Aetheria/docs/merge-to-master-checklist.md

Aetheria merge checklist: codex/fire-control-12 into master

Compiled 2026-09-29 by Eyes from the maps on the branch. Pointers are doc:line in docs/ at the branch tip. "Unrecorded" means the maps do not say the check was done.

What merging does. origin/master..codex/fire-control-12 is 257 commits. It carries the item-provenance work after 2026-09-17, stats-and-power (resolver, power bus, input capacitors, priority tiers, power-supply term and brownout, nominal requests, condition ratio, shield reserve, authored roles), fire-control Cuts 1-12.4(b), locomotion Cut 1 (restored hulls), the shield-panel interceptor, and the Addressables cuts. Self performs the git merge after you sign off. Nothing here is for the merge itself; it is what only you can check first.

Correction to the brief. codex/cultcache-cutover, codex/aetheria-state-rebuild and codex/item-provenance are all ancestors of the branch tip, and the first two are already on origin/master. Master's merge commit 9b85211f (2026-09-17) took cultcache-cutover and item-provenance at their 09-17 tips, after your play smoke passed (cultcache-migration-cut.md:148). Master has two commits the branch lacks (9b85211f, 263ac421, which deletes dead narrative fixtures). git merge-tree of the two showed no conflicts. No aetheria-state-rebuild doc exists.

1. Before you start

• Open branch codex/fire-control-12 at its tip, 4b594e116c4063ef5ee1dcb937bab0288008e63e (2026-09-26, in sync with origin/codex/fire-control-12).
• Unity 6000.3.24f1 (ProjectSettings/ProjectVersion.txt).
• Batchmode: tasklist on 2026-09-29 showed Unity Hub and the licensing client but no Unity.exe, so none was running. Batchmode refuses an open editor and the maps say to close it and not kill anything (item-provenance-cut.md:485,519). Recheck when you start.
• The Unity manifest pins cultmath-unity-v0.2.4 (Packages/manifest.json); the tag exists in CultLib. Unity needs network access to resolve it on first open (fire-control-cut.md:2205-2212).
• Delete or move GameData/run.cc and GameData/player.cc before the first launch. Both are git-ignored and stale (2026-09-22, 91,580 and 1,964 bytes). The maps' fresh-launch checks assume neither exists (cultcache-migration-cut.md:2745), and an old run store throws on the first lot lookup (item-provenance-cut.md:595-596). The persisted shape has changed since (power tier slot, fuse slot 32).

Your uncommitted work. The merge happens in a separate worktree and does not touch it. git status lists 22 modified tracked files and 3 untracked. git diff --stat shows content changes in only 9; I infer the other 13 (materials, render textures) differ by line endings, from the LF/CRLF warnings.

• Content changes: Asset Sources/Adrasteia1.blend, Car Paint White.mat, Steel.mat, Map Gravity Lines.mat, Minimap Gravity Lines.mat, LiberationSans SDF - Fallback.asset, Assets/Scenes/ARPG.unity (+374), Assets/Scenes/FieldShieldTest.unity (+263), Assets/Scripts/AetheriaInput.cs (+40).
• Line-ending-only (inferred): the other Map/Sector .mat files, 8 .renderTexture files, Stardust.mat.
• Untracked: Asset Sources/Adrasteia1_ContourRoute.blend, Ships.blend, adra1.png.
• Decide about three that belong to merged campaigns (my reading of the diffs):
  • AetheriaInput.cs (+40) adds the Cycle Target Item action (key J). The branch already has that action in Assets/Resources/Aetheria.inputactions:72,326 and reads it in ActionGameManager.cs:412, but not in the generated wrapper. It is the wrapper catching up to committed data. Recommend including it.
  • FieldShieldTest.unity (+263) adds ShieldInterceptor, ShieldEnvelope, a Panel with Prototype and ShieldPanel. This is the shield-panel Cut 4 rig you clicked together (shield-panel-cut.md:840-846). It is not on the branch. Without it the interceptor code merges with no rig.
  • ARPG.unity (+374) adds "Debug Info Panel" and "Debug Info Text". ActionGameManager.DebugInfoText (ActionGameManager.cs:151,1287,1333) is the fire-control debug HUD and it returns early when null. Without the scene change the HUD "hull" factor in step 10 is invisible.

2. One play session, in order

2a. Fixtures to author first

1. Scratch catalog for 12.4. Copy the catalog; do not edit GameData/Aetheria.cc. Author one weapon with Fuse = Proximity and a BlastRadius, and one with Fuse = Delayed, a BlastRadius and a penetration of about 2 cells (fire-control-cut.md:3094,2656-2658). Shipped penetration is at most 0.25 and enclosed cockpits need about 2 cells, so a penetrator authored from shipped values cannot reach the interior (:3224-3225). Fields are aetheria.weaponitemdata slot 29 (BlastRadius) and slot 32 (Fuse). Unrecorded: how to point the game at the scratch catalog, and which tool you author with (the map says only "Studio or AetherDb", :2665).
2. Studio open, no game running. You need it at 2c and 2d. Batchmode-based checks are the agent's, not yours.

2b. Fresh launch (no run.cc, no player.cc)

3. Launch to main menu. Expect no Addressables errors, and the Groups window shows Assets/Content under Default Local Group (addressables-cut.md:301). player.cc appears and Continue is disabled (cultcache-migration-cut.md:2746). Proves: Addressables Cut 1, CultCache cutover. The 09-17 smoke covered the last two on the old tree; this is a cheap recheck on the new schema.
4. New Game (tutorial). Expect the galaxy generates and the start ship is the Longinus (settings-globals-cut.md:498, an expectation, not a recorded check for this stack). Expect a Zenith station with a docking bay in the entrance zone every time (locomotion-cut.md:375). Proves: locomotion Cut 1 station rule.
5. Addressables, "Use Asset Database". Ships, turret and Zenith spawn; thruster and aether-drive particles show; fire an instant weapon (Autocannon) and a charged one (ChargeBlast SG); action bar icons show (addressables-cut.md:362-366). Proves: Addressables Cut 2.

2c. Flight, power and economy

6. Provenance in play. Tier colour shows only after settings-globals Cut 1 (this expectation was falsified by the 2026-09-17 smoke, section 8); the properties panel shows Manufacturer, product name and flavour for branded gear. Dock and buy: the brand still shows in cargo. give Lamp (any design name): no Manufacturer row. Kill an NPC and pick up loot: brand shown (item-provenance-cut.md:528-539). Proves: item-provenance Cut C.
7. Fly a restored hull (Longinus or Djinni). Thrusters move and turn it (locomotion-cut.md:501). Watch the speed cap: VelocityLimit is gated by the hull's Active, and a hull taken offline with thrusters firing loses the cap (:377). It did not happen in 300 s on shipped settings; report if you see runaway speed. Unrecorded: how to spawn a restored hull in play (the map names no path).
8. Weak reactor (O2). Fly with a reactor too small for the loadout. Expect visible, legible starvation rather than a cooked reactor (stats-and-power-cut.md:705-706). Proves: power bus (map Cut 3).
9. Brownout and refill (O6, O4). Brownout reads as degradation, not breakage (:774, :990). A weapon refilling under brownout stutters instead of firing full rate and cooking the ship (:729-730). Proves: power-supply term, brownout, input capacitors.
10. Memory across zones (O1). Play across several zones with kills, open the Profiler or Task Manager, and confirm memory does not climb (:672-673, :980-982). Proves: stat resolver, the entity-leak fix (map Cut 2). Combine with steps 11 and 12.

2d. Combat (against a Longinus-class AI), then save and Studio

11. Fire-control Cut 1 arcs. Side-mounted weapons still fire at targets abeam; a turret tracks all the way round; nothing fires through the hull (fire-control-cut.md:397-398).
12. Fire-control Cut 3 and shots. Shots show rolled impacts and misses; a miss reads as a near-miss, not a bug; damage matches the HUD; aiming at a revealed subsystem concentrates damage; kill time is in the same order as before (:659-661). Reveal and selection work, kills drop loot, pickup stores it, the tractor beam still pulls (headless-playground-cut.md:789-794). No crash or frozen hot ship when the target vanishes (the 2026-09-20 failure, fire-control-cut.md:1464-1470). Recheck after the fixes: unrecorded.
13. 12.2, bow then beam. The HUD hull factor reads higher from the beam. Turn your armoured face into a slow missile and watch where it lands (:2380-2383).
14. 12.3, launcher into a bow, then a flank. Use a GT 3K or pswarm launcher. The schematic display pulses the facing edge only (:2519-2520).
15. 12.4, scratch catalog. Watch a proximity airburst beside a Longinus and a delayed penetrator into its nose. Damage must land where the model shows the blast; this confirms the centre-of-mass anchor. Bow is already confirmed +y (:3095-3097, :2028-2031). Proves: 12.4(b) Detonate.
16. Wormhole, save, Continue. Take a wormhole, quit, Continue: same items, same tier and brand (item-provenance-cut.md:536-537).
17. Die. Continue is disabled and run.cc holds no ledger (:540-541).
18. Shield panel, FieldShieldTest. Follow the numbered look in shield-panel-cut.md:683-700. Nothing visible on load. Click the nose: a patch grows and the field ripple runs too. Click the flank: the panel lies flat, not tilted. Click the same spot twice: it strikes the same panel. Spam far-apart clicks: at most 12 panels, oldest replaced. Let them fade: none left. Then the Cut 5 payoff: strong hits dice the patch, and repeated hits on one spot break through on a later hit (:737-739). Proves: shield-panel Cuts 3, 4, 5.
19. Studio click-through.
    • Open Aetheria.cc. The fire-control behaviour union renders (fire-control-cut.md:503-506).
    • Longinus schematic still underlays the shape drawer (addressables-cut.md:370-371).
    • The restored hull records open (locomotion-cut.md:501; the map gives no checklist beyond "the Studio click-through").
    • The scratch catalog's new Fuse and BlastRadius fields edit (from 2a; no map line).
    • Open GameData/run.cc after step 16. aetheria.provenanceledger renders Lots with Attributed origins and per-role lists. If Studio cannot draw an int-keyed dictionary of unions, that is a Studio defect to raise, not a schema change (item-provenance-cut.md:541-544).
20. Addressables, "Use Existing Build". Run Build > New Build > Default Build Script, then repeat step 5. This proves the player catalog carries GUID keys. Then Analyze, "Check Resources to Addressable Duplicate Dependencies", and record the result; 5 known leftovers are expected (addressables-cut.md:367-370).

2e. Desk review (not play)

21. Role content (O7). Review docs/stats-power-cut7-roles.md. Rows marked "generic, needs review" are arbitrary-seed, not brand identity, and no design yet has a second product with a raised role (:156, :194-202; stats-and-power-cut.md:797-799, :991).

3. Feel calls during the session

Only what the maps name.

• Balance numbers. CommitHorizon (first value 0.3 s), SchematicCellSize (0.35) and the targeting stat ranges are first guesses; the smoke is the arbiter (fire-control-cut.md:664-665, :855-859). UnaidedAccuracy is ruled "really, really bad" (:253-259); judge whether it reads as a last resort.
• Arc rule (Q2). Arcs apply to the player as well as the AI. The map says it is a real difficulty change to be felt in the smoke (:836-841).
• AI holds fire more once pOnHull prices shots. The map calls that tuning, not broken AI (:1396-1400).
• Penetration retune (F12-2) is a ruled follow-up, "Retuning penetration is a follow up" (:3223-3229). The map does not tie it to a smoke. The only link is 2a step 1: shipped penetrators cannot reach interiors, so step 15 needs the scratch value.
• Locomotion Q6, yaw weight (w = 3 recommended). The map says settle it in the Cut 1 play check (locomotion-cut.md:372-373, :903-904), but the weight belongs to Cut 3's solver, which has not landed. There is nothing to feel today. Ambiguity, not a merge gate.

4. Already done: do not redo

• Play smoke for cultcache-cutover plus item-provenance, 2026-09-17: new game, combat, loot, save and Continue with brand and quality intact, death clears the run, stance toggle, FieldShieldTest (cultcache-migration-cut.md:148-153). It ran on the old tree, so steps 3, 6, 16 and 17 are rechecks, not repeats of a gap.
• Studio click-through for the CultCache port, 2026-09-17: AmmoType refs repointed at 515859cf, dangling at 0, schematic underlay restored and checked (cultcache-migration-cut.md:161-165).
• Bow is +y on the schematic, confirmed 2026-09-22 from the schematic images (fire-control-cut.md:2028-2029). The blast-anchor half is still open (step 15).
• Shield-panel play evidence, 2026-09-18, rigged scene: a panel spawns, is reused and spiderwebs; it shatters only near the rim (shield-panel-cut.md:119-124). Partial: the Cut 5 fixes landed after, so step 18 is still open.
• A play smoke on 2026-09-20 found the frozen-ship, no-hits and LockWeapon crash (fire-control-cut.md:1464-1470). That was a failure report, not a pass. Cuts 8 and 9 answered it and no recheck is recorded.
• Stats-and-power Cuts 0-1 landed with Soul verification and your re-author ruling (stats-and-power-cut.md:79-99 onward). No operator check remains from them.

5. Not part of this merge

• Stats-and-power tier control in the schematic UI (O5) and the deletion of IOrderedBehavior/SortPosition (O3): no PowerTier under Assets/Scripts/UI at the tip, and SortPosition/IOrderedBehavior still exist in Reactor.cs, Entity.cs (my grep). stats-and-power-cut.md:752-753, :985-989.
• Stats-and-power UI reconciliation (O8: properties panel, trade menu, schematic HUD, Studio over a stat with terms): the map's Cut 8 has not landed; the branch's "Cut 8" commits are the condition ratio (:819, :991-992).
• Settings-into-globals: only Cut 0 (delete 5 dead assets, ea8b420e) landed. Its play smoke and Studio click-through wait for Cut 1 (settings-globals-cut.md:498-511). The map header still says nothing landed.
• Build delivery: the two commits are the map and a ruling (build-delivery-cut.md:5, operator checks :252,324,360,404).
• Locomotion Cuts 2-5, including Q6 and Q4 (locomotion-cut.md:360,905).
• content-batch-one.md is a spec that writes no catalog data (:5-8).
• Fire-control follow-ups F12-2 to F12-8 (fire-control-cut.md:3223-3250).

6. Open questions still yours

• Q12-5 (not ruled): should the HUD show which target items are exposed from the current bearing? Recommended as a follow-up after 12.3, on the target-item cycling UI (fire-control-cut.md:1959, :3215-3218).
• Locomotion Q4: heading versus aim; blocks Cut 5 only (locomotion-cut.md:905-913, :372).
• Locomotion Q6: the yaw weight; open, does not block (:372-373).
• Defaults Self took in 12.4, which you may overrule (fire-control-cut.md:3208-3213): a blast ignores DamageSpread and P sits on the centre lane; IncomingHit fires for the host of a contact or delayed hit only; the delayed fuse point clamps to the last reached cell's exit; Detonate runs a flat armour, pool, hull pass.
• Stale headers, not open questions: the fire-control 12.3 "pending ruling" at :2581 was ruled at :2588; Q12-9 is ruled A (:3171); the shield-panel Q1-Q7 block (shield-panel-cut.md:61, :800-) was not updated after Cuts 1-5 landed, Q5 being ruled C (:839-846).

7. What happens after you sign off

• Self merges codex/fire-control-12 to master with --no-ff, in a separate worktree. That single merge carries item-provenance, the stats-and-power work, fire control and locomotion Cut 1. The cultcache-cutover and item-provenance merge into master already happened on 2026-09-17 (9b85211f, cultcache-migration-cut.md:148), so the maps' "merge the two together" instruction (item-provenance-cut.md:82) is spent. The tree merges clean today.
• Any of section 1's three uncommitted files you want included need to be committed to the branch first, or they stay out.
• Soul gates outstanding:
  • Fire-control 12.4 Soul passes: running tonight. The 12.4 section carries no "closed" status yet (fire-control-cut.md:2602). 12.0-12.3 are closed (:2168-2210, :2253, :2385, :2522).
  • CultMath bounded least squares is locomotion Cut 2, not in this stack (locomotion-cut.md:508, :360). It gates nothing here.
  • Unrecorded: a Unity batchmode compile at the tip 4b594e11. 12.2 and 12.3 record clean compiles at their own heads.
• Soul status at merge time: Self fills in.

8. Results: play smoke, 2026-09-30 (operator plays, agent records)

Tree: codex/fire-control-12 at 113164fa plus the fixes listed below. run.cc and player.cc moved to GameData/stale-2026-09-22/ before launch.

Compile. The Unity 6000.3.24f1 batchmode compile at 113164fa was clean (exit 0, no error CS). The four never-compiled files needed no fix. One warning, EntityInstance._destroyed assigned but never read, is legacy (729ab0e8).

Changes made during the smoke.

• e0a80208: AetheriaInput.cs regenerated; Cycle Target Item bound through Input.Player.CycleTargetItem, retiring the by-name FindAction stopgap. Batchmode recompile clean.
• 97edf48c: ARPG.unity Debug Info Panel and FieldShieldTest.unity shield-panel Cut 4 rig committed.
• Console: control characters from text input are no longer appended, and Backspace deletes (see step 6 finding).
• give (operator ruling 2026-09-30): an unknown name and a full cargo bay now say so instead of doing nothing. A ship hull is refused unless docked; when docked it goes through ActionGameManager.CommissionShip, the same primitive TradeMenu.Buy now uses, and moors a bare player ship at the docked entity with no docking bay ("mothballed ships do not require docking bays"). Non-ship hulls are refused. This is the step 7 path to a restored hull.
• Scratch weapons authored in place in GameData/Aetheria.cc (not committed; restore with git checkout -- GameData/Aetheria.cc): Smoke Proximity (Proximity, blast 8), Smoke Delayed (Delayed, blast 4, penetration 2 cells), Smoke Refused (Proximity, blast 30, range 20). Each is a Spectra clone, energy, 1 column by 2 rows, to fit the test ship's only energy hardpoint.

Step	Result	Evidence
3 Launch to main menu	pass	Operator reached play through step 6 with no reported Addressables errors.
4 New Game	pass	As above.
5 Addressables, Use Asset Database	partial	Charged weapon (ChargeBlast SG) unprovable: the test ship's only energy hardpoint is 1x2 and ChargeBlast SG is 2x2. Instant weapon not separately reported.
6 Provenance in play	partial	Properties panel correct for starting gear and for a purchased item. Tier colours missing everywhere: known defect, settings-globals-cut.md:150 (Unity-serialised RarityTier.Color loads as zero); fixed by settings-globals Cut 1, not part of this merge. give Lamp was first refused (console finding), then silently did nothing: Lamp is a test-fixture name, absent from the live catalog, and give reported no miss (now it does). No-Manufacturer check still open with a real unbranded design. Loot brand not yet reported.

Finding, console (not fire control). Every console command was refused with "commands take only letters, digits, spaces and hyphens", and Backspace inserted a glyph. Cause: Keyboard.onTextInput delivers control characters (\b, \r), and ConsoleView appended them to the input line. Enter's \r rode into every command; d503f076 (2026-09-14, on master) correctly changed the parser from stripping disallowed characters to refusing them, which exposed it. Backspace had never been handled (only Delete), which is legacy (7006a6b0).

Feel notes. Engaging an AI Djinni: the player was destroyed decisively. "Game is hard."

Finding, ship purchase and docking bays (design gap, not a merge gate). The intended UX is that a purchased ship is assigned its own docking bay. The code does not do that:

• TradeMenu.Buy (TradeMenu.cs:373-381) creates a bare Ship parented to the docked station and assigns it no bay. It also charges data.Price rather than the lot's quality price that GetPrice computes for other items.
• LoadoutGenerator equips exactly one docking bay per station (LoadoutGenerator.cs:84-92), so Zenith has one.
• The inventory panel's Current button (InventoryPanel.cs:110-120) sets the new ship as current and overwrites the single bay's DockedShip; the previous ship stays a station child with no bay.

Smoke stopped after step 6 (operator, 2026-09-30). The operator rejected the script as a monolithic play order that does not respect how the game works: step 7 alone meant spawning and fitting a whole Djinni by catalog name. Direction: operator checks become a list of behaviours verified over time, each set up by an authored, retained scenario selectable from the main menu (a Eureka cut). Steps 7-20 and handoff checks A-F are unplayed. The operator prefers to merge now, with those as open entries to verify through scenarios; Self rules on the merge.

Stale expectations found in this checklist. Step 6 transcribes item-provenance-cut.md:529-537 (written 2026-09-17 03:38, 7425ff1b). "Starting-ship items show tier colour" was falsified by that day's smoke and recorded at settings-globals-cut.md:150 (db420981, 17:36); the provenance map was never corrected and this checklist copied it despite its own section 5. "give Lamp" names a test fixture (LoadoutTests.cs:289-312), never a live catalog design, and give could not have run at all between d503f076 (09-14) and f935c29b.