## Why
Delta world saves (only changed entities re-serialized during the freeze) need two things from content: `Serialize` must be pure, and an unchanged entity must produce identical bytes on every save. An audit of the tree found the places that break this today. This PR fixes them and adds a diagnostic that measures byte stability in a running world over real time. No wire format changes, no version bumps.
## What
- **Guild**: `Serialize` ran the daily guildmaster recalculation (dictionary-order tie breaks, random picks, mutates another entity), war expiry, and the alliance leadership check on every save. That work now runs from `GuildMaintenanceTimer` (the former `WarTimer`, now started for both guild systems; the war and alliance checks are no-ops without the new guild system).
- **BaseHouse**: the `DecayLevel` getter wrote `LastRefreshed` and advanced the dynamic decay stage on every read, so any undecayable house changed its persisted bytes whenever a sign, gump, or `[Props` looked at it. It is now a pure read; `UpdateDecay()` on the decay tick advances the stage and refreshes a house that leaves the undecayable state.
- **Locked-down container contents decay through `DecayScheduler`** instead of a sweep inside `BaseHouse.Serialize`. `Item.CanDecay` now accepts a parent container whose new `Container.ContentsDecay` is true (locked down and not secure) when the content item is not itself locked down or secured; the `IsLockedDown`/`IsSecure` setters re-evaluate a container and its direct contents; `OnDecay` resolves the region from the world location. `BaseBoard`, `Aquarium` and `FishBowl` override `ContentsDecay` to false, matching the exclusions of the old sweep. Items already inside such containers are picked up at load, where every item re-evaluates its registration. The per-save O(all locked-down items) walk is gone; the work is now event driven.
- **BraceletOfBinding**: the `Bound` getter nulled its backing field for a deleted target; it now returns null for a missing or deleted target without writing.
- **`[SaveStability [delaySeconds=60] [sampleStride=1]`** (Administrator): hashes the serialized bytes of every entity in every registered entity persistence (`Persistence.EntityPersistences`, new), waits the delay in real time, hashes again, and reports per type how many records changed. Both passes are chunked under a 20 ms per-tick budget. Serializing twice inside one tick cannot see drift derived from `Core.Now`, which is frozen within a tick; the real-time wait is the point. On an idle shard the only legitimate churn is NPC movement and regeneration, so a static type with a high changed fraction is a serialization bug. `[SaveStability cancel` stops a run.
Engine additions: `Container.ContentsDecay` / `UpdateContentsDecayRegistration()`, the `CanDecay`/`OnDecay` change above, and diagnostic-facing `IGenericEntityPersistence.Name`, `EntityCount`, `EnumerateEntities()`, and `Persistence.EntityPersistences`.
## Behaviour notes
- Fealty recalculation now happens on the minute timer for both guild systems instead of at save time.
- A house that becomes decayable is refreshed on its next decay tick rather than at the exact moment of transition (at most one minute later).
- Contents of locked-down containers now decay on their own schedule (same `LastMoved + DecayTime` rule) instead of at the next world save after becoming due.
## Testing
- New tests: `GuildSerializePurityTests`, `HouseDecayPurityTests`, `SaveStabilityTests` (stable entities hash identically after the clock advances; a clock-stamped record is reported by type only after the clock advances; the snapshot covers Items, Mobiles and Guilds).
- `LockedDownContainerDecayTests` (Server.Tests): registration on drop, lock/secure/release transitions, excluded containers, nested containers, and decay on schedule through the scheduler.
- Full suites: Server.Tests 855 passed, UOContent.Tests 765 passed.
> [!IMPORTANT]
> **Breaking Changes**
> - DecodePacket and EncodePacket delegates replaced with IClientEncryption interface
> - NetState.Connection (Socket) replaced with internal RingSocket management
> - NetState.RecvPipe and NetState.SendPipe removed (buffers managed internally)
## Summary
Upgrades the networking stack from PollGroup-based I/O to io_uring, significantly improving I/O performance on Linux.
This also adds native client encryption support for encrypted UO clients.
## Major Changes
io_uring Networking Architecture
- Replaced PollGroup with IORingGroup for async socket I/O operations
- Removed Pipe.cs (mirrored ring buffer) and TcpServer.cs in favor of RingSocketManager
- Added NetState.Network.cs - centralized network infrastructure handling accept, recv, send, and disconnect
completions
- Added SocketHelper.cs - platform-specific socket utilities for raw socket handle operations (getpeername,
getsockname)
- Buffer management now handled by RingSocketManager with configurable slab allocation
### Client Encryption Support
- Added full encryption stack in Network/Encryption/:
- EncryptionConfig.cs - configurable encryption modes (None, Unencrypted, Encrypted, Both)
- EncryptionManager.cs - encryption detection and initialization for login/game packets
- LoginEncryption.cs - handles login packet encryption with version-derived keys
- GameEncryption.cs - handles game server encryption using Twofish
- TwofishEngine.cs - optimized Twofish block cipher implementation
- LoginKeys.cs - encryption key table for client versions
- IClientEncryption.cs - interface for client encryption implementations
### NetState Improvements
- Replaced Socket Connection with RingSocket _socket for managed socket lifecycle
- Changed from GCHandle polling to event-based completion processing
- Disconnect handling now properly waits for pending sends to flush
- Simplified connecting socket management using lazy queue removal
### Configuration
- New settings: network.encryptionMode and network.encryptionDebug
- Encryption mode flags: Unencrypted, Encrypted, or Both
### Dependencies
- Replaced PollGroup NuGet package with IORingGroup
- Linux requires liburing-dev / liburing-devel package
### Test plan
- Verify server starts and accepts connections on Linux with io_uring
- Verify server starts and accepts connections on Windows (fallback to IOCP)
- Test unencrypted client connections (ClassicUO with encryption disabled)
- Test encrypted client connections if available
- Verify graceful disconnect flushes pending data
- Confirm CI builds pass on all target platforms
### Summary
- Generalizes the On/Off toggle items concept
- Updates the OnOffGump so it is static
- Standardizes OnOff items so they can be used by staff
### Notes
Decided to not fix#1417 because it is not clear that the clilocs or errors are for that purpose. Can't test this on OSI anyways.
> [!Note]
> **Developer Note**
> Now developers will only need to build/run the Application project instead of everything.
> When adding new projects, make sure to:
> 1. Add a reference to that project in the Application project.
> 2. Add the dll file to the Distribution/Data/assemblies.json file
### Summary
- Adds an application project
- Consolidates process restarts to use `Core.Kill(true)`
- Removes some old messaging, for example processor optimization
- Fixes missing build cleanup
> [!Warning]
> Users on Linux/OSX will need to follow the Readme
> and make sure `libdeflate` is properly installed
> [!Note]
> **Developer Note**
> The API for compression has changed. Use `Deflate.Standard` for the same functionality.
### Summary
* Replaces Zlib with LibDeflate for a 50% performance improvement!
* Adds MacOS 14 to properly test Arm64
## Breaking Changes
Incoming packet registration signature has changed to:
```cs
delegate* void OnReceiveCallback(NetState state, SpanReader reader, int packetLength);
IncomingPackets.Register(int packetID, int length, bool ingame, OnReceiveCallback onReceive);
```
For example, an incoming packet handler signature would now look like this:
```cs
public static void SomeIncomingPacket(NetState state, SpanReader reader, int packetLength)
{
// Parse the data
}
```
## Summary
Updates the network Pipe class to use a mirrored memory technique. This technique involves mapping the same physical memory to two contiguous virtual memory spaces so the byte buffer appears duplicated. This allows writing to a double-sized array to wrap around without the need for the `CircularBuffer` classes.
In practice this allows us to use `Span<byte>` as if the buffer was a regular array.
### Bug Fixes
- [X] Fixes bad fixed length string parsing
- [X] Adds `ToSpan()` for SpanWriter.
- [X] Moves house files to UOContent/Multis/Houses
- [X] Adds house packets
### SpanWriter.ToSpan()
`ToSpan()` returns an `SpanOwner` struct which allows access to the buffer as a Span by calling `Span`.
Example:
```cs
public SpanOwner CreatePacket()
{
var writer = new SpanWriter(0x400);
// write some stuff
return writer.ToSpan();
}
```
In this example, we are creating a packet and returning the `SpanOwner` for caching. This means in the future we can do something like this:
```cs
ns.Send(_cachedPacket.Span);
```
Where `_cachedPacket` is the `SpanOwner`
Notes:
Do not use a SpanWriter, or attempt to dispose of it after calling `ToSpan()`. Doing so will probably cause an NPE.