---
id: operator-console
title: "The Operator Console + Relay (btoperator.py / btconsole.py)"
status: living
source_sections: "tools/btoperator.py; tools/btconsole.py (module docstring is authoritative on the wire); context/multiplayer.md §relay/§operator console; docs/OPERATOR_GUIDE.md"
related_topics: [multiplayer, steam-networking, content-archives, pod-hardware, build-and-run]
key_terms: [EGG, master, replicant, relay, seat, roster]
open_questions:
  - "MESH mode's operator buttons are inert: btconsole.main has no stdin reader, so LAUNCH/END/Re-arm are logged as sent and discarded (relay mode is unaffected). Left as-is deliberately -- mesh self-launches."
  - "_log_launch_readiness can print its 'the mission will STALL -- Stop, reduce the roster' warning on a perfectly healthy launch-with-whoever, because it counts by_host against the remapped roster"
  - "A straggler's late round-N FIN is indistinguishable on the wire from a pod dying mid-load, so it still triggers a ROUND ABORT (recoverable now via Re-arm, but the misclassification stands)"
---

# The Operator Console + Relay

The system-operator station: build a mission, run a session, watch pods arrive, launch rounds.
This is the piece the 1995 archive lost and we rebuilt.

> **Sysop-facing instructions live in `docs/OPERATOR_GUIDE.md`.** This file is the
> engineering description — how it is built and where it breaks.

---

## READ THIS FIRST — there are TWO programs and they are not interchangeable

The single most common mistake (made by me, twice, after a context compaction):

| File | What it is | How it runs |
|---|---|---|
| **`tools/btoperator.py`** | **The operator console.** A **PySide6 GUI** — the window the sysop actually uses to build missions, watch pods and press LAUNCH. | `python tools/btoperator.py` (from the repo root, no args) |
| **`tools/btconsole.py`** | **The headless console/relay.** All the wire logic: egg hand-out, seat assignment, the launch pair, the mission clock, the TCP+UDP frame router. **No UI.** | The GUI spawns it as a **QProcess**; also runnable standalone from the CLI |

**"Launch the console" means `tools/btoperator.py`.** Backgrounding `btconsole.py` is *not* it —
it has no window, and with no stdin the operator commands are dead. The division is deliberate:
all protocol logic stays headless so the CLI, the GUI and the test rigs share one tested
implementation; the GUI is only UI + process management.

The GUI drives the relay two ways: **stdin** (`launch`, `stop`, `rearm`) for a local child, and
the **control port** for a remote relay. Both paths reach the same handlers.

---

## Topology and ports

Pods **dial OUT** to the relay (this is what makes internet play work through NAT — no inbound
ports needed at the player's end). With console port `P` (default **1500**):

| Port | Protocol | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| `P` /tcp | console protocol, relay-terminated | streams the **egg** to each pod, then the **RunMission** launch pair and **StopMission** |
| `P+1` /tcp | envelope-framed game relay | the frame router between pods (`{int32 route; uint32 length}` + payload) |
| `P+1` /udp | envelope-framed unreliable channel | the 60 Hz update-record fan-out (`{int32 route; int32 fromHost; uint32 seq}` + frame) |
| `P+7` /tcp | operator control channel | `AUTH <secret>` then `launch` / `stop` / `rearm` / `ping` / `get` / `set` (`CONTROL_PORT_OFFSET = 7`) |
| udp/15999 | LAN discovery | answers probes so pods can use `BT_RELAY=auto` |

**Pod-side env contract:** `BT_RELAY=<host>:<P>` (or `auto` for LAN discovery) and
`BT_SELF=<their [pilots] entry>` — or `BT_SELF=auto`, which makes the relay assign the next free
roster seat. `players/join.bat` sets these.

### Route table (`tools/btconsole.py:276-286`)

```
>= 2  unicast to that hostID (relay->client: the SENDER's hostID)
  -1  broadcast to every registered pod except the sender
  -2  HELLO           payload: int32 magic 'BTR1', int32 myHostID
  -3  PEER_UP         relay->client
  -4  PEER_DOWN       relay->client
  -5  UDP HELLO-ACK   (sets the client's udpUp)
  -6  SEAT_REQUEST    client->relay: assign me a free roster seat
  -7  SEAT_ASSIGN     relay->client: int32 hostID + NUL-terminated tag
  -8  SEAT_FULL       relay->client: no free seats
  -9  MATCHLOG        client->relay: upload (filename NUL + bytes); saved to
                      matchlogs/<peer>_<name>, cap 8 MB
 -10  READY           client->relay: mission load complete (the READY light)
 -11  REJOIN          relay->client: abandon this round and rejoin
```

---

## The roster, seats and identity

The **egg's `[pilots]` list is the roster** (`parse_egg_roster`, btconsole.py:372). Entry *i*
becomes **hostID `2 + i`** — `FIRST_GAME_HOST_ID = 2`, because `CONSOLE_HOST_ID = 1` is
`FirstLegalHostID` and belongs to the console itself. A pilot entry's text is its **tag**
(e.g. `10.99.0.1:1502`); the tag's **position in the received egg** is how a pod derives its own
host id, which is why a roster **trim remaps seat ids** and everything re-keys by position.

- **Seat requests** (route -6) let a walk-up pod claim a free seat and carry its callsign + mech.
- **Reservations** last `SEAT_RESERVE_SECONDS = 60`.
- **Reclaim by identity**: a returning player (same IP + callsign) gets their old seat back
  (`seat_identity`, btconsole.py:1258-1276). Watch for this in the log as
  `seat RECLAIMED by identity`.

**Launch with whoever connects:** the operator's LAUNCH can `_trim_roster` down to the seats that
actually have live beacons or claims, so a 8-seat egg runs a 3-player round.

### When a player leaves

Relay side: the beacon's FIN frees the seat (`seat_beacons` entry deleted, and `seat_reservations` /
`seat_prefs` dropped), but the TAG is **held for that player for 90 s** (`seat_reclaim`) so a crash
or a reconnect returns them to the same seat with the same mech. Seat assignment skips seats that
are claimed, reserved, operator-reserved, or reclaim-held — so a brand-new joiner in that 90 s window
gets the next free seat instead, or `ROSTER FULL` if that was the only one. The hold expires on its
own; nothing is held permanently.

**`PLAYER n LEFT` is NOT printed for every departure.** It is inside the beacon-close branch gated
on `if seat not in self.by_host:` — the relay's own comment reads *"never claimed: player left"*. A
player who was fully REGISTERED and then drops produces only `game[...] dropped` (+ PEER_DOWN). Any
UI that keys "seat is empty" off the LEFT line alone will therefore miss the common case — which is
exactly the bug below.

### The roster kept a departed player's name  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

Operator report: *"if a player disconnects, it leaves their name up in the roster ... it should turn
their seat back to empty."* The GUI only ever **wrote** walk-up names into the table: on a
disconnect `seat_info` was popped and the write-back loop hit `if not info: continue`, so the cell
kept the departed callsign for the rest of the session — while the pilot light beside it correctly
said `waiting`. The table and the light disagreed, and a free seat looked occupied.

Two changes, because the two clearing paths are not symmetric:

1. `SessionMonitor` now pops `seat_info` when a pilot goes idle from **either** signal — the
   `game[...] dropped` line as well as `PLAYER n LEFT` — so a registered player's departure clears
   the identity too.
2. `_refresh_pod_status` stashes the operator's configured callsign/mech **per occupancy** when a
   seat fills, and **restores it** when the seat empties. Per-occupancy (rather than once at egg
   load) means an edit the operator makes while a seat is empty is respected, not overwritten by a
   stale snapshot.

It restores the **configured pilot**, not a literal blank, on purpose: that cell is editable and is
what gets written to the egg on Save, so a placeholder like "-- empty --" would end up in the
mission file. The "unoccupied" signal is the grey `waiting` light next to it.
Regression guard: `scratchpad/test_operator_roster.py` (drives the real widget offscreen).

---

## The round lifecycle (the part that used to strand the operator)

```
 session start
   -> egg HELD          until len(console_conns) >= len(roster)      [btconsole.py:565-578]
   -> _release_eggs()   (or _release_eggs(present) -> _trim_roster)  [:627]
   -> pod ACK           per pod (clientID 0, msgID 4)                -> _pods_ready()
   -> READY (route -10) per pod: mission load complete
   -> operator LAUNCH   manual mode: waits for the operator            [_tick_launch]
   -> RunMission #1     then #2 after LAUNCH_STEP_SECONDS = 4s        launches_sent 1 -> 2
   -> mission clock     the egg's [mission] length, +STOP_GRACE = 2s  [_tick_stop]
   -> StopMission       clock expiry or operator End Mission
   -> round end         pods exit, join.bat relaunches them, they reconnect
   -> RE-ARM            so the next LAUNCH works                      <-- see below
```

Timings: `LAUNCH_SETTLE_SECONDS = 20` (egg → first launch; pods must reach WaitingForLaunch or the
handler `Fail()`s), `LAUNCH_STEP_SECONDS = 4`, `STOP_GRACE_SECONDS = 2`,
`ABORT_SETTLE_SECONDS = 8` (egg-release hold after a round abort).

### The all-ready gate

Firing a mission while a pod is still LOADING drowns that pod's load in the running mission's
update streams (same event queue) — the operator, who joins last, once loaded 5+ minutes. So the
RunMission pair is held until every registered pod has sent READY. Escape hatches: the holdouts
are announced every 10 s, and a **180 s cap force-fires** so one wedged pod cannot hold the night
hostage.

### Re-arm: why LAUNCH used to do nothing after a round  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

**The failure the operator reported:** "after a game ends I push LAUNCH and nothing happens until
I reset the session or reboot the console." Their own counter-observation is the tell: *with a
stable group it worked fine repeatedly.*

The manual LAUNCH branch is guarded on `launches_sent == 0`, but a finished mission leaves it at
**2**. The only automatic paths back to 0 were both **all-or-nothing**:

- `_check_launch_gate` — needs **every** seat of the last round to re-ACK
- `_maybe_reset_round` — needs **every** pod to be gone

A games night lives between those: most pods rejoin, one player closes their window. And the
"not all seats filled" diagnostic sat *inside* the `launches_sent == 0` guard, so in exactly that
state **nothing printed at all**. The GUI agreed: its LAUNCH button is gated on
`not monitor.launched`, and `launched` was cleared only by the two relay lines those same gates
emit — so the button was greyed out precisely when wedged. Only a session restart recovered,
because a fresh relay process means fresh state.

**Now:** an explicit operator LAUNCH is itself sufficient authority to start a new round.
`_rearm_for_new_round()` clears the round state and restores the template roster/egg while
**keeping** seats, beacons and connections. Plus a `rearm`/`newround` command and a **Re-arm**
button, so recovery never needs a restart.

**The trap to remember if you touch this:** `launch_requested` deliberately stays set across the
RunMission pair, so re-arming on `launches_sent >= 1` alone also matches the *normal* state
between #1 and #2 — that resets the pair mid-flight and re-releases eggs every tick, a **re-arm
storm** that kicks every pod into an identity-resync loop. The re-arm therefore also requires
`launch_at is None` (nothing in flight). Caught on the rig, 2026-07-26.

### The post-abort dead lobby  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

A distinct wedge with the same symptom, **live-proven** in `content/operator_relay.log` on
2026-07-25 (≈5 minutes of a night lost). `_abort_round` sets `eggs_released = False` **before** the
surviving pods' sockets close, so every later `_maybe_reset_round` hits its own
`if not self.eggs_released: return` and **the template restore never runs**: `roster` and
`expected_ids` stay trimmed to last round's attendance and `egg_path` stays the trimmed egg. All
three automatic release paths compare against `len(self.roster)`, so with N−1 pods back nothing
releases, walk-ups get `ROSTER FULL`, and the relay sits dead.

`_rearm_for_new_round`'s template restore is therefore **unconditional** — an earlier cut gated it
on `eggs_released`, which made Re-arm useless in the one state that most needs it. It also clears
`round_hold_until` so an abort's settle window is not inherited.

**Aborts happen for an ordinary reason:** nothing on the wire distinguishes "a straggler's round-N
FIN arriving late" from "a pod died mid-load", so a slow or remote pod closing ~18 s after
StopMission is read as the latter.

### The stop latch

`_tick_stop` returns early while `launches_sent < 2`, so a `stop_requested` set **between** rounds
used to sit latched and then StopMission the next mission in the very tick it launched — which from
the operator's seat is also "launch did nothing". It is now consumed and announced while idle.

---

## Liveness (the "reboot the console" half)  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

Nothing used to notice a pod that vanished **without** closing its TCP: a sleeping laptop, a
dropped Wi-Fi link, a killed process, a NAT idle-timeout. There was no `SO_KEEPALIVE` and no idle
deadline anywhere, so the dead connection sat in `console_conns` with `acked=True` **forever**,
which (a) permanently blocked `_maybe_reset_round` (it requires *no* conn acked) and (b) held a
phantom seat in the launch count. Only restarting the relay cleared it.

Now: keepalive on every accepted socket (`_enable_keepalive`), a `last_seen` stamp on every read
**and on every inbound UDP datagram**, and `_reap_dead_peers()` with `DEAD_PEER_SECONDS = 180`.

**The reaper is deliberately narrow, and the narrowness is load-bearing.** It runs **only in the
active staging window** — egg released, mission not yet running — and skips console pads with no egg
sent and game conns that have not HELLO'd. The first cut was gated only on "no mission running",
which armed it for the entire **between-rounds** wait, and that is a period when a pod is
**legitimately byte-silent**: its seat beacon is write-only for the process lifetime
(`L4NET.CPP`: *"the relay ignores its silence"*, and the pod sets its own keepalive on it), and its
console pad has no egg yet so it cannot ACK. A real night showed 12-minute and 5-minute gaps
between rounds, so a 180 s deadline would have dropped **healthy** players and forced their clients
to relaunch — strictly worse than the ghost the reaper exists to remove. Caught in review before it
ever ran live. Regression guards: `scratchpad/test_relay_rearm.py` cases 5b/5c.

Half-open sockets are TCP keepalive's job; this deadline is only the backstop for platforms where
the keepalive tunables do not take.

### Console-protocol reassembly  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

The pod's **egg ACK is the launch gate's only signal**, and it used to be detected by parsing a
single `recv()` at fixed offset 0 with a `len(data) >= 24` test. Two ways that lost an ACK on a real
network (loopback hid both): the 28-byte ACK arriving **split** (16 bytes then 12) was dropped by
the length test and never looked at again, and two **coalesced** messages meant only the first was
read. A missed ACK means that seat never counts, so the round can never be released — a silent,
unrecoverable wedge. `_console_read` now buffers per connection and walks every complete frame
(`16 + messageLength`), and an implausible length **drops the connection with a reason** rather than
mis-reading that pod for the rest of the night (a stream protocol cannot be resynced by guessing).
Bounds: `CONSOLE_MSG_MAX = 65536`, `CONSOLE_INBUF_MAX = 1 MiB`.

### UDP endpoint anti-hijack  [FIXED 2026-07-26]

`from_host` in a UDP envelope is the sender's **own claim**, and the relay used it directly to
refresh that host's downstream endpoint. So any datagram claiming host N silently **stole host N's
traffic** — a zombie pod from a previous round, a stale NAT mapping, or anyone who guessed a host
id — and the victim simply stopped receiving on a channel that still looked healthy. The claim is
now bound to the identity we actually authenticated: the **IP of that host's live TCP game
connection**. The **port is deliberately not checked** (it moves on a NAT rebind, which is the whole
reason the endpoint map refreshes per datagram), and a genuine IP change cannot happen without the
TCP connection breaking and re-registering, so this never rejects a legitimate pod. Rejections are
counted (`udp_spoofed`) and logged once per offending `(host, IP)` pair.

Limitation worth knowing: two pods on the **same machine** share an IP, so this cannot tell them
apart — same-machine trust is assumed.

Also: every pod-facing send used to flip the socket to blocking with **no timeout** on the relay's
**single-threaded** selector loop, so one wedged peer could freeze the whole relay (no launch tick,
no UDP fan-out, no control channel). All sends now go through `_send_all_guarded`
(`SEND_TIMEOUT_SECONDS = 10`, drops the peer on failure).

---

## Modes

- **Relay (internet)** — `btconsole.py --relay <port> <egg>`; pods dial out. The normal mode.
- **Mesh (LAN legacy)** — `btconsole.py <egg> <host:port> ...`; the console dials OUT to each pod's
  `-net` port. The authentic 1995 cabinet direction.
- **Remote relay** — the GUI drives someone else's relay over the control port instead of spawning
  a child. **Known broken:** the LAUNCH button can never enable in this mode.

**The console must STAY CONNECTED.** A disconnect trips the pod's console-loss path, which also
closes its game listener — an engine bug, not ours.

---

## Logs and evidence

| File | Notes |
|---|---|
| `content/operator_relay.log` | the relay's own stdout, teed by the GUI. **Truncated at each session start** — so a Start Session destroys the evidence of the wedge it is being used to clear. Copy it first when diagnosing. |
| `matchlogs/<peer>_<name>` | per-pod match reports, auto-uploaded on route -9 at each clean round end (relay modes only; a mid-round crash loses it) |
| `content/join.log` | the pod's own log; **never** uploaded, only on the player's machine |

Every relay log line is wall-clock stamped (`_StampedOut`) so post-mortems can measure delays.
The GUI's monitor regexes all use `.search()`, so the prefix is transparent to them.

---

## Mode-specific traps (verified 2026-07-26 by reading `btoperator.py`)

These are not theory — each was read out of the code, and each makes a control *look* live while
doing nothing:

- **MESH mode: the operator buttons are inert.** `_relay_send` reports ">> operator LAUNCH sent"
  whenever the child process is Running, but the **stdin command thread only exists in
  `relay_main`** (btconsole.py) — the mesh path (`btconsole.main`) has no stdin reader at all. So
  LAUNCH / END MISSION / Re-arm are silently discarded in mesh mode. `Apply mission settings` is
  likewise inert there: the mesh console reads the egg bytes once at startup. Mesh also never
  prints "WAITING FOR OPERATOR", so the LAUNCH button cannot even enable.
- **REMOTE-operator mode — FIXED 2026-07-26.** LAUNCH and END MISSION could never enable (both
  conditions required `console_proc is not None`, which the remote path never sets), the roster
  lights were permanently empty (`SessionMonitor(True, [])` → no tags → `seated` always 0), and
  `Launch local instances` was refused by the same guard even though the code below it already
  built `BT_RELAY` from the remote host. Now: all three enable conditions accept **either** channel
  (`console_proc` *or* `remote_link`), and the monitor **adopts the roster** from the relay's
  `roster: N pilot(s) -> hostIDs [...]: [...]` line, which the relay replays to every newly AUTHed
  operator — so a remote operator gets real pilot lights and a real seat count.
- **`Start session` silently overwrites the egg on disk** (including re-rasterized callsigns), with
  no prompt and no backup.
- **`Apply` writes only the six `[mission]` keys** (map/time/weather/scenario/temperature/length).
  Roster edits need `Save`; a **seat-count change is refused by the relay** with
  `egg file roster changed N->M seats -- IGNORED (restart the session to resize)`.
- **The Color dropdown offers every colour in the RES vehicletable**, but only
  `Black/Brown/Crimson/Green/Grey/Tan/White` actually paint — anything else silently renders GRAY
  (the relay warns). A "valid" mission can still produce a grey mech.
- **`operator_secret.txt` is opened by a bare relative name** by the relay, whose working directory
  is inherited from whatever directory `btoperator.py` was started in (the GUI never calls
  `setWorkingDirectory` on the relay child). Start from the repo root and it will *not* be the
  `content\operator_secret.txt` the tooltips point at.
- **After the relay dies on its own**, `_console_finished` leaves `console_proc` non-None, so
  `Launch local instances` stays enabled and will spawn clients against a dead relay.

## Gotchas / things that look like bugs

- **`egg HELD (n/N pods present)`** is normal staging, not an error — the egg waits so every pod's
  copy carries every walk-up seat pref.
- **`*** WARNING: ... EMPTY seat(s) ... the mission will STALL`** can fire *misleadingly* after a
  trim, because `_log_launch_readiness` counts `by_host` against the (remapped) roster. Do not
  act on it blindly.
- **A relay-side crash leaves the GUI looking alive** — `_console_finished` does not clear
  `console_proc`. Commands now report honestly instead of logging ">> sent" into the void.
- **Session restart is the big hammer**: it re-spawns the relay, so it clears *every* latch. That
  is why it always "fixed" things — and why it hid the real defects for so long.
- A **`--manual-launch`** relay waits for the operator; without it the launch pair fires
  automatically once all pods ACK.

## Key Relationships

- Uses: [[content-archives]] (the EGG is the mission + roster) · [[multiplayer]] (what the relayed
  frames mean: master/replicant, dead reckoning)
- Feeds: [[multiplayer]] · [[steam-networking]] (the alternate wire seam) · [[pod-hardware]]
- Sysop instructions: `docs/OPERATOR_GUIDE.md`