CosmicClash/TODO.md

TODO

Deferred work, in rough priority order. The current architecture (ShipAction/ShipController seam, Arena/GameMode split, code-driven spawning, group-tagged ball/goals) was chosen specifically so these bolt on without rework.

AI opponent (reinforcement learning)

The training pipeline is built — see TRAINING.md (self-play PPO via the vendored godot_rl_agents bridge, JSON policy export, in-game GDScript inference, eval ladder). Remaining:

• Run the generation-5 handling/intercepts/league/teamplay curriculum described in TRAINING.md; promote later checkpoints as medium/hard only after they clear the match and behaviour gates.
• Extend generation 5's moving aerial-intercept states with wall plays and rebound scenarios after Stage 5 establishes a productive-air-touch baseline.
• Design team-credit rewards and paired 2v2 evaluation before enabling the deferred teamplay stage.

Presentation / AAA polish

The largest gap between this and a AAA-feeling product is presentation, not code. Sequenced after the above for pragmatic reasons, but this is the highest impact per hour.

• Audio — there is none. Zero sound files, zero AudioStreamPlayer nodes, no bus layout. Needs: engine hum pitched to throttle, turbo whoosh, ball impacts scaled by collision impulse, wall scrapes, goal explosion, crowd bed, UI clicks, countdown beeps, music. Can be driven off Ship's existing telemetry signals.
• Custom font + a real Theme resource for the HUD. ThemeDB.fallback_font at 10-13 px reads as a debug overlay.
• Video settings menu is missing graphics presets, vsync, and resolution scaling. video_settings.gd currently exposes only AA, glow, and brightness, while SDFGI, SSIL, SSAO, and five shadow-casting lights are on by default and unreachable by the player. Blocked on the same profiling gate as the multiplayer section's 0.16–0.28 tasks below (0.17/0.17b/0.17c/0.17d) — needs a human at the editor with real hardware, not further code changes on its own.

Multiplayer (long term)

The concise current checklist is multiplayer-next.md. Historical architecture decisions, implementation evidence, and completed-task detail stay in multiplayer-todo.md. Server-authoritative multiplayer, prediction, ENet dedicated hosting, and the Phase 6 exported-server Docker/CI verification are implemented; the remaining gates are captured in the current checklist.

Phase 7 begins with optional GodotSteam bootstrap and a transport boundary; direct-IP ENet remains fully supported. It also carries the graphics/performance work — the project has never been profiled, and video_settings.gd exposes only AA, glow and brightness while SDFGI, SSIL, SSAO and five shadow-casting lights are on by default and unreachable (see §5.5 there).

Tasks 0.1–0.15, 0.18–0.25, 0.27, 0.29 are done (see the Phase 0 table in multiplayer-todo.md for what each one actually changed — several deviated from the original plan for concrete GDScript/Godot reasons recorded inline). Remaining, all blocked on 0.15b (profile, on reference hardware, in the live editor — not done): 0.16 (camera to _process), 0.17/0.17b/0.17c/0.17d (graphics presets, vsync, resolution scaling), 0.26 (bake the arena GI to retire SDFGI — the largest frame-time win available, costs no image quality since the arena is fully static), and 0.28 (physics separate-thread prototype, flagged as the riskiest task in the phase). These need a human at the editor with real hardware to profile and eyeball, not further code changes.

• Possible v0.2 split-screen: spawn one ship_camera_rig + viewport per local player (camera is already outside the ship scene to allow this). Unrelated to online play.