Entry 236

The story autopilot through the gate and the mail

2026-09-27test

Filescrates/piney-game/src/session.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/survey.rscrates/piney-game/src/world.rscrates/piney-game/src/toppage.rs

mutation_story_survey starts each of Mutation's story points (102-116) and drives it with the tests' story_player. Every start from 102 to 114 stopped in its town at events phase 5. The player only answered windows and menus; Mutation's story asks it to go places. Event 102, for instance:

• block 3 needs mail 32 read;
• block 4 marks area 43 and plays on entering its field;
• block 5, back in Dun Loireag, plays stream 27 and sends mail 33.

Event 103 then needs mail 33 read (mail_got: mailList 4 - 6, read on the desktop), unlocks town 2, and marks area 44 there.

What the autopilot does now

• To the gate (gate_player, in a town, no window waiting). Kite walks to the Chaos Gate (gimmick 16) and speaks to it, with one of three goals:
  • A story area the events marked (gateListMark[server]) that the town's Word List (gateOrderList[server]) holds: menu 28, Word List (59), its row, Warp.
  • Log out, with a mail unread (mailList 1 or 2). PERSONAL (menu 0), Log Out (11), OK. The gate's own menu has no Log Out; its items are 57 - 61.
  • Another town, whose server has a marked area: menu 28, Towns (61), its row in townMoveFlag's list, OK.
• Streams in a town. The town's scripts can play a stream in the set-up pass (stream 27 at phase 0). Cancel and START skip it, as in the fields. WorldMode::streaming tells.
• The top page. A stream over the board is skipped, and an event block's windows take OK. With a mail unread it picks Log out (CMD_QUIT) to the desktop, whose player reads the mail; else Log in. Without this it logged back in, and the town logged out again, forever.
• WorldMode gained server() and town_number(); TopPageMode gained test-only streaming() and event_playing().
• The survey takes PINEY_SURVEY_ONLY, PINEY_SURVEY_FRAMES and PINEY_SURVEY_CALLS (the last host calls when a start ends).

The survey now (16000 frames)

• 102 plays through field 43, the stream, the log out, the mail, the log in, and the Towns list to town 2. It stops in event 103's block 4 there (NPC talks to find).
• 103 reaches the same place.
• 106 logs out to the desktop.
• 107 - 109, 112, 113, 115 go to the gate again and again: the Word List (59) and a message (88), then back.
• 111 stops in menu 62.
• 104, 105, 110, 114 still wait in Dun Loireag; neither an area, a mail nor a town is marked for them.

The Infection tests that share story_player pass unchanged (131).