Collapse the two-path fork in RemotePhysicsUpdater.Tick: the former Path A
(grounded PLAYER remotes advanced by the interp catch-up with ResolveWithTransition
deliberately OMITTED, per the now-retired issue-#40 premise) is gone. Every remote --
player and NPC -- now runs the SAME per-tick catch-up + sweep + shadow-follows-resolved.
Retail's UpdateObjectInternal (0x005156b0) has no player/remote fork; this is the
faithful shape. Player remotes now get terrain-Z snap (no slope staircase), wall
collision, and MONSTER collision -- previously (Path A) they skipped ALL collision.
RETAIL PvP (adversarial review caught this): two non-PK players WALK THROUGH each
other in AC (you can stand inside another non-PK player) -- they do NOT de-overlap.
The remote-player mover now carries IsPlayer|EdgeSlide (mirroring the LOCAL player at
PlayerMovementController), so CollisionExemption's PvP block exempts a non-PK pair,
exactly as retail sets IsPlayer on every object's own transition (OBJECTINFO::init
0x0050cf30) and FindObjCollisions (pc:276812) exempts it. The first 2b draft passed
bare EdgeSlide and de-overlapped players (MORE solid than retail); the 3-lens review
flagged it. PK/PKLite/Impenetrable are not plumbed onto the remote mover yet -- the
same M1.5 gap the local player carries (TS-23, extended).
#40 proven dead in code (before the gate): PlayerVsMonster_DeOverlapsAndAbsorbsTheStallBlip
drives the real ComputeOffset -> InterpolationManager catch-up (incl. the fail_count
blip-to-tail) for a player mover converging on a monster and asserts de-overlap +
maxSpike<0.30 -- the sweep absorbs the stall-blip. ConvergingPlayers_WalkThroughEachOther
proves the PvP exemption (non-PK players pass through). Path B already ran the
#40-feared config stably; #40 (May 2026) predates the CSphere/#137/#170/#171 rebuild.
Placement (HIGH, review finding 3): the player UP routing gains the SAME placement-snap
backstop Slice 1 gave NPCs (AP-87). Without it a UM-first player (RemoteMotion seeded
to the spawn pos, then a first UP in a different cell) would sweep from a stale cell ->
garbage -> the digest's invisible/misplaced-player bug. The 4 m bodyToTarget guard +
!willBeDrTicked + dist>96 snap; near placed corrections still enqueue for smooth
catch-up. Also seed Body.Position=worldPos at UP-handler RemoteMotion creation
(mirrors the UM handler :5176) for the UP-first case.
Coupled shadow edits (research finding 9): RETIRED the players-only raw-worldPos shadow
sync -- now that players run the sweep + shadow-follows-resolved, the raw sync would
re-snap a packed player's shadow into overlap each UP. Player shadows follow the
RESOLVED body via the DR-tick loop + a new player UP-branch-tail SyncRemoteShadowToBody.
Surviving player/NPC split (AP-88): the omega -- grounded PLAYERS keep the
ObservedOmega-or-seqOmega world-frame (Concatenate) fallback ("rectangle when running
circles"); NPCs + airborne keep ObservedOmega-only body-frame (Multiply). They commute
for an upright body + yaw omega, so the fork is faithful.
Register: TS-23 extended (remote-player mover PK gap); AP-86 updated (raw sync retired
for players too, Where column fixed); AP-88 added (omega fork + eval-order note).
Tests: Core 2623 / App 741 green, 0 warnings. 3-lens adversarial review + per-finding
verification (10 agents); all 6 confirmed findings addressed (2 substantive: PvP mover
flags + player placement-snap; 4 doc/cosmetic).
VISUAL GATE (acceptance test) owed by the user -- NOTE the corrected expectation:
(a) a player remote on a hill -- no slope staircase;
(b) two packed player remotes -- they WALK THROUGH each other (retail PvP), NOT
de-overlap (this corrects the design's original "players de-overlap" gate);
(c) a player remote cannot stand inside a MONSTER (new: player-vs-monster collision);
(d) remote walk/run/jump/land/turn UNCHANGED.
Handoff: docs/research/2026-07-07-184-slice2-unify-extract-handoff.md.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>