ModernUO/Projects/UOContent
Kamron Batman d3bf283e2d
feat: event-driven target acquisition with a reaction-time gradient (#2601)
Fixes walk-up aggro latency (up to a full 10 s of obliviousness) and hardens the reacquire gate so no state can silence acquisition, while turning `AcquireOnApproach` into the reaction-time knob for future per-creature intelligence tuning.

### Why

`AcquireFocusMob` re-armed the 10 s `ReacquireDelay` **before** scanning, success or failure. A creature that scanned an empty room was blind for 10 s to a player walking up — walk-up aggro latency was uniform in 0..10 s. Waking from sector sleep stacked the AI timer's 0–3 s construction stagger on top. And `NextReacquireTime` is not serialized: on hosts whose tick counter starts negative (GCP pass-through), the 0 default blocked **all** acquisition shard-wide after a restart until the counter crossed zero.

### What

**Event-driven reaction — `AcquireOnApproachDelay` (the intelligence gradient)**
- The paragon `AcquireOnApproach` bool becomes a `TimeSpan` on every creature: an enemy moving inside `AcquireOnApproachRange` (10 for all creatures — on-screen reactive aggro; the periodic scan keeps the wide `RangePerception` sweep) *clamps* the next scan to at most the delay. Repeated steps cannot shorten it further — one scan per delay period, not per step or think.
- `Zero` (paragons) also prods the AI timer: the ranked scan engages within a wheel turn — the old snap, minus the special-cased engage path. The target now comes from the normal FightMode ranking instead of whichever mobile happened to move, and the `Combatant == null` guard stops re-engage spam.
- The 2 s default reads as "took a beat to notice you"; larger values are dumber; `ReacquireDelay` alone is the oblivious floor. Mover checks are the approach logic's `IsEnemy` + `CanBeHarmful` (so pets count and hidden movers are excluded via `CanSee`), with `IsEnemy` first to cheaply reject same-team wild creatures wandering past. The check rides the `OnMovement` callback every step already pays for — no polling added.

**Gate correctness**
- Every scan re-arms the full `ReacquireDelay`, success or failure (classic semantics; reaction time is the approach path, not the poll).
- Self-healing by construction: a deadline further out than `ReacquireDelay` is an illegal state and reads as open — no wedged or wrapped value can silence acquisition beyond one delay period.
- `NextReacquireTime` is seeded from a live tick on deserialize (the GCP negative-tick blackout).

**AI timer wake**
- Activation (sector wake, spawn, resurrection) starts within a 0–256 ms spread instead of the 0–3 s construction stagger, which read as lag.
- The stagger's real job — keeping same-speed cohorts out of lock-step (the RunUO town artifact) — is now a zero-mean ±period/8 jitter on each **idle** think, so phases random-walk apart within seconds and can never re-lock. Instrumentation showed why a one-shot spread can't do this job: the timer wheel fires within ±1 ms, so with 10 creatures on a 500 ms period some pair collides on nearly the same phase ~75% of the time (birthday paradox) and then steps in the same loop iteration *forever*. Jitter is scoped to passive speed: engaged cadence stays exact, since pursuit timing anchors to real step times.

**Debug**
- The `AcquireFocusMob` scan message no longer re-arms the shared 5 s debug cooldown, which swallowed every AI's "I have detected X" transition line.

**API change** for custom scripts: `AcquireOnApproach` (bool) → `AcquireOnApproachDelay` (TimeSpan). Documented in `content-patterns.md` § Target Acquisition, `runuo-migration-docs/09` + `11`, and the migration skill checklist.

### Tests

`AcquisitionTests`: both scan outcomes honor `ReacquireDelay`; a 60 s-wedged gate still acquires; enemy movement clamps the deadline (same-team wild movers and out-of-range movers ignored); repeated movement cannot shorten below the delay; `Zero` opens the gate and prods without a direct engage. Full suite: 755 UOContent green.
2026-09-01 20:42:15 -07:00
..
Accounting perf(login): run password hashing on a parked worker thread (#2566) 2026-08-09 00:13:34 -07:00
Assistants chore: Use var everywhere (#2294) 2025-12-27 16:47:28 -08:00
Commands perf: Sleep the event loop when idle. Fixes networking micro-stalls. Adds event loop instrumentation. (#2559) 2026-08-09 13:24:59 -07:00
Compression feat: Implements new robust/pluggable backup/archive system. (#2388) 2026-03-22 19:51:20 -07:00
Configuration fix: Streamlines insurance. Insurance only executes when enabled. (#2550) 2026-07-26 09:47:49 -07:00
Console feat: Adds console commands (#1714) 2024-03-30 09:40:43 -07:00
Context Menus fix: Moves ContextMenu out of core, streamlines code, fixes bugs (#1873) 2024-07-20 21:33:23 -07:00
Engines fix: delete the bonus item, not the primary yield, when the bonus cannot be placed (#2602) 2026-08-31 08:46:20 -07:00
Gumps fix: harden idle-sleep scheduling against bad config and misattributed saves (#2567) 2026-08-09 22:05:18 -07:00
Holiday Stuff perf: Migrate Veteran Reward gumps to DynamicGump/StaticGump (#2415) 2026-04-25 20:09:27 -07:00
Items feat: convert all delta-time serialization to anchored time (#2589) 2026-08-22 19:34:43 -07:00
Migrations feat: convert all delta-time serialization to anchored time (#2589) 2026-08-22 19:34:43 -07:00
Misc refactor: fold hand-written serializable property setters into field hooks (#2587) 2026-08-22 18:20:39 -07:00
Mobiles feat: event-driven target acquisition with a reaction-time gradient (#2601) 2026-09-01 20:42:15 -07:00
Multis feat: convert all delta-time serialization to anchored time (#2589) 2026-08-22 19:34:43 -07:00
Network fix: Fixes tick count wrap-around in movement throttle, and eliminates more allocations in NetState (#2603) 2026-09-01 20:25:20 -07:00
Regions fix(regions): correct end Z coordinate assignment in InitRectangles (#2597) 2026-08-27 06:51:42 -07:00
Skills fix: Removes unnecessary dictionary removal guards (#2565) 2026-08-08 11:50:01 -07:00
Special Systems feat: Add zero-alloc interpolation handler to ValueStringBuilder, replace all StringBuilder usage (#2387) 2026-03-22 14:23:44 -07:00
Spells feat: derive the Running bit from the step pace and fix step-pacing bursts (#2599) 2026-08-30 16:48:52 -07:00
Systems/JailSystem fix: Bumps deps. Updates copyrights (#2353) 2026-03-05 19:36:54 -08:00
Targets chore: Use var everywhere (#2294) 2025-12-27 16:47:28 -08:00
Text fix: Bumps deps. Updates copyrights (#2353) 2026-03-05 19:36:54 -08:00
Utilities perf(login): run password hashing on a parked worker thread (#2566) 2026-08-09 00:13:34 -07:00
World Saves perf(messages): mechanical interpolation cleanups (#2436) 2026-05-03 18:26:49 -07:00
Module.cs fix: Fixes sending packets and sidesteps a major issue with stackalloc and PGO in .NET 8 (#1607) 2023-11-21 12:18:20 -08:00
UOContent.csproj feat: adopt serialization generator v4 (field-side linkage, anchored timers) (#2586) 2026-08-22 17:54:02 -07:00