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Josh Creek
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Casual/ranked queues need servers allocated per match and shut down afterwards, so cost is incurred only while a match runs - while the existing Docker and CI gates keep passing unchanged. Measured against the repo's own cosmicclash-server image rather than estimated: the runtime image is ~148 MB of content, and boot to the server_started line is ~870 ms on the container's own clock. That was taken under x86_64 emulation on an arm64 host, so it is a pessimistic bound and is recorded as one - it needs re-measuring on native Linux before it sets any timeout. Two findings that would each break a naive implementation, both hit while taking that measurement: - Godot's stdout is block-buffered off a TTY. A detached container logs nothing at all - server_started does not appear even after 35s - so an orchestrator readiness probe that greps the log hangs forever. Probe the UDP socket or flush explicitly. - --port defaults to 7777 and the Dockerfile hardcodes EXPOSE 7777/udp, so several matches cannot share a host without a port range or an address per match. Being UDP, L7 ingress routing does not apply. Also records the honest tension in 'only pay during a match': a server must listen before players connect, and image pull plus scheduling can dwarf 870 ms, so the recommendation is match-level scale-to-zero over a small warm node pool rather than node-level scale-to-zero. The rule for keeping verify-phase6 and verify-enet-integration green: every allocation feature is opt-in via a ServerConfig flag defaulting to current behaviour, with a second Compose file rather than mutating compose.phase6-smoke.yml.
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Multiplayer — next work
Short, current checklist for online multiplayer. Historical design decisions,
implementation evidence, and completed work stay in
multiplayer-todo.md.
Release blockers
- Phase 4 playtest: a human playtest at roughly 100 ms RTT. Confirm that ship and ball interaction feel local and contact corrections feel like bumps rather than glitches.
- Phase 5 session: complete a real 3v3 match with a mid-match disconnect and late joiner.
- Phase 6 external check: run the exported Docker server and clients from separate machines over the internet, then play a full match. Keep this controlled-only until Steam identity is complete.
Phase 7 — Steam, identity, discovery
- Obtain the pinned GodotSteam client/server builds and Steamworks SDK
access described in
STEAM.md. - Run
make verify-steam-templateswith the custom executables and fix any custom-template failures. - Validate a two-account Steam SDR host/join using the existing explicit
NetworkManagerSteam transport. ENet direct-IP must keep passing its smoke test. - Build the Steam server browser: internet, LAN, favourites, and history.
- Add Steam auth tickets, verified Steam identity in the roster, and a persistent ban list. This fixes the slot-reclaim security issue below.
Phase 8 — casual and ranked matchmaking (1.0 launch blocker)
Design and reasoning: docs/MATCHMAKING.md. This is a
different server model from the community-server one that exists today —
players queue, a matchmaker groups them, and a server is allocated per match.
Phase 7's Steam auth tickets are a hard prerequisite: a rating attached to a
spoofable identity is worse than no rating.
- Decide the rating algorithm (Glicko-2 recommended over Elo for a small launch population) and how a team result distributes across individuals.
- Choose the backend language and hosting, and cost out allocated servers per match at expected population.
- Stand up the backend: Steam auth ticket validation via the Steamworks Web API, queue, rating store, server allocator.
- Add an assigned-roster server mode so only matched SteamIDs may claim a slot, replacing the first-come model.
- Add server-authoritative match result reporting to the backend over a channel a client cannot forge.
- Client queue UI: playlist select, estimated wait, accept/decline, connect-on-assignment, post-match rating delta.
- Casual and ranked playlist rulesets (backfill, bots, abandon penalties, arena restriction — see the comparison table in the design doc).
Server orchestration (same phase — the servers must autoscale and bill only for the duration of a match):
- Choose the orchestrator (Agones on Kubernetes is the recommended default; it models allocation, readiness and per-match lifetime natively).
- Fix readiness detection. Godot's stdout is block-buffered off a TTY, so
server_startednever appears indocker logsfor a detached container — a log-grep readiness probe hangs forever. Probe the UDP socket, or flush. - Support more than one match per host: a per-container port from a range,
or one address per match.
--portdefaults to 7777 and the Dockerfile hardcodesEXPOSE 7777/udp. - Add a no-show timeout so an allocated server that never fills abandons and exits instead of idling at cost.
- Re-measure boot-to-listening on native x86_64 Linux. The repo's current figure is ~870 ms, measured under emulation on arm64 — a pessimistic bound.
- Re-measure the SERVER.md sizing estimate (6–10 processes/core, 150–250 MB RSS) under real concurrency before it sizes a bill.
- Keep
make verify-phase6andmake verify-enet-integrationgreen: every allocation feature is opt-in via aServerConfigflag defaulting to today's behaviour, with a second Compose file for the allocated path rather than mutatingcompose.phase6-smoke.yml.
Known issues to resolve before public hosting
- Slot reclaim is currently keyed by display name, so someone can take a disconnected player's reserved slot. Do not expose public servers before verified Steam identity lands.
- Investigate occasional input loss during a long server stall; the existing sequence resync recovers it, but transport delivery is variable.
- Fix the remaining
_broadcast_snapshotpacket-send stderr race.
Decide after the latency playtest
- Decide whether client-only, contact-cohort shadow physics is worthwhile for the remaining prediction weakness.
Explicitly deferred
120 Hz simulation, latency-gap measurement, audio hooks, and split-screen are not part of the current multiplayer release path.