CydandClaude Fable 5
f842425452
Findings from TeslaConsole.RedPlanet and L4NET: the pod lifecycle (egg chunks/ACK, RunMission, telemetry, results), the egg as the entire mission definition (NotationFile text incl. pre-rendered plasma name bitmaps), the RPConfig.xml catalog, and the key topology finding - every pod gets the same egg and builds a deterministic full TCP mesh from the ordered pilots list (connect to earlier entries, listen for later). Maps 1:1 onto Steam: lobby owner = console, SteamIDs = pilot addresses, ISteamNetworkingSockets P2P = the mesh, with a NetTransport seam at L4NET mirroring the RIOBase pattern. Implementation options and open decisions listed for signoff. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Red Planet 4.12
Red Planet is the VWE pod-racing game built on the in-house MUNGA engine
(Win32 / DirectX 9, MUNGA_L4 platform layer). The 4.12 line is the
consumer port: a version of Red Planet that can be sold on Steam and played
over internet multiplayer, without cockpit-pod hardware.
Forked from RP411 (the arcade/cockpit 4.11 line) with full history preserved.
Goals
- Steam distribution — Steamworks integration, SteamPipe builds, store-ready packaging.
- Internet multiplayer — take the engine's LAN-era WinSock networking online (NAT traversal, matchmaking, latency tolerance).
- No cockpit required — keyboard / mouse / gamepad input and on-screen replacements for the pod's RIO panel and plasma display, drawing on vRIO.
- Self-hosted sessions — in-game race setup/join replacing the operator-driven TeslaConsole flow.
See docs/RP412-ROADMAP.md for the plan and the Steam-multiplayer logistics.
Building
Unchanged from 4.11 for now — see BUILD.md
(VS 2005/2008 + DirectX SDK June 2010, Release|Win32, output Release\rpl4opt.exe).
Toolchain modernization is a roadmap item.
Related repositories
| Repo | Role |
|---|---|
| RP411 | Upstream arcade source (this repo's base) |
| VRIO | Virtual RIO panel + vPLASMA display — input bindings and display emulation to fold in |
| TeslaSuite | TeslaConsole / Launcher / vPOD — the arcade session-control stack 4.12 replaces (and a reference for the Munga control protocol, TCP 1501) |