnDirectionThisFrame).
• Pickup gate corrected to check BF_STUCK (acclient.h:6435, bit 0x4) — signs (pwd=0x14) blocked; spell components (pwd=0x10) allowed.
• R-key dispatches by target type — creature → SendUse, pickupable → SendPickUp, useable → SendUse, else toast.
• AP cadence reverted to retail's two-branch ShouldSendPositionEvent gate (acclient_2013_pseudo_c.txt:700233-700285). Effective rates: 0 Hz idle, ~1 Hz smooth motion, per-event on cell/plane changes, 0 Hz airborne. ApproxPlaneEqual helper added.

Issues closed: #63, #69, #74, #75.

New rules / preferences captured this session

1. No workarounds without explicit approval. CLAUDE.md "How to operate" + memory/feedback_no_workarounds.md. Band-aids, grace periods, suppression flags, retry loops forbidden unless the user explicitly approves or it's a deliberate new-feature design.

2. No milestone demo videos. CLAUDE.md "milestone discipline" rule #3 + memory/feedback_no_demo_videos.md. Milestones land via text-only artifacts.

3. Graceful client shutdown via CloseMainWindow. CLAUDE.md "Logout-before-reconnect" section. Stop-Process is a hard kill — leaves ACE's session marked logged-in for ~3+ min before timeout.

Direction redirect at session end

The originally-planned M2 — "Kill a drudge" is being deferred in favor of fundamentals-first work. User's stated reasoning: indoor walking, physics correctness, and lighting are all untested or broken, and building combat on top of an unverified-indoor foundation would compound problems.

New M2 candidate — "Indoor walkability." Demo scenario candidate: walk into the Holtburg inn, climb to the second floor, look around, walk back out — all with sensible camera + correct indoor lighting + collision-clean. Three sub-phases proposed:

Phase	Scope	Estimate
Camera correctness	Sphere-cast from player to camera position; snap to first wall hit; lerp recovery when clear. Prevent camera from dipping below ground. Indoor-specific but applies everywhere.	~1 day
Indoor collision audit	Walk every floor of the Holtburg inn (and a nearby small dungeon if time). Document each off-feeling spot — stairs, narrow halls, EnvCell-to-EnvCell transitions, EnvCell-to-outdoor seams. Fix scoped per finding.	~1 week
Indoor lighting basics	Tightly scoped: torch-light pools + proper indoor ambient (dim). Defer fire/lamp/glow particles + dynamic-light count optimization to M5. Touches shader pipeline (modern bindless path) + per-object light selection.	~1-2 weeks

Order matters: camera fix first (you can't honestly audit collision while the camera fights you), then collision audit (find the bugs), then lighting (the visual unlock).

This milestone has not been formally renamed in docs/plans/2026-05-12-milestones.md yet. The doc still says "M2 — Kill a drudge." The next session should brainstorm the new milestone (using superpowers:brainstorming), agree on the demo scenario, scope the sub-phases, then update the milestones doc + CLAUDE.md to reflect the reorder. Combat slides to M3.

Test baseline

• Core.Net: 294/294 ✅
• Core: 1073/1081 (8 pre-existing Physics failures — BSPStepUp + MotionInterpreter; unchanged baseline)

Environment reminders

• ACE running locally on 127.0.0.1:9000 (testaccount / testpassword / +Acdream at 0x5000000A).
• DAT directory: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Asheron's Call.
• Worktree branch claude/vigilant-golick-9433e1 has the full 20-commit Phase B.6 history; main has one squashed commit (d640ed7).
• WorldBuilder submodule needs git submodule update --init references/WorldBuilder in fresh worktrees.

Open issues worth tracking

• #61 — AnimationSequencer link→cycle frame-0 flash on door swing. LOW.
• #64 — Local-player pickup animation does not render. LOW.
• #70 — Triangle apex/size DAT sprite. LOW.
• #71 — WorldPicker Stage B polygon refine. LOW.
• #72 — cdb probe to confirm omega.z = π/2 base rate. LOW.
• #73 — Retail-message centralization. Per-feature, ongoing.

None block the new indoor milestone. All M7 polish.