FIELD BUG (2026-07-18): operator's local instance crashed + the mission
never launched. Root cause (confirmed by code inspection + stub test,
NOT the earlier mis-read of stale logs): the relay assigns a no-BT_SELF
joiner 'the lowest free seat'. The operator's local instance uses an
EXPLICIT seat (BT_SELF) but takes ~15s to boot; a remote join.bat
requests a seat immediately and gets assigned the operator's seat 1
first. The operator's later HELLO for seat 1 -> 'already registered'
-> dropped ('closed by relay') -> its seat sits empty -> the
All-connections-completed gate never fires -> game never starts.
Fix: the operator's LOCAL seats are RESERVED. btoperator passes the
Local roster tags as ; the
relay excludes those host_ids from seat ASSIGNMENT (an explicit HELLO
still claims them). Verified by stub test: a racing joiner is assigned
host 3 (seat 1 skipped), the operator's HELLO for the reserved seat 1
registers fine.
Also fixed the UX bug that produced the EARLIER 4-window mess: Local
now defaults checked only on the operator's own seat (row 0), not every
relay roster row.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
