The lobby-owner-as-console architecture, in-engine. RPL4CONSOLE gains
RPL4LocalConsole_InstallNetworkRace: the owner pod switches to network
mode and meshes like any pod (egg fed locally via FeedLocalEgg, which
now opens the ConsoleOnly state gate), while the console tick also
marshals REMOTE pods over NetTransport speaking the exact arcade
protocol - egg chunks with 5s-retry-until-ACK, 1Hz state polling,
RunMission once every pod stages at WaitingForLaunch, StopMission at
expiry (remotes first, local pod holds until their EndMission scores
land), score intake labeled with [pilots]-order names on the results
screen.
The front end builds the multi-pilot egg: RP412HOSTPODS lists member
console channels (lobby stand-in; the Steam lobby feeds the same
path), RP412HOSTPORT/RP412HOSTADDR set the owner side.
Winsock Connect now redials with a fresh socket per attempt (a refused
TCP socket is dead; the old loop reused it) bounded at 120s - needed
whenever a peer boots after the caller, which is the normal Steam
lobby launch order.
Verified on loopback: member pod in -net, owner hosting from its menu;
mesh completed both sides, 30s race, remote score collected over the
wire (host 3), local stop after the drain, results screen shows both
pilots by name in one process that returns to the menu.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Steam-multiplayer prerequisite from the design doc: L4NET keeps
hosts, message queues, and the deterministic mesh ordering, while
connect/listen/accept/close, send/receive, startup/cleanup, the local
interface list, and ip[:port] parsing move behind NetTransport
(L4NETTRANSPORT.h). WinsockNetTransport carries the existing TCP
behavior over verbatim - including the connect retry-while-refused
loop the egg-ACK ordering relies on - and is the process default;
NetTransport_Set installs a replacement before the network manager
comes up.
L4STEAMTRANSPORT.h documents the ISteamNetworkingSockets mapping
per method (FakeIP keeps [pilots] entries as IPv4 strings) behind
RP412_STEAM until the Steamworks SDK lands.
Also fixed in passing: the ExclusiveBroadcast path sent
sizeof(network_packet) - four bytes of pointer - instead of the
message size, which would have sheared the stream framing had it
ever fired.
Verified: single-player race cycle (menu, race, results, menu, race)
green; -net 8000 boots, listens for a console through the transport,
and idles stable.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
CydandClaude Fable 5