tools+docs: the flight pad was writing into a dead file - every autopilot input went nowhere

flight_probe.Pad opened /tmp/sylph-vgamepad.fifo, "the vgamepad server's FIFO".
That server was removed when the uinput pad was replaced by Canary's --hid=file
driver, because a uinput device is not namespaced and scripted presses leaked to
the host's desktop. The FIFO is now an ordinary 91-byte file nothing reads, and
/tmp/xenia_pad.txt - the file the emulator polls - was 0 bytes while the
"autopilot" was flying. So every axis, trigger and button from pilot.py,
autopilot3.py, aim_probe.py and flight_probe.py went nowhere, silently.

The corpus already carried this trap for the SHELL scripts
(canary-scripted-input-traps.md, "every call here failed silently"). This class
was missed, and every flight tool imports it.

Verified against the oracle rather than by inspection, on runs confirmed
animating at both ends of every phase: before, full stick produced 0.00 degrees
of heading change over 4 s while the ship travelled 350-735 units, and the
attitude matrix at pos-0x70 was byte-identical; after, LX=-1 turns 12.72 degrees
and LX=+1 swings the flight direction from [1,0,0] to [0.13,-0.14,-0.98], with
the matrix moving 0.44/0.31 under stick and 0.0000 at neutral.

That also REFUTES the "stale attitude matrix" suspicion from the earlier pass -
pos-0x70 is live and tracks the ship; it only looked dead because nothing was
turning the ship.

Still open and said plainly: with the pad fixed a 150 s pilot run still fires 0
times, with |aim yaw| still exactly 90.0 and the target 36-43 km away. Steering
works now, so what is left is the stick SIGN against the pilot's error convention
or a target selection that commits to something too far to close. Both are
finally testable.

findrot_global/findself/findspeed/selfstate still write to the dead FIFO and now
say so in place; they are not repaired because none has been re-run since.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE

tools/re-capture/aim_probe.py

@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ import time
 import numpy as np
 
 sys.path.insert(0, os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
+import frozen  # noqa: E402
 import navigator  # noqa: E402
 from flight_probe import Pad  # noqa: E402
 
@@ -42,23 +43,56 @@ def main():
     W.scan()
     pad = Pad()
 
+    # There is more than one orthonormal 3x3 block near the player object -- a
+    # scan finds them at pos-0x70 and pos-0x30, and `entities2.py self` has
+    # picked each on different runs. Watch BOTH, because "the one the config
+    # names did not move" is a much weaker statement than "neither of the two
+    # candidates moved".
+    deltas = [W.rot_delta]
+    if "--deltas" in sys.argv:
+        deltas = [int(x, 0) for x in sys.argv[sys.argv.index("--deltas") + 1].split(",")]
+
+    def read_block(off, delta):
+        b = os.pread(W.fd, W.rot_stride * 3 + 12, off + delta)
+        rows = []
+        for r in range(3):
+            row = np.frombuffer(b[W.rot_stride * r:W.rot_stride * r + 12],
+                                dtype=">f4").astype(np.float64)
+            rows.append(row)
+        return np.array(rows)
+
     def fwd_now():
         ents = W.sample(time.time())
         me = next((e for e in ents if "Player" in e[1]), None)
         if me is None:
-            return None, None
+            return None, None, None
+        mats = {}
+        for d in deltas:
+            try:
+                M = read_block(me[0], d)
+            except Exception:
+                continue
+            if np.all(np.isfinite(M)):
+                mats[d] = M
         M = W.rot(me[0])
         if M is None:
-            return None, None
-        return M[W.fwd_row] * W.fwd_sign, me[2]
+            return None, None, mats
+        return M[W.fwd_row] * W.fwd_sign, me[2], mats
 
     def phase(name, lx):
+        # BRACKET the phase with a liveness check at BOTH ends. The first run of
+        # this probe reported the forward vector pinned and 0.00 deg/s under
+        # every stick, which reads as "the attitude matrix is dead" -- and the
+        # guest had simply FROZEN partway through. A dead world holds every
+        # matrix still, so a phase that ends frozen proves nothing and must be
+        # thrown away rather than reported.
         pad.axis("LX", lx)
-        f0, p0 = fwd_now()
+        f0, p0, m0 = fwd_now()
         t0 = time.time()
         time.sleep(secs)
-        f1, p1 = fwd_now()
+        f1, p1, m1 = fwd_now()
         pad.axis("LX", 0.0)
+        froze = frozen.frozen(3.0)[0]
         if f0 is None or f1 is None:
             print(f"{name:>12}: NO PLAYER/ORIENTATION")
             return
@@ -66,10 +100,18 @@ def main():
         turn = math.degrees(math.acos(dot)) / max(time.time() - t0, 1e-3)
         cross = np.cross(f0, f1)
         moved = float(np.linalg.norm(p1 - p0)) if p0 is not None else float("nan")
+        blocks = "  ".join(
+            f"pos{d:+#06x} d{float(np.abs(m1[d]-m0[d]).max()):.4f}"
+            for d in deltas if d in m0 and d in m1)
         print(f"{name:>12}: |turn| {turn:6.2f} deg/s   fwd {f0.round(3)} -> "
-              f"{f1.round(3)}   cross {cross.round(3)}   moved {moved:8.1f}")
+              f"{f1.round(3)}   moved {moved:8.1f}   [{blocks}]"
+              f"{'   *** GUEST FROZE - DISCARD ***' if froze else ''}")
 
+    if frozen.frozen(3.0)[0]:
+        print("# GUEST IS ALREADY FROZEN — nothing to measure")
+        return 3
     print("# phases: neutral, then full LEFT stick, then full RIGHT stick")
+    print("# (each phase is followed by a liveness check; a frozen tail voids it)")
     phase("neutral", 0.0)
     phase("LX=-1", -1.0)
     phase("neutral", 0.0)