Elevated flight navigation — 2026-11-02
User correction: no fixed 30-yard height threshold. Near a raised destination, compare required ascent with horizontal distance × configured slope. Preserve ordinary slope-limited flight but explicitly permit a vertical aerial escape. Do not modify group refill behavior; the missing raid member followed a manual removal and is accepted for this performative test.
Implementation in ClientlessFlightPath.h:
- Within 100 horizontal yards, an insufficient slope budget or an obstructed ascending direct approach selects an elevated approach.
- Validate full descent from landing+10, a full open climb column, and the full above-platform crossing before committing. At most 65 column candidates at radii 0/25/50/100/150 around the current position.
- Stable Escape/Climb/Cross/Descend phases prevent height oscillation. Vertical climb is exempt from ordinary slope; normal cruising remains slope limited.
- A blocked column can be reached laterally in clear air below an overhang. The exception still checks the bare terrain/water floor, ceiling and all collision-volume rays. Unknown floor fails closed. It does not tunnel through an ADT hill or bypass platform collision.
- Early normal climb reserves ascent distance for raised destinations.
- Published group trails carry per-segment overhang permissions; followers and moving-segment rechecks retain the same collision checks.
Seven targeted tests pass (individual logs here): elevated geometry, ordinary flight, spline handoff, moving group follow, flight policy, landing search and native terrain fallback. Elevated tests cover a solid thin platform, starting directly beneath it, a 10-yard height change with insufficient horizontal slope budget, a blocked direct approach with enough slope budget, rejected closed/low-ceiling routes, terrain-floor rejection and shared follower segment validation.
Existing test_flight_departure.py fails with unordered_map::at both on HEAD and this change: the extraction harness omits the newer preparation phase when asserting admission behavior. Baseline failure is preserved separately; not a new production regression. test_flight_handoff.py doubles were updated to the current production record and owner/replan dependencies.
Initial build/install passed. The server was already offline before the build; no process/tmux session, so no safe-logout command could be delivered. Preserve residual online list (110 bots) and prior raw test data. Server exit cause unknown. First restart ready PID248139, ports8085/8087 checked. Loader kept paused. Initial native flight attempt was taken over by a normal day plan before schedule disable; safe return requested, then successful safe logout with zero sessions. Final build/install is tracked separately. Temporary Renren profile isolation and GM teleport destination must be restored/removed after the live experiment.
Final result
Final -j10 build and install passed (build-final.log/install-final.log). Before shutdown, native safe logout confirmed zero pending/zero sessions; no five-minute exception or forced logout was needed. Final startup fresh ready PID249564, ports8085/8087 and live process verified.
Live isolated flight: Renren159, native taxi_663 departure (-4170.55,-4748.93, 126.787), destination portal_at_6354_source. Profile temporarily disabled ordinary behavior, backed up and restored byte-for-byte; no fake travel edge was added. At 08:27:23, vertical climb from (-4817.58,-4266.23,~619) was selected and reached 837.77. Above-platform crossing ended at (-4905.67,-4232.75,837.77), then vertical touchdown at 827.77. FLIGHT_LANDED at 08:27:42: segments=64 avoidances=3, travelled=1279.85 error=0.00. This proves the real tower landing, not raid entry. Under-platform lateral escape is covered by geometry tests, not separately proven in-game. Raw live-flight-evidence.log and landing-confirmed.log retain proof.
The profile was restored byte-for-byte, native Lua reload succeeded, schedule on. Temporary GM teleport destination deleted and native game_tele cache reloaded. 110 original bots are back online; loader restored to1, safe-logout block resumed. Eight formerly hovering raid members were recovered natively to Stormwind before login; Renren landed safely on the platform. All110 login/movement/flight states were sampled. Additional unsupported Braneven121 at z93.962 (floor24.148), failed flight, was natively teleported to Orgrimmar; final z16.047/floor16.088, flying=0, falling=0 verified. 112/132 had failed flight records but were supported on ground and were left in place. Recovery logs retained; no production access/push.
Original 06/07 test report was generated successfully at08:00:09: 40/92 arrivals at required meeting points, zero recorded instance entries, max9/10 cohort. It predates this fix. Group refill logic was explicitly rejected by user and remains unchanged.