// TRANSMISSION 003 · MAY 28, 2026

Handle

// MARQUEE

▶ Your handle is yours. Your email stays private.

Identity got a real refactor. Every account is now keyed on your email — including Google sign-ins — and your email never appears publicly. Your handle is a separately-chosen display name, globally unique, and it's what shows up in radio chat, on pilot lists, on leaderboards. The first time you sign in, you pick one.

The legacy callsign+passphrase path is now email+passphrase. Google sign-in still works the way it always did, just cleaner under the hood. Future sign-in providers (Apple, Microsoft, anything that hands us a verified email) slot in without changing the model.

REF · #41

// Auth hardening

Mock-mode is locked out of production. The ?MOCK_AUTH=1 shortcut bypasses real auth — useful in dev, a footgun in prod. Now refused at the door when the server is running in production mode, regardless of what the URL says.
· #46
Sessions actually stick. Sign in once, close the tab, come back later — you're still signed in. Browser password managers now autofill the login fields properly instead of treating them as anonymous text inputs.
· #42
One pilot, one cockpit. Logging in from a second device while a first session was still open used to create two ghost ships sharing one identity. Now the older session disconnects cleanly when the new one connects.
· #37

// FIXES

Projectiles fly straight again. A geometry bug was causing shots to drift subtly off-axis from the cannon barrel. Your aim is now your aim.
· #33
Arrow-key taps don't bounce the ship back. A quick tap on left or right used to register as rotate-then-counter-rotate. The input layer now treats taps and holds consistently — tap once, rotate once.
· #30

// IMPROVEMENTS

Feedback flows with full context now. Hit [ESC] and your submission carries your galaxy, ship loadout, position, hull/shield/energy, browser, OS, and recent client errors. We can usually repro from the submission alone — fewer back-and-forths, faster fixes.
· #9

// PILOT'S NOTE

This patch is mostly identity hygiene. Email is your account; your handle is your public name; the two don’t get confused, and your email never leaks where strangers can see it. The cluster of auth fixes underneath the marquee (#46, #42, #37) finishes the cleanup — production refuses mock-auth, sessions persist properly across visits, and one pilot can’t accidentally be two pilots at once.

A pair of long-overdue gameplay fixes too: projectiles fly where you aim them again (#33), and arrow-key taps don’t ghost-counter-rotate (#30 — thanks again, MADMEX). And the [ESC] feedback button now ships rich context (#9), so when you tell us something’s off, we can usually repro from the submission alone instead of needing a follow-up email.

— Ray