Hypothesis under test (from the gun audit, which named the tie-band as "the
lever that matters most"): `bmPath` is deliberately generous (2.3-3.6x
`bmPoint`), so a gun can sit in the tied band on a ray that sweeps the target's
path while its bullets ARRIVE badly. So: keep the `path`-ranked band (path beat
point on real hit rate 7.43% vs 4.70%, z=5.56), but narrow the random draw
inside it using a parallel `point` (arrival-accuracy) window.
RESULT: NO EFFECT. Real DrussGT, ONE frozen binary (/tmp/ModularBot_tieband,
md5 2c0c56e6...), env knobs only, 7 runs x 7 rounds per arm, server-side events
sidecar, exact two-sided permutation test on per-run rates.
arm runs shots real % dmg/run d p
tbbase (shipped) 7 4128 7.17 175 -- --
tbpt path-rank + point-narrow 7 3938 7.08 165 +0.14 0.88
tbpc =commit control 7 3759 4.44 98 +2.74 0.0012
tbpt25 point margin 0.25 7 3683 5.59 119 +1.65 0.20
tbtie05 / tbtie40 (band width) 7 3937/3917 5.84/6.28 133/144 1.49/1.00 0.11/0.25
tbwin50 (SelectorWindow=50) 7 3983 6.05 139 +1.20 0.11
tbfloor10 (FloorPeakFrac=0.10) 7 3829 5.33 118 +2.12 0.11
tbpt vs base: fully overlapping ranges, p=0.88. This is a REAL null, not a dead
arm - the mechanism was live, and it visibly changed the selected-gun mix
(Pattern 24%->16%, Accel 6%->16%, Tsetlin ~0%->13%).
CONTROL VALIDATED, AND THIS IS THE THIRD TIME: removing the random draw inside
the band is SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE (4.44%, p=0.0012). Combined with the earlier
hysteresis A/B (7.02% -> 5.10% for commitment) and the light-hysteresis result,
the selector's per-tick randomness is now load-bearing on three independent
measurements. Narrowing the band on ANY second virtual statistic has not helped.
Every knob swept (band width, floor, window) is nominally worse than shipped at
n=7; that is "no credible win" rather than "proven harm" (sd ~1.8pp, ~1pp
resolution, underpowered).
Shipped default stays `GUN_SELECTOR_TIEBREAK=off`; the feature is opt-in, fully
guarded, and costs zero extra work on the default path (point windows are scored
only when the mode is on).
Guards: test_selector_tiebreak 19 (new, pure), test_gun_harness 39,
test_vbullet_metric 11, test_adaptive_radar 41, test_tfil_ring_weights 24,
test_power_policy 26, test_ram_decision 28, test_rack_membership 38,
acceptance_offline_vs_online 12/12 PASS (offline path calls neither
chooseFromFit nor the tie-break).
STRATEGIC CONCLUSION: three selection-side attempts have now failed (hysteresis,
commitment, point tie-break). The selector is at a local optimum and the
remaining lever is the QUALITY OF THE GUNS, not the selection among them.
Three corrections, all prompted by later measurements:
1. The virtual-vs-real rank correlation is NOT robustly negative. Six
independent Spearman measurements now exist (-0.374, +0.335, +0.522,
-0.371, -0.073, -0.037) and the sign flips on large samples, so it is near
zero on average. The honest headline is that virtual hit rate is a POOR
RANKER, not an inverted one. The report said 'not weak - it is inverted' in
six places; it now says so in none. The practical conclusion (do not trust
it for ranking) is unchanged; the mechanism claimed was wrong.
2. The offline==online acceptance is FIXED, not flaky. Root cause was that the
replay spawned gun 13 (TMSelect) while the live rack has it disabled, and
the shared VirtualTracker ring is ORDER-SENSITIVE, so gun 13's extra 4
bullets/tick permuted the per-tick resolution order for every other gun and
shifted the learning guns' observations. After closing gun 13's ready gate
offline the live and offline KNN traces are byte-identical (904/904 lines,
empty diff). 5/5 consecutive runs now report 12/12 exact with the death
boundary included. Recorded with the lesson: a flaky proof was hiding a real
bug. Also records the general A/B confound - disabling a gun removes its 4
spawns/tick from the shared ring, perturbing resolution order for the rest.
3. Pruning was tested and does NOT help, so the verdict for Tsetlin and
Displace changes from an implied drop to BELOW OVERALL - KEEP. 15 paired
runs: baseline 6.18%, Tsetlin-off 5.76%, Tsetlin+Displace-off 5.46%;
paired permutation p=0.57 and p=0.21; distributions completely overlap; a
non-surfer control showed no separation. Being below average does not
justify removal.
Also records the tie-break randomness fix, and quotes run counts with every
rate (6.95% over 13 runs vs 6.18% over 15 runs, same binary) rather than
presenting a single figure as definitive.
Replaces the stale 2026-09-20 docs, which predated per-gun real attribution,
the offline gun range and the DrussGT boss, and whose verdicts were built on
virtual hit rates that turned out to be ANTI-correlated with reality.
docs/gun_rack_analysis.md (751 lines) covers: the test infrastructure
described honestly (offline range with its flaky-acceptance caveat, the 20
fixtures and what each set is good for, the live boss, and the A/B methodology
of per-run server-side real hit rate with an explicit overlap test); the
virtual-vs-real metric lesson with Spearman -0.374 and the point-vs-path A/B;
per-gun real performance and the 16-rule ranking A/B; the offline per-fixture
gun matrix; KEEP/MARGINAL/BELOW verdicts; and the five root-cause bugs with
before/after numbers.
docs/gun_rack_summary.md (58 lines) is the verdict table plus top actions.
The '~230 point' score-noise band that has been steering methodology all night
was re-derived from the artifacts rather than asserted: the 13 shipped-config
run scores span 175-526, s.d. ~105, i.e. a ~210-point 2-s.d. band.
Caveats recorded verbatim rather than softened: the offline==online acceptance
is flaky (typically 11/12 on unmodified HEAD), fixtures are perfect-information
and therefore optimistic vs live play, per-gun real N is small so single-gun
ordering is indicative, the headline numbers come from ONE wave-surfer
adversary, and HeadOn must stay despite being lowest because it is the floor
fallback (disabling it: 5.08% / 175 dmg vs 6.95% / 251 dmg).
SirStone