Entry 277

Spoken to while running: the greeting's stop reaches the member; the field's talk target and the town's faces

2026-09-28uiworldtest

Filescrates/piney-world/src/combat/mod.rscrates/piney-game/src/area.rscrates/piney-game/src/world.rscrates/piney-game/src/session.rs

Three play-test reports about Infection's party members, each found and held by a test.

A member runs off while spoken to

The report: talking to a town NPC or a party member, and after a few seconds they run off. A pad log (--pad-log, with the card saved beside it) replayed headless (--replay) reproduced the run exactly. BlackRose, on her own route through Mac Anu, is spoken to at frame 754. The menu's EntryAffect 14 reaches her, and her AI's talkFlag is set, so Brains returns early. Yet she stays in act 5 (running) with moveFlag and runFlag set (flags 0x2a). She runs about 780 on her old heading until a wall stops her, with her menu still open.

The cause is where ccAI::Greeting writes. It clears moveFlag and runFlag in the members' records (Crew::spc). The town's frame runs the menus' lines (Combat::drain_chats) before the members' frames. Each member's frame begins with fellow::sync_in, which copies the character's flags into those records. The greeting's clears were never written to the character, so they were read back over. drain_chats now writes each member's record to its character (fellow::sync_out) after the lines, as a member's own frame does after it runs.

The fix applies to fields too, which use the same drain_chats. piros_stops_when_spoken_to_while_running holds it: Piros running through Mac Anu on his own, spoken to, stands where he is. The test fails without the write.

A walking PC (ccRtownPC) was not seen to run off. a_walker_stands_through_its_talk keeps one standing, facing Kite, through a talk left open ten seconds. The report's "any NPC" may have been the party members.

A member spoken to in a field

Talk said nothing, Trade found nothing, and Gift said "received" with no name, kept the item with Kite, and at the holy ground opened a garbled window. The talk menus read the one spoken to from the UI's TalkTarget (cmndTargetPrev->base). The town sets it when a member's menu (21), an administrator (23), a breeder (27), a dog (44) or a Grunty (45, 46) is asked for. The field did not, so base_of answered nothing, and the menus fell back to id 0 with no name.

AreaMode::talk now sets it the same way:

• a member is (1 << 24 | id, Speaker::Spc(id));
• an event NPC's stand-in is (2 << 24 | scene index), with its npcTbl row from Combat::npcs.

event_11_blackrose_spoken_to_on_the_holy_ground holds it.

The party panel's faces in town

After a Gate Out mid-event, BlackRose's panel had no face. The town's constructor set only slot 0 (Kite). ccCheckMenuFaceNameParty (gcmn 0x0056a930) is not a stored face: it reads memberID[slot] whenever it is asked. The town now sets every slot's face from the party the last area left (WorldMode::set_spcs). event_11_gate_out_keeps_blackrose holds it, along with her staying in the party and the registry.