acdream/docs
Erik ca96ea5e32 research: settle retail parent-cell propagation and scope C4 route 3
Two read-only research landings that unblock the last two C4 routes.

**Parent-cell propagation (unblocks route 7).** Retail DOES re-cell children
when the parent crosses a cell, recursively to unbounded depth.
SetPositionInternal @0x00515330 branches on `this->cell == curr_cell`
@0x0051536d; the changed branch reaches change_cell @0x00513390, whose
delegates leave_cell @0x00510f50 and enter_cell @0x00510ed0 self-recurse over
children and write the FULL identity (add_object @0x00510ee2, objcell_id
@0x00510f1e, part-array cell id @0x00510f2b, cell pointer @0x00510f35).
change_cell itself has no child loop — the recursion is in the delegates.

The clincher: update_object @0x00515d10 early-returns on `parent != 0`
@0x00515d40, so a child never runs its own physics tick and parent
propagation is the ONLY mechanism maintaining its cell.

The trap this retires: the depth-1 loop @0x0051539c-0x005153d8 is the
SAME-CELL fast path (objcell_id and part-array id only, deliberately not the
cell pointer), not the propagation. An implementer finding it first would
conclude "depth-1, id-only" and ship equipped items stranded at landblock
boundaries — the #184 class. Route 7's planned set_parent-only write would
have done exactly that.

Settled by READING, not by a debugger trace. The scoping had listed this as
needing live cdb evidence, but change_cell/set_cell's child handling had
simply never been read; the project's grep -> decompile -> verify order had
not been exhausted. One BN field-name gap was closed by walking
struct CPhysicsObj in the verbatim acclient.h, so no PE byte-decode was
needed either. A breakpoint set is recorded for optional confirmation only.

**Route 3 scoping (portal, the last route).** ~225-400 added non-comment
production lines, ONE slice, contingent on #280 splitting out. Portalling
works today; route 3 removes a duplicate authority
(LocalPlayerTeleportPlacement.Place), it does not fix a bug.

Eight dated-inventory claims are now false, the most consequential being "the
binding machinery is 100% dormant end to end" — the portal authority's
CONSUMPTION and validation side is live production code at three layers and
is exercised by every placement; only the PRODUCER adapter is missing. That
makes route 3 materially smaller than the campaign plan implies.

#280 SPLITS from route 3, definitively: it is a reveal-gate/prefetch-window
concern (WorldRevealReadinessBarrier's neighbourhood radius versus retail's
mid_radius, LScape::PreFetchCells @0x00505660 / SmartBox::SetRegion
@0x00453227), mechanically disjoint from the placement cutover — route 3
reads the ready predicate, #280 rewrites it. The campaign plan already
sequences #280 separately; only the session handoff said it "rides with"
route 3, and the plan is right.

Retail's local portal arrival is the GENERIC path for the third route running:
SmartBox::TeleportPlayer @0x00453910 is SetPositionSimple(player, dest, 1)
with flags 0x1012 — route 2's exact primitive — plus PlayerPositionUpdated.

Two rule inversions recorded so route 3's implementer cannot carry the wrong
rule forward from the routes just landed: route 2's "never re-arm the leash"
INVERTS here (the teleport branch arms ConstrainTo @0x0045418A and zeroes
velocity @0x004541B4), and 4b-3's hook-before-placement ordering INVERTS (the
local teleport_hook runs AFTER placement, from PlayerPositionUpdated
@0x004538AE). The classifier's dormant LocalPlayer-teleport route already
encodes both.

Two documentation defects found in passing and recorded, not fixed: the
2026-07-16 portal pseudocode attributes portal arrival to enter_world (that
is the login path), and a stale comment hides a live second writer — the
generic wire-pose write does run for the local player (AP-131/C5 scope).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 21:23:56 +02:00
..
architecture fix(physics): C4 route 5 — projectile authoritative placement (#276 partial) 2026-08-04 21:03:41 +02:00
audit docs: update audit — Sprint 1 items verified (sequence counters + scenery LCG) 2026-04-13 13:51:39 +02:00
plans test(physics): C4 route 6 — drops/split-recovery closure, zero production lines 2026-08-04 16:45:57 +02:00
reference docs(reference): preserve local ACE command catalog 2026-07-27 00:03:58 +02:00
reports docs: the overnight consolidation report, open questions first 2026-07-29 03:54:43 +02:00
research research: settle retail parent-cell propagation and scope C4 route 3 2026-08-04 21:23:56 +02:00
superpowers fix(world): remove non-retail portal exit fade 2026-07-15 23:20:52 +02:00
bugs.md docs: reconcile project status and navigation 2026-07-20 13:00:41 +02:00
ISSUES.md fix(physics): C4 route 5 — projectile authoritative placement (#276 partial) 2026-08-04 21:03:41 +02:00
README.md docs: reconcile project state and refresh README 2026-07-27 12:53:31 +02:00

acdream documentation map

This page is the entry point for project documentation. It distinguishes current sources of truth from implementation history so an old plan or issue banner cannot silently override the current program state.

Current snapshot — 2026-07-27

  • Milestone state: M3, “Cast a spell,” landed 2026-07-21. M4, “Live in the world,” is active.
  • M4 gameplay program: resume the pre-M4 world-interaction completion program. Favorite-spell overflow, status Use/Assess, and the complete assessment surface are user-accepted. Equipped-child picking and vendor browse/transactions remain Slices 46.
  • Structural/runtime state: all eight GameWindow decomposition slices, Modern Runtime Slices AJ, and the connected visual/lifecycle gates are complete. GameWindow is a 1,622-line composition/callback shell. AcDream.Runtime.GameRuntime owns canonical session, entity/object, gameplay, movement, physics, projectile, environment, and portal state; graphical and no-window hosts borrow the same owner graph.
  • Headless state: Slice K is complete. AcDream.Headless is a presentation-free Windows/Linux host with deterministic commands/events, shared immutable content, multi-session isolation, reconnect, resource telemetry, and 1/5/10/30-session gates. The final two-account native-Linux soak completed ten minutes, logged out through ACE, and converged every ownership ledger.
  • Linux graphical state: Slice L0 and the L1 implementation checkpoint are complete at 66f114b2 and 11501d52. Native Windows passes the active modern-GL/audio/window smoke. WSLg X11/Wayland correctly reject their missing GL_ARB_bindless_texture. Physical-Linux validation and L2L6 are explicitly deferred; resume at the supported AMD/NVIDIA L1 gate.
  • Completed gameplay gates: R6 locomotion/collision/projectile/teleport/ radar, two-client portal-out/materialization, indoor prepared collision, loot ordering, local/remote ground drops, and selection-marker lifetime.
  • Separate visual verification: issue #225, the shared-alpha lifestone/particle result; its connected resource-lifetime and performance routes pass.
  • Carried behaviour debt: issue #153 (far teleport onto an unstreamed edge), #116 (narrowed slide response), #235 (capped/RDP jump cadence), and the active temporary-stopgap rows in the divergence register.
  • Divergence audit: 189 active rows — IA 18, AD 38, AP 91, TS 38, and UN 4 — plus retained struck/retired historical rows such as TS-37.
  • Latest automated baseline: the Release build succeeds with the 17 test-project warnings tracked by issue #228; 8,826 tests pass and five are intentionally skipped. App passes 3,763 / 3 skips. The L1 Windows supported smoke and WSLg X11/Wayland negative-capability reports all end with zero window/GL/input/audio ownership.

Sources of truth

Read these in this order when deciding what to do next:

  1. plans/2026-05-12-milestones.md — the active playable outcome, freeze boundaries, and visual gates.
  2. plans/2026-04-11-roadmap.md — strategic phase ledger: shipped, active, deferred, and future work.
  3. ISSUES.md — tactical defects and small follow-ups. The status inside an issue is authoritative; physical order is not.
  4. architecture/retail-divergence-register.md — every known place runtime behavior can differ from retail.
  5. architecture/acdream-architecture.md and architecture/code-structure.md — ownership, dependency, update-thread, and extraction rules.
  6. architecture/worldbuilder-inventory.md — rendering/DAT code already owned in-tree versus mechanisms still ours to port.

If these disagree, milestones control the current outcome, the roadmap controls work ordering, the issue status controls the individual defect, and the architecture documents control implementation shape. Reconcile the stale document in the same change; do not leave both claims standing.

Research and implementation records

  • research/named-retail/ is the primary retail oracle: named pseudo-C, headers, symbols, and types from the Sept 2013 build.
  • research/decompiled/ is the older Ghidra fallback.
  • research/ contains focused pseudocode, traces, fixtures, and gate reports. A dated research note records evidence; it does not become a new roadmap.
  • superpowers/specs/ and superpowers/plans/ are per-slice design and execution records. Completed plans remain historical.
  • audit/ contains completion and conformance audits.
  • reference/ace-commands.md preserves the local ACE server's complete in-game command catalog and points to the authoritative per-command help surface.

Durable memory

  • ../claude-memory/MEMORY.md indexes the live subsystem memories and the render/physics digests. Read a domain digest before changing that subsystem, especially its DO-NOT-RETRY table.
  • ../memory/ contains stable engineering references such as the modern rendering pipeline, two-tier streaming, and toolchain notes.

Memory accelerates recall; it does not outrank the canonical documents above. When current truth changes, update the relevant canonical document and distill only the durable lesson into memory.

Historical and deprecated documents

  • bugs.md is the April 2026 bug snapshot. It is preserved for archaeology and is not an active ledger.
  • Dated plans and specs describe the decision at that time. Their completion wording is historical unless the current milestone/roadmap explicitly links the item as active.
  • Old R1→R8 architecture sequencing is superseded. Current execution comes from the milestones and strategic roadmap.

Documentation maintenance rules

  • Update milestone, roadmap, issue, divergence, architecture, and memory claims in the same commit when a shipped change affects them.
  • Keep one issue ID per defect. Narrow an issue in place; do not reuse another issue's number as a shorthand.
  • Mark automated, connected, and visual gates separately. An automated pass is not a visual acceptance, and an RDP throughput sample is not a local-display visual comparison.
  • Preserve research history, but remove stale “current/next” claims from living documents once the state advances.