APRIL 20, 2026
v0.10.6
OPTIONS MODAL — REDESIGN
Escape menu cleaned up: RESUME / OPTIONS / RUN AWAY.
New Options modal in arcboundinteractive.com aesthetic — Rajdhani + Share Tech Mono, cyan + pink corner accents, spinning orbit atom.
Seven tabs with atom icons: Sound / Display / Weapons / Chat / Controls / Social / Accessibility.
Same tabs live in the staging bottom-panel Options (compact mode) — DOM subtree shared between modal and panel.
Footer DEFAULTS / CLOSE action bar, ac-source style.
AC-SOURCE PARITY (45+ OPTIONS)
Sound: volume, enable, attenuation severity + max distance, selected/recharged voice notifications.
Display: ship names, HP bars, particles, health-bonus FX, AA, starfield farplane, rating-colored names, custom ships, energy/charges/health on cursor & ship, score badges, game info position, hide panels, Mr. Bandwidth, FPS cap, radar guide, turrets-on-radar.
Weapons: laser/bouncy thickness, tip length, team color palette (6 swatches).
Chat: show chat / kills / events, message lifetime, fade-over-player, accept PMs, middle-click clear, toggle vs hold, bold font, font AA.
Controls: mouse sensitivity, classic AC mouse mode, 18-entry hotkey reference.
Social: ignore teams (Green/Red/Blue/Yellow/White/Spec), ignored-players list (placeholder).
SETTINGS WIRED LIVE
New GameSettings store — 50+ keys, localStorage-backed, subscriber-driven.
Laser / bouncy thickness + tip length apply live to projectile rendering.
Ship names & HP bars togglable per-sprite via PlayerRenderer.
Volume, sound enable, mouse sensitivity, chat/kill-feed/event visibility all reactive.
ACCESSIBILITY EXPANSION
Full WAI-ARIA Tabs pattern — arrow/home/end keyboard nav, aria-selected/controls, roving tabindex.
Reduced motion, high-contrast HUD, larger HUD text, colorblind-safe, SR announcements toggles.
SR-only live region announces setting changes; sliders carry aria-valuenow.
Sound captions tree kept intact, re-homed into the Accessibility tab with WCAG 1.2.1 description.
APRIL 19, 2026
v0.10.5h
ACCESSIBILITY — FIRST PASS
Sound captions stack (top-center) — every game sound prints a readable label for deaf play.
Zoom decoupled from game render — Ctrl +/- scales HUD only, game view stays pixel-perfect.
Focusable controls + ARIA roles on staging tabs and dialogs.
AC-PERFECT BASE — WEAPONS & RENDER
Grenade + bouncy physics match AC reference frame-for-frame.
Ship pixel collision mask regenerated from imgShipCollision; tile atlas repadded.
Tile RT bake disabled — was leaking tile-edge color under non-integer zoom.
AI CLONES
aTreYu clone retrained on v6 human data — smarter flag runs, less wall-hugging.
APRIL 17–18, 2026
v0.10.5g
PROGRESSION & SCOPE
Level-up pipeline fixed — XP curve rebalanced, bonuses apply on level tick.
Sniper scope zoom works again on classic + dungeon.
Phantom-explosion diagnostics added to projectile hit path.
INFRA
ARCnet extracted to sibling repo, consumed as file:../arcnet dep (no more in-tree copies).
Droplet deploy aligned: docs + pipeline both point at DigitalOcean, Railway refs removed.
Training cycles: epoch 242 → 337 → 431, strategy converged around ep 43.
APRIL 14–16, 2026
v0.10.5f
AI TRAINING PIPELINE — v6
BC replay training + player-clone distillation + in-game learning all wired into one loop.
ABI-PPO v6: 128 aim buckets (1.4° target-relative offset), 270-dim observation, 3-phase curriculum (movement → combat → strategy).
COMBAT FIXES
Particle ghost-flash fixed — expired emitters no longer re-paint on reuse.
Portal / human-replay data mismatch fixed; AI names persist across rounds.
False round-win at halftime / reset in classic mode — resolved.
AI flag cap logic + phantom grenade explosions — fixed.
APRIL 13, 2026
v0.10.5e
MOVEMENTPROFILE SYSTEM
Tunable AI positioning attributes (same pattern as AimProfile) — aggression, flag-focus, spacing.
RL aim expanded to 64 buckets; AimProfile v5 supported in training.
AI COMBAT POLISH
Stutter + wall-walking eliminated; pathfinding perf improved.
Grenade physics, flag routing, teammate deconfliction all tightened.
Carrier flag routing: committed pole + A* direct (no oscillation between targets).
APRIL 10–11, 2026
v0.10.5d
CTF STRATEGY LAYER
ArenaRoom now routes AI through a strategy layer — coordinated flag runs + defense rotations.
Holding-pen fix — AI no longer piles up at spawn during countdown.
TRAINING CYCLES
ABI-PPO epoch 97 (EV 0.87, 393K) → 650 (EV 0.70, 1M) → 712 (EV 0.42, 3.7M). All deployed.
APRIL 9, 2026
v0.10.5c
AC-FAITHFUL MOVEMENT & VFX
8-direction AI movement matches AC exactly — no more diagonal eject bandaids.
Wall nudge + animation direction fix; wall-slide speed to AC reference.
AC warp shrink effect (32-frame spiral drain) on player teleport.
CO-OP DUNGEON FLOW
Co-op warp: all players transition together with a 5s countdown.
Portal z-order fix — no more flicker behind ships.
Boss charge wall collision; minion surge scaling dialed back.
Spawn collision validation — no more stuck-in-wall respawns.
KILL SCORE ON NAME TAGS
Orange kill count renders next to every player's name — live in staging + dungeon + classic.
Removed [0] from dungeon HUD bar; tracking is cached client-side.
APRIL 8, 2026
v0.10.5
ARCnet v3 — FULL PROTOCOL STACK
Framing wired up: All UDP game traffic now flows through ARCnet protocol layer.
Input → SEQUENCED (latest-only, stale dropped). Fire → RELIABLE (ACK'd + retransmit).
Piggyback ACKs on every packet — no standalone ACK overhead.
Adaptive RTT-based retransmit timeout (80ms floor).
FEC — FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION
XOR parity: every 3 data packets, 1 parity packet emitted.
Single packet loss = instant recovery (0ms vs 80-150ms retransmit wait).
Active on RELIABLE (fire) and SEQUENCED (input/snapshots) channels.
Dropped fire commands are now reconstructed before you notice.
CONGESTION CONTROL
Continuous bandwidth estimation with smoothed EMA + cubic congestion ramp.
Per-player adaptive snapshot rate: 33Hz → 11Hz based on loss + RTT trend.
Prevents buffer bloat on bad connections without cutting off the player.
PACKET COALESCENCE
Data + FEC parity packets batched into a single DataChannel send.
Saves ~20-40 bytes DTLS/SCTP framing overhead per extra packet.
Both client and server — transparent batching with 0xAB batch header.
F10 — ARCnet STATS OVERLAY
Press F10 in-game to toggle the connection monitor.
Shows: transport (UDP/WS), quality tier, RTT, loss %, FEC recoveries, retransmits.
Bandwidth (KB/s), goodput, adaptive snap rate — updates every 500ms.
Color-coded: green=good, yellow=caution, red=degraded.
CRITICAL CHANNEL ROUTING
Death, floor cleared, exit unlocked, run over — now via ARCnet CRITICAL channel.
Ordered + reliable + retransmit over UDP. Lower latency than WebSocket for game events.
Falls back to WebSocket if no DataChannel available.
CONTINUOUS BANDWIDTH ESTIMATION
Replaced coarse 3-tier throttle with continuous adaptive snapshot interval (30–90ms).
Smoothed bandwidth estimate via EMA. Cubic congestion ramp — gentle at low loss.
Each player gets their own adaptive rate based on their connection quality.
FIELD-LEVEL DELTA COMPRESSION
Previously: skip unchanged entities. Now: skip unchanged fields within entities.
Position always sent. HP, energy, kills, bonuses — only when changed.
20 AI in a dungeon? Most only change x/y each tick — bonus/stat bytes eliminated.
~40–60% further reduction on entity data for typical gameplay.
APRIL 7, 2026
v0.10.4
ARCnet — FIXED TIMESTEP ENGINE
Physics now runs at a fixed 33Hz with accumulator — deterministic across all hardware.
Rendering interpolates between physics states for smooth visuals at any framerate.
30fps laptops and 240Hz monitors now produce identical movement behavior.
Input sends at a consistent cadence instead of display-rate-dependent.
Teleports (respawn, holding pen, floor transitions) snap cleanly with no lerp artifacts.
APRIL 4, 2026
v0.10.3
RENDERING & MAP EXPORT
Floor tiles now use AC 4×4 tileset instead of single dark metal plate.
Wall auto-connection uses border-only logic — clean outlines, no interior fill.
.MAP export fully NewMapEditor-compatible (header, walls, floor variety).
AI projectiles now fire from ship center (+16,+16) instead of top-left corner.
APRIL 3, 2026
v0.10.2
AC-FAITHFUL SHRAPNEL & EXPLOSIONS
Missile + grenade explosions use AC sprite animations from imgTuna.png.
Shrapnel uses AC 5x5 sprite (no team tinting, no smoke trail).
Missile wall shrapnel: fragments pointing into wall absorbed (AC-faithful).
Verified all shrapnel formations match AC source exactly.
UI
New OPTIONS tab with AC-style settings (sound, display, weapons, chat).
Leaderboard tab renamed from "Custom" to "Classic".
Hotkeys moved from Notes to Options tab.
APRIL 3, 2026
v0.10.1
AC-FAITHFUL WEAPONS
Pixel-perfect weapon collision ported from AC source (Collision.java).
Projectiles now stop on all ships including teammates (no damage, just stops).
AC render order: lasers+bouncies below ships, missiles+shrapnel above.
Laser trail fade: head stops on impact, trail shrinks to zero (AC Laser.java).
Laser 92ms fire cooldown enforced (AC Weapons.java).
Trail lengths tuned: laser 50px, bouncy 85px (match AC exactly).
FLAG SYSTEM
Flag carriers get 75% speed penalty immediately on pickup (was 1-tick delay).
Flag drop position uses ship center (no more clipping into walls).
BUG FIXES
Lasers no longer pass through teammate ships at close range.
Dead players in holding pen are now solid (projectiles stop on them).
Removed unused hitscan beam system (dead code cleanup).
APRIL 2, 2026
v0.10.0
CLASSIC ARC MODE
New CLASSIC button in Play tab + Mission Terminal.
AC-style PvP with AI — no upgrades, pure skill.
Lobby invite notifications with JOIN button in all chats.
Human gameplay collected as AI training data.
AI TRAINING PIPELINE
Automated continuous training: pull, train, deploy, repeat.
v4 observations (268-dim): teammates, game state, positional strategy.
AI sees teammates, enemy flag carriers, score differential, roles.
4x data reduction: subsample + skip dead + event priority recording.
Hot-reload: AI updates without server restart. Player games untouched.
5700+ training epochs. AI improves every ~2 minutes.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Low-HP damage smoke: two-phase (crit burst + lingering smog).
Ships below 35% HP trail smoke puffs. Spectators see it too.
HUD & PANELS
Draggable panel edges: resize any panel by dragging the border.
Minimize buttons on all panels (click to collapse/expand).
H key toggles side panels. F3 toggles top HUD.
Leaderboard names expand when panel is dragged wider.
Site nav bar visible in fullscreen.
ONLINE & PRESENCE
Site-wide presence: see who's browsing which page.
Atom status icons replace colored dots (green/orange/blue/gray).
Bigger user list: larger names, icons, country flags.
Enhanced player card popup with clan, status, location.
AI showcase games: spectate-only (no join).
BUG FIXES
Leaderboard times now white (were invisible gray).
Removed duplicate HOME/PLAY/ARCHIVE nav bar.
Pipeline: fixed file accumulation causing 85min cycles (now 2min).
AI difficulty setting now properly wired in classic games.
MARCH 30, 2026
v0.9.3
ARCHETYPE REBALANCE
Slayer — Piercing: 30%→20% dmg. Kill Frenzy: 15%→10%.
Titan — All starters +10% dmg. Boss rewards buffed.
Wraith — Energy cost reduction. Boss rewards +10-15% dmg.
UI OVERHAUL
Upgrade cards: left-side panel, clickable, non-blocking.
New staging tabs: Play / Social / Clan / Notes.
Chat tabs styled with dark backgrounds.
AI TRAINING
ABI-PPO epoch 343 (EV 0.46) on 12.8M transitions.
SETTINGS