Roadmap

Contents

Done
Where we are (updated 2026-09-23)
1. What saves today
2. What to tell friends right now
Milestones
Decisions only you can make
Unknowns, and the experiment that settles each
Can’t come back

Our fork of Undaunted (AGPL-3.0). It runs the genuine Dauntless 1.4.4 client, and our work is on branch dauntless-revived.

Goal: a small group of friends plays together on this server, and everything they earn is kept.

Effort sizes:

S: hours
M: a day or two
L: a week or more
XL: research with no known end

This page is generated from ROADMAP.md, the checklist we work from.

Done

Where we are (updated 2026-09-23)

Chat default update, 2026-09-30 (3.10): in-game text chat now defaults on (unset/empty CHAT or CHAT=1); CHAT=0 remains an explicit opt-out. New public kit installs default On, private kit installs stay Off. Existing saved Off settings are preserved: enable older installs once with Set-Chat.ps1 -On while empty. Updates report the listener’s state; failures are logged without tokens/message contents and do not stop the HTTP backend. Presence remains opt-in. Automated coverage includes default startup, explicit disable and an occupied port; VPS play verification remains pending. This supersedes older “off by default” chat notes below.

Update, 2026-09-23 (the port of Harmonic’s 1.4.4 fork):

Harmonic’s fork of Undaunted for 1.4.4 (github.com/Harmonicrain/Undaunted, commit 895f7c7, AGPL-3.0) was compared with ours feature by feature. What adds something is in, rewritten on our code, apart from a few platform items left out with their reasons (the DLL-side ones, the server-mode hook with METAGAME_ADDRESS and HuntDiag, wait for the decision on shipping a DLL we build; the deploy server’s port wait and game-server log files were skipped); where that fork rewrote something we had already built and tried in game, we kept ours, and each such choice is written down with its reason on The Harmonic port.

New, off by default until a decision or an in-game test: real Escalation saves (2.16; ESCALATION_MODE=real drops every player from the fake maximum to level 0), a free in-game store (3.7; STORE=free, waiting for the free-or-priced decision), and granting the Elite ranks’ entitlements on confirm (PROGRESSION_CONFIRM_ENTITLEMENTS=1).

New, on by default: Slayer Links (3.15; off with SLAYER_LINKS=0), a dead Ramsgate started again when a player travels there (4.1; PERSISTENT_WORLD_LIVENESS=0) and a repeated party accept (no switch), each answering only where the server gave an error or a 404 before; and three changes to replies that already worked: /balance from the character’s real currencies (2.17; BALANCE_FROM_INVENTORY=0), oauth/verify naming the player’s own account (VERIFY_STUB_ACCOUNT=1 for the old reply), and protection against retried XP grants, which changes only a grant repeated byte for byte less than 5 seconds after the last one (PROGRESSION_REPLAY_WINDOW_S=0).

Migrations 0014-0016 add six tables and change nothing that exists; the previous build still starts on the migrated database. 103 of Harmonic’s 119 test cases were ported and 7 turned around to assert our behaviour; the metagame now has 567 tests and the deploy server 26. The DLL project compiles with the installed Build Tools (4.4), but nothing built here ships.

Not deployed or tried in game yet. The live tests and the owner’s decisions are listed under 2.16, 3.7, 3.10, 3.15 and “Decisions only you can make”. Credits: Harmonic is on the Credits pages and in NOTICE.md.

Update, 2026-09-22 (text chat, 3.10):

Why the first chat server showed every sender as UID-..., and the fix. Vvoidddd’s chat server (PR #9) got Ramsgate messages through with a real 1.4.4 client, but the sender showed as the account id. Read from the executable: the client already joins every room with a nickname that carries the username (<name>:<account id>:<resource>) and reads the name back from it; the server threw that nickname away and answered from <room>/UID-.... The chat server now keeps each nickname as sent, adds <item jid>, tells occupants about each other and sends every line back to its sender, so both players see usernames. The metagame’s account routes needed no change.

Built into the metagame and tested without the game, off by default (CHAT=1, or Set-Chat.ps1 -On on a kit server; no firewall rule, no launcher update). Room joins are checked against the player’s own account, so nobody can pose as someone else; party and guild rooms are for their members; blocks apply to room lines and whispers. It sends no presence outside rooms, so the client’s dormant party auto-kick stays asleep. A crash guard and a login hold-back keep bad input and reconnect loops from hurting the metagame or the player’s game traffic.

Not yet deployed or tried by two players. Next, when nobody is playing: update the rented server (it runs 9f3f78b, which has no Set-Chat.ps1 yet), then switch chat on in a second run, and run the two-player test under How to verify. Online status (friends showing as online) is still to come. Details: Text chat.

Update, 2026-09-22 (friends, parties and guilds):

Why the two-player test showed no party invite and no friend request, and the fix. Read from the 1.4.4 executable and the live route census: the invite reached the other player’s invite poll, but the client drops an invite whose sender it cannot set up, and POST /accountinfo/public (upstream’s reply) described the caller instead of the sender. Add Friends stopped at POST /account/mapping, whose reply the client reads as an object keyed by the asked id (the array we sent read as empty). Both are fixed and running on the rented server since 22 September 2026 (60955e1), not yet tried in game; both players must restart the game once after the deploy. This corrects the earlier note that blamed /account/mapping for both.

Guilds are built (3.11): the eleven v2 routes, stored in SQLite (migration 0013_guilds). Creating a guild goes through the Ramsgate game server and costs nothing in 1.4.4; the game server passes on no token of the player, so a create is accepted only for a name and nameplate the leader validated themselves. Friend requests are now limited (50 unanswered, 20 per 10 minutes), and party and guild invites have rules of their own (a block removes them, a pause after a decline). The steps of the next two-player test, with the log lines to expect, are under How to verify.

Everything passes HTTP tests that replay the client’s own requests against a model of the client’s parsing, which also reproduces what the players saw. Nothing is confirmed in game yet: that is the next two-player test. Online status and chat still need the XMPP server (3.10). Details: Friends, parties and guilds.

Update, 2026-09-22:

The Windows Server 2019 kit runs on a real rented VPS in public mode (deployed 2026-09-21/22). Checked on the server: the stack starts at boot as the service account in session 0, Ramsgate runs and sends heartbeats, the gateway answers from the internet with the pinned certificate, and the hourly backup task runs.

The real server found three things the sandbox tests couldn’t, all fixed in the kit:

Windows limits a local account’s description to 48 characters.

That image refuses S4U scheduled tasks for accounts that aren’t administrators, so the service account’s tasks now run with a stored random password.

The provider’s image kept Windows Firewall off through policy values (EnableFirewall=0 under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall). The installer now removes them and checks the firewall store that is actually in effect; the change needs a restart.

Launcher 0.1.0 is published on GitHub Releases by CI (the first automatic release), with SHA256SUMS.txt and a build provenance attestation. Installed launchers update from the launcher-updates feed. It is not code-signed yet (4.16). Launcher 0.1.1 followed the same night (see the first real test below).

First real test, 2026-09-22: one player, over the internet. The owner played on the rented server in public mode, with launcher 0.1.0 downloaded from GitHub Releases:

Windows SmartScreen on the owner’s PC blocked the unsigned installer outright (“Don’t run” only, no “Run anyway”). Checking its SHA-256 against SHA256SUMS.txt and unblocking the file (Properties > Unblock, or Unblock-File) worked.

The whole path worked: the invite, registration with an own username, the game download (about 11 GB) from the server through the gateway, the tutorial island (its game server started on demand), Ramsgate, the Training Dojo (started on demand) and the first hunt (the new-player pursuit).

Progression: Slayer level 3, weapon mastery, and behemoth mastery seen in game for the first time (rank 2). The game server confirmed the rank rewards.

Three game servers ran at once. The UDP allowlist opened the game ports for the player and closed them after they left.

No “Allowing overspend” warning in the whole session, the hunt end included (the metagame logs it when an inventory transaction removes more than the player has). Several save-version conflicts were refused as designed (older or duplicate full-snapshot saves), and the newest save was kept.

Launcher 0.1.0’s r.EyeAdaptationQuality=0 made Ramsgate and night scenes far too dark. Launcher 0.1.1, published by CI the same night, no longer writes it and removes the old line on the next launch; with 0.1.1 the owner confirmed Ramsgate looks normal. The dark pre-hunt airship is back: a known, short scene, and a proper fix is 4.17.

Two players, later the same night: two players saw each other in Ramsgate and hunted together over the internet, after queueing the same hunt within a few seconds (no party). Not yet verified: parties and friends in game (a party invite was dropped at POST /accountinfo/public and Add Friends at POST /account/mapping; both fixed and running on the rented server since 22 September, not yet tried in game, see the update above, 1.9 and 1.11). Text chat is not built (3.10), and friends’ online status needs the chat server.

Parties and the friends list (1.9): the server side is built and passes the integration harness with simulated players. It has not been tried with two real game clients yet. Party invites don’t require being friends. Showing friends as online needs the chat server (3.10), which isn’t built. Update: the two causes that blocked them in game are fixed, and guilds are built (see the newest update above).

The live player list (/undaunted/api/ServerStatus) is shown to registered players only, and /dauntless-status no longer carries a player count.

Rebrand, part 1: the launcher, the in-game welcome text and the server’s messages say Dauntless Revived, and the credits name Undaunted. Folders, the server DLL’s file name (UndauntedInternalServer.dll), API routes and headers keep the Undaunted names for now (4.15).

New items: performance logging and capacity measurement (4.12), more game-server ports (4.13), PostgreSQL before any public release (4.14), rebrand part 2 (4.15), a code-signed launcher (4.16) and a proper fix for the dark pre-hunt airship (4.17).

Update, 2026-09-21 afternoon:

The owner played two real hunts (a Lesser Boreus hunt and a pursuit). The loot was saved: CURRENCY_NOTES went from 1,260 to 1,460 and ORB_FROST ×20 arrived.

Saves survive a full restart of everything (0.3), and the game no longer contacts Epic’s chat server (0.5).

Backups are automatic: hourly, plus around every server start and stop, and a restore test passed (0.1).

The docs site is live at https://mixutin.github.io/dauntless-revived/.

The friend kit is built (1.14). It waits for Tailscale and invite codes.

Body capture is switched on (0.4). It fills on the next play session.

M2 (real progression, Hunt Pass with Elite for everyone, entitlements, cooldowns, bounties, loadout slots, save hardening) is built and passed its in-game test on a throwaway account, including a full restart. Accounts are switched over next (2.13).

Real progression is now the default. PROGRESSION_MODE unset or empty means real for every account; stub keeps upstream’s fake max ranks, and PROGRESSION_REAL_ACCOUNTS only matters in stub mode. Nothing is migrated: on a server that already had players, they start at Slayer level 1, and the metagame warns about them at startup. Self-hosters choose per account with the admin seed (grandfather or fresh) or stay on stub; see the upgrade notes.

Once, the Ramsgate server exited at the end of a hunt, and the deploy server’s watchdog restarted it within a minute (“RAMSGATE HAS FALLEN! Restarting!”). It was a clean exit: no crash dump and no error in the Windows event log. The likely cause is its console window being closed. For ports 8776 and up (Ramsgate, Dojo) the DLL turns off its idle exit and opens a console for logging (dllmain.cpp, AllocConsole). Closing that window ends the server. Hiding the window is part of 1.1.

The snapshot below is from 2026-09-21, 10:50 UTC. Where the updates above differ, they are newer.

One player (the owner), on this PC. These all work: login, the tutorial, Ramsgate, the Training Dojo, the first pursuit hunt, crafting, the inventory and the equipped loadout. Update 2026-09-22: still the only player who has played, now also over the internet on the rented server (the first real test, above). The two-player test is next.
Friends can’t connect yet. Everything listens on this PC only, and parties and the friends list are fakes. Update 2026-09-22: the rented server in public mode answers from the internet through its gateway, and parties and the friends list are built on the server side (1.9). No friend has played yet.
Some of what you earn is saved and some isn’t.
- Saved: items, Rams, quests and gear.
- Not saved: Slayer level, mastery, the Hunt Pass, bounties, daily timers and escalation. These are fakes that throw every save away. Update: Slayer level, mastery and the Hunt Pass are saved with real progression, now the default (2.8–2.12, 2.14, 2.15, tested in game). Bounties and daily timers are stored too but not yet tried in the game (2.5, 2.6). Escalation is still a fake.
There is no backup. Every save lives in one 140 KB file (C:\dr\data\undaunted.db). Database changes (migrations) run automatically each time the server starts, with no copy taken first. Update: backups are automatic on this PC (0.1) and on the rented server (the kit’s hourly task).

What the 2026-09-21 session sent to the server (metagame.log, 09:38–10:50 UTC):

Kept	Thrown away
90 character saves. The final version in the database (76) matches the last save in the log.	7 XP grants, all refused with 400
20 inventory transactions from game servers	1 Hunt Pass XP grant, sent to a route that doesn’t exist (404)
5 loadout saves	7 bounty saves and 7 cooldown saves (fake “OK” answers)
12 “seen this” markers	1 entitlement grant
	43 loadout-slot unlock attempts (404)

What saves today

“Checker” marks the places where a second reviewer re-checked the claim and disagreed with it or narrowed it.

System	Saves?	Notes
Account, login key, admin flag	Yes	Stored on disk. It survives a full restart: tested (0.3). A lost key can’t be recovered (1.7).
Username	Partly	It is saved but can’t be changed, and two players can take the same name. Some responses send the name as `{}`. Update: built (1.6): names are unique regardless of case, the admin can rename a player (account and characters together), and the display name is the stored name. Not yet seen by a second player in game.
Quests, story, tutorial, flags, appearance (character data)	Yes, solo	There were 14 save conflicts today. After each one the client read the data again and its retry succeeded within about a second, so the last write is in the database. Checker: not proven lossless if the client and a server change the same value at the same moment. Not tested with two players. Update 2026-09-22: on the rented server, several save-version conflicts were refused as designed (older or duplicate full-snapshot saves), and the newest save was kept.
Recent players; daily and weekly rotations (heroic queue, weekly challenges, cell offerings)	Probably	Stored inside the character data (the `RecentPlayers` key exists and is empty). Not checked in play.
Materials, Rams (`CURRENCY_NOTES`), tokens	Yes	39 stacks, including `CURRENCY_NOTES` ×1,260. A retried request could grant twice, and spending more than you own isn’t refused (2.2).
Weapons, armour, parts, cosmetic items	Yes	36 items. Upgrades are version-checked.
Equipped gear, emotes, banner, glider, flare (loadout slot 0)	Yes	The database shows `WP_MS_BEGINNER` equipped, not the default.
Titles, pets, dyes, transmog, other cosmetics	Probably	Stored in the same records, but not verified (3.4).
Extra loadout slots	Backend complete; UI test pending	The original route was missing and caused 43 failed unlock attempts. With real progression, unlocks, the active slot and six independent client slots are stored (2.4). A 2026-09-27 hardening pass removed the initial-read ordering dependency and fixed the advertised ceiling from seven combined slots to the client’s six. The extra slots are still to be tried in the UI.
“Seen” markers (NPCs, tutorial slates)	Yes	All 12 from today are in the database.
“New” markers (breadcrumbs)	Yes, untested	The client hasn’t written one yet.
Slayer level	No, faked at 50	7 XP grants were refused (400) today. Update: yes with real progression, now the default (2.8–2.10, tested in game). On the rented server (2026-09-22) the owner’s new account reached Slayer level 3.
Weapon and behemoth mastery	No, faked at max	Checker: only the overall behemoth track shows max. The individual behemoth mastery cards probably show nothing completed, because the objectives list is empty. Update: yes with real progression, now the default (2.9, 2.10). Weapon mastery was tested in game (axe rank 1). Update 2026-09-22: on the rented server the owner’s new account gained weapon mastery and behemoth mastery (rank 2, the first time behemoth mastery was seen in game), and the game server confirmed the rank rewards.
Mastery objectives, achievements	No	Update: mastery objectives are stored and echoed with real progression, now the default (2.9, 2.12). Achievements not checked.
Hunt Pass	No, faked	The rank is sent as 99,999,999 (the real cap is 50). A 100-XP Hunt Pass grant at 10:41 hit a missing route. Checker: nobody has seen what the Hunt Pass screen actually shows. The Elite track is probably locked. Update: yes with real progression, now the default: starts at 0, free and Elite claims stored (2.15, tested in game).
Bounties	No	The board is empty every time a server loads you. Checker: claiming a bounty fails even within one session, because the route `/bounty/delete` is missing. Update: stored with real progression, now the default, and the delete route exists (2.6); drafting and claiming in the UI are still to try.
Daily and weekly limits (cooldowns)	No	They reset each time a new server loads you, which means every hunt and every Ramsgate visit. Update: stored with real progression, now the default (2.5); still to watch across a daily reset.
Escalation	No, faked at 99,999	There is no save route. Update 2026-09-23: real saves are built (2.16), off by default (`ESCALATION_MODE=real`); not tried in game.
Entitlements (Elite pass, packs)	No	One grant was thrown away today (09:50:31). Update: yes with real progression, now the default; every account owns the Elite pass (2.14, tested in game).
Currency balance (`/balance`)	Wrong	Reports 0 Notes, 25 weapon tokens and 0 of everything else. Your real Rams are in the inventory. Update 2026-09-23: `/balance` and `/reconcile` now report the currencies the character holds (2.17, on by default); not checked on screen yet.
Store	Broken	The item list returns 400 (15 times today). Update 2026-09-23: a free store is built (3.7), off by default (`STORE=free`); not tried in game.
Mailbox	Always empty
Guild	No	Update 2026-09-22: built (3.11): guilds, members and invites are stored in SQLite and survive a restart. Running on the rented server since 22 September; not tried in game yet.
Party, friends list	No, being built elsewhere	Update 2026-09-22: built on the server side (1.9). Friendships and blocks are saved in SQLite; parties and invites live in memory, so a metagame restart leaves everyone in a party of one. Tested with simulated players only. The fixes for what blocked them in the two-player test are built and running on the rented server (22 September), not yet tried in game.
Trials times, leaderboards, event stats	No
Backups	Yes, on this PC	Update: hourly, plus around every start and stop, with a restore test passed (0.1). There are no copies off this PC yet (0.2). The rented server takes its own hourly backups with the kit’s task, which is running there.

What to tell friends right now

Items, materials, Rams, crafted gear, quests and story progress are saved.
Slayer level, weapon and behemoth mastery and the Hunt Pass are saved (real progression is the default). Everyone starts at level 1 and owns the Elite Hunt Pass. Bounties are stored, but drafting and claiming them hasn’t been tried in the game yet.
Don’t break cells down into dust yet. Nobody has checked whether the dust is kept.
Quit the game at least once a day. Login tokens expire after 24 hours, and saves after that point may fail (1.8).
The launcher isn’t code-signed yet. If Windows only offers “Don’t run”, check the installer against SHA256SUMS.txt from the same release and unblock it (Properties > Unblock, or Unblock-File).
The airship before a hunt is very dark for now. It’s a short scene; a proper fix is 4.17. The launcher has an experimental opt-in (Settings > Graphics > Auto exposure > Basic adaptive); if Ramsgate or night hunts look wrong with it, switch back to Game default.
Parties, friends and guilds are built on the server but haven’t been tried with two players yet; that is the next test. After the next update, restart the game once. You don’t have to be friends to invite someone to a party. Everyone shows as offline for now, and friend requests and guild invites show up at the other player’s next login. When creating a guild, wait a moment after typing the name before pressing Create.
There is no text chat yet. Use the Dauntless Revived Discord.
Slayer Links (the My Links tab) are new on the server and not tried in the game yet. Escalation and the store stay as they were until the host switches them on.

Milestones

	Milestone	Rough size
M0	Safety net: do this before changing anything	about a day
M1	Play together	1–2 weeks of our own work, plus the parties work happening elsewhere
M2	Everything you earn is saved	3–5 weeks
M3	The full game loop	many weeks; some parts are XL
M4	Solid to run	1–2 weeks, plus the larger 4.10, 4.11 and 4.14

Order of work (after decision 2): friends are invited only once M2 lands, so after M0 we build M2 (everything you earn is saved) first. That can be built and tested with the owner alone. Parties (1.9) are built alongside M2 and tested with a second account in a second game window on this PC. The rest of M1 (Tailscale, invite codes, usernames, the friend package) is prepared in parallel. 1.15 First friends night waits until M2 is done.

Where the order stands (2026-09-22): the first real test on the rented Windows server in public mode passed with one player on 2026-09-22; the two-player test with a friend (1.15, 1.17) is next. Performance logging (4.12) is meant to take its first measurements during the first friends tests. Rebrand part 2 (4.15) comes after the first friends test. PostgreSQL (4.14) is needed before any public release, not for the friends server.

Rules for all milestones:

Take the steps in order within a milestone. Steps from different milestones can overlap where their “Needs” allow it.
Test every new server response on a throwaway account before the owner’s account uses it. A wrong response shape can crash the 1.4.4 client (“Trying to resize TArray to an invalid size”).
Only migrate the live database while nobody is playing, and back it up right before.

M0: Safety net

0.1 Automatic database backups (S) — ✅ Done 2026-09-21. The hidden hourly scheduled task “Dauntless Revived backup” keeps the newest 48 plus the newest of each of the last 30 days. stack.ps1 also backs up after every stop and before every start, and won’t start the metagame if that backup fails, so migrations never run without a copy. Restore test passed: a backup copied to a scratch folder passed integrity_check and held the owner’s character at the live version (114) with an identical inventory. Still open: copies off this PC. They contain the keys, so they belong with 0.2 (encrypted).
- What:
  - A script that copies the save file with SQLite’s online backup. That is safe while the server runs. Never copy the live file by hand.
  - It checks each copy with PRAGMA integrity_check.
  - It keeps 48 hourly and 30 daily copies, and copies the dailies off this PC (OneDrive, a USB stick or a friend’s PC).
  - It runs hourly while you host, at every start (before migrations run), at every stop, and before any update.
- You’ll notice: nothing, until something breaks. Then it’s the difference between losing an hour and losing everything.
- Why first: every save is in one file with no copy, and migrate() runs at every start without taking a snapshot.
- Needs: nothing.
- Done when: a backup restored into a scratch folder passes the integrity check and shows the owner’s character at its latest version.
0.2 Back up the secrets (S)
- What: encrypted copies of UndauntedMetagame\.env (token signing keys), C:\dr\data\gameserver.key and owner.key, stored separately from the database backups.
- You’ll notice: if owner.key is lost, you are locked out of your own account. Only a hash of the key is stored.
- Done when: the encrypted archive opens on another machine.
0.3 Restart test (S) — ✅ Passed 2026-09-21. All 12 tables were byte-identical before and after a full restart of the metagame, deploy server and Ramsgate server (row counts and content checksums). Startup migrations changed nothing. The client then logged in and loaded its character and inventory.
- What: when nobody is playing, stop and start the metagame once. Log in with owner.key and check that the character loads at the same version.
- Why: “your account survives a restart” is only inferred from the code. The account was registered after the running metagame started (log line 5), and the metagame hasn’t restarted since.
- Needs: 0.1.
- Done when: login works after the restart and the character version hasn’t changed.
0.4 Record what the game sends to the fake systems (S) — The capture is built (LOG_BODIES=1, BODY_LOG_FILE; bodies capped at 8 KB, 64 KB for /inventory, tokens removed) and has been switched on since 2026-09-21 on the owner’s PC. It fills during the next play session. Meanwhile the formats are being read from the binary. It also records the party, friends and account-lookup calls. The Windows server kit keeps it off in public mode, so the rented server records nothing.
- What:
  - Behind a switch in .env, write the JSON body (up to 8 KB) of every request to the stubbed or missing save routes into a separate log. That covers POST /progression*, POST /bounty*, PUT /cooldown*, POST /entitlementv2*, /escalation* and /loadout/*/unlock/*.
  - Also log the query string of GET /product/skus/public.
  - Then play one normal session and one real hunt, keeping the current 400 answer on progression while you do.
- Why: the formats of these saves are guesses today, and building on a guess can crash the client. One capture answers several of the unknowns at the end of this document.
- You’ll notice: nothing.
- Done when: the capture log holds at least one body for each of these: the XP grant, the Hunt Pass grant (/progression/…/season09b/100), a bounty save, a cooldown batch and an entitlement grant.
0.5 Stop the game phoning Epic’s chat server (S) — ✅ Verified 2026-09-21. 90 s after launch: zero connections outside this PC; the client tried the local port 61099 instead.
- What: 1.4.4 ships with chat and presence (XMPP) pointed at wss://xmpp-service-prod.ol.epicgames.com:443 and keeps reconnecting to it, sending the account id and our login token. We confirmed a live connection from the client to that host. The launcher now rewrites [OnlineSubsystemMcp.XMPP] in the user Engine.ini to ServerAddr="ws://127.0.0.1", ServerPort=61099, bUseSSL=false. Nothing listens there yet, so the connection fails exactly as it already does against Epic, which the game tolerates. A local presence server can take that port later (3.10).
- You’ll notice: nothing.
- Done when: watching the client’s connections for 90 s after a fresh launch shows nothing outside this PC. The friend package (1.14) must carry the same override.

M1: Play together

M2: Everything you earn is saved

Before starting M2, 0.1 must be running and 0.4 must be done.

2.1 Harden the saves that already work (S) — Built (fa1f71a): transactional character saves, 409/404 answers, guarded ProcessTriggers, lastModifiedDate. The version-race behaviour matches upstream: about 1 conflict per 5 saves, every one followed by a successful retry. Update 2026-09-22: in the first real test on the rented server, several save-version conflicts were refused as designed (older or duplicate full-snapshot saves), and the newest save was kept.
- What:
  - Check that the character update changed a row, and return 409 if it didn’t (controllers/character.ts:100-102 reports success either way).
  - Set lastModifiedDate.
  - Answer 404 instead of crashing when the character isn’t the caller’s.
  - Guard ProcessTriggers (character.ts:48-60). It crashes if one FTUE quest objective is missing, and then that character can’t save at all.
  - A loadout save that matches no row must fail.
  - Breadcrumbs and encountered content: do the read and the write in one transaction.
  - Rewrite the old “client and server reject each other’s writes” bug as: normal client retries, not data loss in the normal case, but not proven lossless.
- You’ll notice: nothing, unless something goes wrong. Then it fails loudly instead of silently.
- Done when: a forced version race gets a 409, and a wrong character id gets a 404.
2.2 Items can’t be duplicated or overspent (S) — ✅ Built (fa1f71a): idempotent transactionIds and an append-only item log. Refusing overspends is available (INVENTORY_REFUSE_OVERSPEND=1) but off until a hunt-end body has been captured. Update 2026-09-22: the first real test on the rented server logged no “Allowing overspend” in the whole session, the hunt end included. Also found and fixed in play (9589abb): upstream never reported removed stacks after a transaction, so Rams and materials didn’t drop on screen and a second upgrade went through for free. Verified fixed in the relog test.
- What:
  - Store each inventory transactionId with its result, and return that stored result when the same id arrives again.
  - Refuse to remove more than the player has. Today controllers/inventory.ts:240-242 subtracts anyway and deletes the stack at 0.
  - Keep an append-only log of every item change.
- You’ll notice: over the internet, requests sometimes time out and get retried. Without this, a retried reward is granted twice and a retried craft costs twice.
- Done when: sending the same transaction twice changes the inventory once, and removing 5 of an item you have 3 of is refused.
2.3 Save history and safer storage (S–M) — ✅ Built: character and loadout history with an admin rollback route. WAL is opt-in (DB_WAL=1) until the backup docs cover the -wal file.
- What:
  - Switch the database to WAL mode.
  - Keep the last N versions of each character’s data and loadout, alongside the item log from 2.2.
  - Add an admin command: “roll player X back to version N”.
- Why: each system is stored as one big value per character. One bad write replaces a whole inventory, and an unreadable inventory makes the character unloadable.
- Done when: a test character can be rolled back one version from the admin tool.
2.4 Multiple loadouts (M) — Backend complete (unlock, slotcount, active slot and independent saves for all six client slots). A 2026-09-27 hardening pass capped the combined account and character slots at the client’s real ceiling of six, made first saves safe before the initial /all read, and added coverage for every slot. *Tester play test 2026-09-21 (real mode on a throwaway account, then a full restart and relog): a real low-level account made no unlock/3 calls at all, so the retry loop came from the fake level 50. The extra slots themselves are still to be tried in the UI.*
- What:
  - Add routes: POST /loadout/:uid/:cid/unlock/:n, the account-level unlock, slotcount and active/:index.
  - Store the slot count and the active slot.
  - Allow saving any slot, not just slot 0 and “persistent”.
  - Maximum 5 character slots.
- You’ll notice: more than one loadout. It also ends the server’s retry loop: 43 failed unlock/3 calls today, one after most character saves.
- Note: with the fake level 50, every slot unlocks right away. Decide whether those slots stay unlocked after 2.13.
- Needs: 0.4 (to confirm the unlock request), and a throwaway-account test.
- Done when: unlock/3 is answered once and not repeated, the loadout carousel shows the extra slots, and they are still there after logging in again.
2.5 Daily and weekly timers (cooldowns) (S–M) — Built. *Tester play test 2026-09-21 (real mode on a throwaway account, then a full restart and relog): PUT /cooldown/batch was stored and read back by the next server. Still to watch across a daily reset.*
- What:
  - A cooldowns table.
  - GET /cooldown/:uid returns what is stored; PUT /cooldown/batch/:uid saves.
  - Add the “start” and “set” routes, which are missing today.
  - For game-server calls, identify the player from the URL.
- You’ll notice: daily limits (bounty tokens, patrol bonus chests, Trials rewards) currently reset whenever a new server loads you. After this they really are daily.
- Needs: 0.4, for the cooldown names and format.
- Done when: a new server sees the cooldowns the last one saved, and TOKEN_DAILY_PATROL_BONUS (×6 today) doesn’t refill between hunts.
2.6 Bounties (M) — Built (storage + delete route). *Tester play test 2026-09-21 (real mode on a throwaway account, then a full restart and relog): one bounty save stored. Drafting and claiming in the UI are still to try.* Update 2026-09-23: bounty_data stays empty on purpose. Read from the 1.4.4 executable (while comparing Harmonic’s fork): a bounty missing from the list is allowed (0x1413f5a81), and its reward then comes from the client’s own table (0x1413df5e1), about Bronze 20, Silver 40 and Gold 100 XP; Harmonic’s 226-entry list would cut Gold to 60. A new-season post with an empty board keeps the bounties players hold (0x1413f8009). The fork’s bounty and cooldown tests now run against ours.
- What:
  - Store the bounty state the game server POSTs (it always sends the whole board) and return it on GET.
  - Add POST /bounty/delete/:uid, which claiming and abandoning a bounty both use (dllmain.cpp:92).
  - ~~Fill bounty_data from the 226 bounty ids in the game files.~~ Not needed: the client’s own table has the rewards (above).
- You’ll notice: bounties stay on your board across hunts and logins, and you can turn them in. Today even turning one in during the same session fails.
- Needs: 0.4 and 2.5.
  - The XP a bounty pays only saves once 2.9 is done.
  - Group bounties need 1.9.
- Done when: you draft a bounty, finish a hunt and log in again, and it is still there with its progress. Claiming it logs a 200 on /bounty/delete. During the test, also watch the game server’s output for “found bounty %s that is locked” (0x1446ad4e0): if it shows up, the bounty list needs a closer look (Harmonic’s HuntDiag, 4.6, would help).

Steps 2.7–2.13: Slayer level, weapon and behemoth mastery, and Hunt Pass XP. Do these in order and switch them on together. Upstream warned about endless mastery pop-ups, and any one of these steps alone can bring them back. None of these steps may hand out reward items: the game server already grants rank rewards through /inventory, so granting them here as well would double them.

M3: The full game loop

Not building:

Guild Gauntlet: it isn’t in 1.4.4.
Aether Casters: don’t promise them. They have assets but no mastery track in our config.

M4: Solid to run

4.18 Owner dashboard — Built as a separate opt-in Node process (tools/dashboard.mjs), expanded 2026-09-30: lightweight Overview / Backend health / Players & accounts / Invites / Logs views; five-second host and backend graphs; paginated launcher-account-to-key fingerprints (never full keys); protected invite creation; bounded log tails. Reuses the kit’s minute performance CSV for game-process CPU/private memory, disk and network, with stale timestamps and whole-host CPU normalization. Install-OwnerDashboard.ps1 -OpenOnLogon installs private boot autostart and interactive browser opening and enables backend health for the next restart. Loopback only, owner-authenticated, SSH access remotely. See tools/DASHBOARD.md. Still open: actual engine tick/frame-time telemetry, historical registrations, persistent graph history, player ping and longer multi-player soak tests. No blanket claim of leak-free operation.
4.19 Multi-region server coordination — Deferred until additional hosts are needed. Design authenticated communication between regional deploy servers and matchmaking, shared account/save ownership, region selection, host health/capacity reporting, and routing players to available game instances. Establish database consistency, outage handling and deployment boundaries before adding regional hosts; a web load balancer alone cannot distribute existing game sessions. No runtime changes enabled.

Discord follow-up, 2026-10-01 (4.18): separate opt-in Windows worker publishes only aggregate backend status/count/uptime/local latency to one edited Discord message. Five-second checks, 15-second edits with rate-limit backoff, timezone-aware Discord timestamps, persisted message ID and private webhook storage. No public IPs or account names. External whole-VPS outage detection remains open. Public-hunt airship backfill also remains open; no heap-size or native game changes in this update.

Matchmaking capacity follow-up, 2026-10-01: reduce the five-minute capacity retry window to one minute, log RAM/port admission refusals, and allow a separately measured temporary-hunt memory estimate while preserving the free-memory floor and larger persistent-world estimate. Tested all solo queue paths and mixed-size reservations. This addresses capacity-induced pre-airship waits, not native crashes or airship backfill.

Client/loading follow-up, 2026-10-01: launcher 0.1.11 and friend-kit use the pinned 1.4.4 client’s -NoEAC switch to avoid the EAC initialization warning on private server launches (launch-argument tests; in-game confirmation pending). Live hunt crash exits and premature readiness need separate native diagnosis and readiness handling; neither a popup fix nor a heap-size change resolves them. No VPS restart.

Dashboard follow-up, 2026-10-01 (4.18): verified the private Windows dashboard’s live backend metrics and account directory; fixed LocalService parent-directory access without recursive secret access. Invite-only registration already generates personal keys automatically; added regression coverage for distinct keys, hash-only storage and rejection of altered keys. Owners share join links, not login keys.

Dashboard update, 2026-09-28 (4.12/4.18): optional BACKEND_HEALTH=1 now supplies aggregate 60-second request/error/latency metrics and event-loop delay, plus backend memory and uptime. The dashboard separates host/backend/dashboard uptime and Ramsgate/hunt/Dojo/tutorial/menu counts. Banning is not implemented and is labeled unavailable. Database timing, persistent history and live VPS validation remain open.

Decisions only you can make

Owner’s progression when it becomes real (2.13). ✅ Decided: fresh start. A new player account with the owner’s own username, registered through the launcher on the rented server, and a separate admin account for administration.
Friends’ progression. ✅ Decided: Option B. Friends are invited after M2, so their first hunt already counts.
- Option A: friends start at level 1 once M2 lands. The XP they earn before then is lost.
- Option B: invite friends only after M2, so their first hunt counts.
Elite Hunt Pass (season09b_premium) for everyone? (2.14) ✅ Decided: yes. Grant it to every account, existing and new.
Daily login pack (ent_daily_ssk01_plat) for everyone? It turns on daily login rewards. (2.14)
Hunt Pass season. Stay on season09b, or research rebuilding 11b (XL). (2.15)
Store. Items free, or priced in in-game currency. (3.7) Update 2026-09-23: a free store is built and waits for this decision (STORE=free); before switching it on, count the accounts with more than one character, because a purchase goes to the character saved last.
Our own reward values. Bounty payouts, prices and other seasons’ Hunt Pass rewards are lost. Anything we set is our design, not a restoration.
Repository. Public, or private with friends invited. (1.13) ✅ Public: github.com/mixutin/dauntless-revived.
How friends get the 1.4.4 client. (1.14) ✅ Decided: the owner shares the verified 1.4.4 build privately with friends through Google Drive (link shared only with them). Update, 2026-09-21: the owner wants the friend launcher (1.16) to download the files from our own server instead, behind Tailscale and an account. Drive stays as a fallback. The friend package checks the zip SHA-256 556B9A648A5E5E7E11B6F8DD3D80FF8E88FCEB0D3448297AAF47CE7BF756BC6D and the exe SHA-256 D3D41E614908D2BEFD518B27046D9822D6130EF12BA3504BABBDB786BEF9CFF4 before anything runs.
Unfinished content. Enable the Frost escalation (Mint) and the Frostfall test hunt, or leave them off? They may be unfinished. Update 2026-09-23: the client’s own Escalation table marks Frost disabled (and “do not translate”), and the Escalation saves refuse it.
Where the server lives. Keep hosting on this PC, or move to an always-on machine. (4.10) The game servers need Windows unless the Wine experiment (4.11) works. ✅ Decided (1.15): a rented Windows Server 2019 VPS in public mode, running since 2026-09-21/22.
Unlimited free premium bounty tokens in the store (STORE_REPEATABLE_TOKENS=1)? It means unlimited free premium bounty drafts. (3.7)
When to switch Escalation to real (ESCALATION_MODE=real). Every player drops from the fake maximum (level 25, 25 talent points) to level 0 and levels up for real. Announce it, and restart the game servers together with the metagame. (2.16)
Should an unfriend or a block also end a running Slayer Link? Today it only cancels waiting invites; a running link lasts its 168 hours. (3.15)
Ship a DLL we build ourselves? It would carry a new hash (launcher, kit, friend kit) and would bring in the DLL changes of Harmonic’s fork. (4.4)
Before the Harmonic credits go public: confirm that “Harmonicrain” is Harmonic’s own GitHub account and not an organisation’s. (Credits, NOTICE.md) Settle this before the push: the port bumps the launcher to 0.1.6, and with automatic launcher releases on (CI), a push to dauntless-revived publishes that version at once and installed launchers update themselves, so the launcher’s Credits page shows @Harmonicrain as Harmonic’s own handle everywhere. If it is not settled yet, set the repository variable LAUNCHER_AUTO_RELEASE to false (Settings, Secrets and variables, Actions, Variables) before pushing, and publish the release by hand once it is.

Unknowns, and the experiment that settles each

Unknown	Experiment	Step
Does the account survive a metagame restart?	Restart once while nobody plays, then log in with `owner.key`.	0.3
Exact formats of the XP grant, bounty, cooldown and entitlement saves; is track XP added on top or sent as a total?	Capture the request bodies during one session and one hunt.	0.4
Which cooldown ids exist, and why `TOKEN_DAILY_PATROL_BONUS` is ×6	The same capture, then watch the token count across hunts after 2.5.	0.4, 2.5
Is each player’s own login token passed to the game server when several players share it?	Two accounts in one hunt; check both inventories and character versions.	1.12
Does the client ever refresh its token?	A test account with a 5-minute token; watch for refresh calls or failed saves.	1.8
What the client does when the QoS address is unreachable	The first friend connection with and without step 1.4.	1.4
Does `windowsHide` hide the DLL’s console window?	Start one server with it.	1.1
Who writes the endpoint block in `Game.ini`: the client or the servers?	Note its timestamp, then start a server with the client closed.	1.1
Does a rename show on other players’ nameplates without logging in again?	Rename a test account while a second player watches.	1.6
Which of the two causes produced the endless mastery pop	Settled 2026-09-21: objectives that were never stored or echoed. With them stored, no pop-up loop. (Experiment was: Throwaway account: grant plus objectives with confirm off, then with confirm on.)	2.12
Are rank rewards granted by the game server through `/inventory`?	Settled: yes, the game server grants them (source `OnGrantOnlineProgressionAndObjectives`, and “Progression Track season09b Claim Rewards” for Hunt Pass claims). (Experiment was: Watch for the `OnGrantOnlineProgressionAndObjectives` transaction after a rank-up.)	2.12
Does the Hunt Pass wait for Claim, while mastery confirms automatically?	Settled: yes. Mastery and Slayer ranks confirm right after the grant; the Hunt Pass confirms only when Claim is pressed, free and premium separately. (Experiment was: Watch whether a Hunt Pass rank-up sends `/confirm` before Claim is pressed.)	2.15
Does a single-object response accept `code: null`?	The first confirm on the throwaway account.	2.10
Does the game server retry a failed inventory save?	Make `/inventory` fail once for the test account and watch the log.	2.2
Is the `unlock/3` loop caused by the fake level 50?	Settled: yes. A real low-level account made no unlock calls. (Experiment was: After 2.4, it should stop once answered. If not, check again with a fresh-level account.)	2.4
Do bounties, cooldowns and the mailbox read the reply’s `payload` field or the top level?	Return a stored document to the throwaway account and check the UI.	2.5, 2.6, 3.5
The entitlement list format	The capture from 0.4, then a test grant on the throwaway account.	2.14
Which screen reads `/balance`; is `CURRENCY_NOTES` the Rams?	Partly settled: `CURRENCY_NOTES` is the Rams (the menu matched the database). (Experiment was: Return a distinctive number from `/balance` to the test account and look for it.)	2.17
Where cell dust is stored	Dust one spare cell on a test account and compare the inventory before and after.	2.17, 3.7
Does the game server or the backend compute escalation level and XP?	Capture the first escalation save. Harmonic’s reading: the game server does, and posts the whole season; our saves are built on that and the live test confirms it.	2.16
Do the Elite ranks’ cosmetic entitlements (season09b premium 6, 9, 29, 50) arrive by themselves?	Reach Elite rank 6 by hunt XP and watch for `POST /entitlementv2`. If none comes, `PROGRESSION_CONFIRM_ENTITLEMENTS=1`.	2.15
Does the client ever send a party accept twice?	Look for `(a repeated accept)` in the two-player test.	1.9
Does the My Links tab call the Slayer Link routes, and how often?	Open it with two friends and watch for `/slayerlink` lines.	3.15
Does a session stay logged in with `oauth/verify` naming the player’s own account?	Play more than 30 minutes, ideally past the token’s 24 hours. If players are logged out, `VERIFY_STUB_ACCOUNT=1`.	1.8
Does the game server ever send two identical XP grants on purpose less than 5 seconds apart? (It flushes its queued grants at most every 10 seconds, so it should not.)	Watch for `repeats the grant of` in normal play. If it shows up outside network errors, `PROGRESSION_REPLAY_WINDOW_S=0`.	2.9
Which features are switched on by default	Toggle them in `UserGame.ini` on a test setup.	3.1
The MOTD response format	Take apart the login-news handler near `0x140b47d50` in the exe.	3.6
Does the event schedule use the UI event id or the hunt-table event id?	Try both on a test setup.	3.9
Can the Trials schedule be overridden without the DLL hack?	Research `UTuningDataProvider.TableTuningJson`.	3.8
How the client rejoins a hunt after a crash	Kill a test client mid-hunt and watch the log.	3.12
Server memory with 4 players fighting; Ramsgate growth over long uptime	The performance log from the first friends sessions.	1.15, 4.9, 4.12
How many players the rented server can host	The summary tool, run over the performance log.	4.12
Direct Tailscale path or relay, per friend	`tailscale ping` from each friend.	1.3
Was the prebuilt DLL built from the published source?	Rebuild it and compare.	4.4
Can the game servers run on Linux under Wine?	Start one game server in WSL with Wine against a test metagame, then connect a client.	4.11
Which season was live for 1.4.4	Search archived configs and community data.	2.15
Can we recover if this PC’s disk dies?	Restore the off-PC copy from 0.1 onto another machine and log in. (The server runs on the owner’s own PC. Port 60000 is taken by the Shadow client app installed there, which is why we use 61000.)	0.1

Can’t come back

Voice chat — ran on Vivox, a paid third-party service. Use the Dauntless Revived Discord.
The real-money store — a private server can hand out the cosmetics instead.
Content after November 2020 — 1.4.4 predates it. Mystic Paradox is porting this approach to 1.12.0.
Epic platform achievements. In-game achievement progress can come back with objectives (3.13).
The original reward values: bounty payouts, other seasons’ Hunt Pass reward tables and store prices. Whatever we set is our own design.
Guild Gauntlet — it isn’t in 1.4.4.