## Summary
Many tests proved a specific change when it landed but don't need to run on every CI build forever. This removes **202 test methods and 9 files: 313 test cases, 2,247 → 1,934**. UOContent.Tests drops from about 14s to about 5s locally.
Removed:
- **Tautologies.** Asserting a constant, a constructor readback or a trivial getter, or testing BCL behavior.
- **Exact duplicates** of a surviving test on the same code path.
- **Obsolete regressions** whose failure can no longer be expressed.
- **Game-content values** shard owners customize (era drop rates, loot and skill tables, single-creature tuning). Each customization would otherwise force a test fix.
## How it was decided
1. Every test was classified, with a reason, by a per-shard sweep over all 287 test files.
2. Each proposed deletion was then checked by a second, adversarial reviewer against the surviving tests and the production code.
3. Anything that was the only coverage of a separate code path was **kept**, even where it looked like a duplicate. Examples: the unsigned `SpanReader`/`SpanWriter` methods, the at-location versus bounds enumerators, null-map enumerables, the security filters, archive-journal state transitions. About 130 proposed deletions were rejected this way.
Whole files removed:
- `FishingTests`, apart from 3 tests: the map-edge scan, serpent cleanup, and SOS chest consumption. The SOS test now stops at the first chest instead of measuring a catch rate. The multi-million-cast rate simulations are gone.
- `LordOaksTests` and `MeerEnragedTests` (single-creature tests).
- `AutoArchiveHelperTests`, `JsonDiscoverableTypeAttributeTests`, `DecimalSerializationTests` and `EnumConversionTests` (tautologies, or tests of their own local helpers).
- `NetworkStatsTests`.
- `MigratedDataLoadTests` (a subset of `AllSpawnFilesLoadTests`).
- `SpawnerFixtureCapture`: a capture tool, not a test, and its `version == 12` assert can no longer pass. The `.bin` fixtures it produced stay.
## Tests
- Server.Tests: 811 pass.
- UOContent.Tests: 1,123 pass.
A follow-up PR, stacked on this one, fixes how the remaining tests behave: shared state, CI-vacuous tests, harness duplication.
## Summary
- Adds proper Latin1 encoding support, replacing CP1252 usage throughout the codebase
- Adds specialized, optimized string decoding methods with safe string filtering for each encoding type
- Filters invalid Unicode characters (C0/C1 control codes, non-characters) by removal rather than replacement since
the UO client renders nothing for these characters
- Fixes UTF-16 null terminator position handling to correctly advance by 2 bytes
## Changes
TextEncoding.cs
- Added SearchValues-based invalid byte/char detection for efficient filtering
- Added encoding-specific GetString methods: GetStringAscii, GetStringLatin1, GetStringUtf8, GetStringBigUni,
GetStringLittleUni
- Each method supports a safeString parameter for filtering invalid characters
- Little-endian UTF-16 uses direct memory cast for zero-copy decoding on LE systems
- Invalid characters are removed (not replaced with U+FFFD) since the client renders nothing for them
SpanReader.cs
- Added ReadLatin1() and ReadLatin1Safe() methods
- Rewrote encoding-specific read methods to use optimized TextEncoding.GetString* methods
- Fixed UTF-16 null terminator handling: position now correctly advances by byteLength (2) instead of 1
SpanWriter.cs
- Added WriteLatin1 and WriteLatin1Null methods
## Packet Updates
- Updated all packet code to use Latin1 encoding instead of CP1252
- Affected: account packets, equipment packets, menu packets, message packets, mobile packets, player packets, secure
trade packets, vendor packets, gump packets, book packets, mahjong packets
## Filtering Behavior
Invalid characters filtered in safe mode:
```
┌───────────────┬────────────────────────┐
│ Range │ Description │
├───────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 0x00-0x1F │ C0 control codes │
├───────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 0x7F │ DEL │
├───────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 0x80-0x9F │ C1 control codes │
├───────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 0xFFFE-0xFFFF │ Unicode non-characters │
└───────────────┴────────────────────────┘
```
Note: Surrogate pairs (0xD800-0xDFFF) are not filtered because proper validation requires context checking for paired
vs unpaired surrogates. The UO client renders nothing for these anyway.
## Test Plan
- All 631 Server.Tests pass
- Verified client rendering behavior using TestUnicodeGump command (pages 1-5)
- Confirmed U+FFFD, unpaired surrogates, and non-characters all render as blank in client
- Verified Latin1 characters (0xA0-0xFF) display correctly
- Verified C1 control codes (0x80-0x9F) are filtered and don't display
