Closes the gap Fable caught (hud.js:11 still hardcoded REAL_TOWNS). The real-town list now comes from E's
web/assets/towns/index.json (procity-towns-index/1), so it grows with the town pack instead of being edited
in hud.js. Verified fresh Chromium. Nothing else touched -- tram/ground work is done and verified.
Fail-soft by construction: createHUD is synchronous, so the picker is built immediately from the fallback
literal and UPGRADED IN PLACE when the index resolves -- if the index never arrives, a working list is
already on screen.
- index present -> real names/states/shop counts: "Katoomba, NSW · 80 shops", "Fremantle, WA · 80 shops",
"Newtown, NSW · 72 shops", "Bendigo, VIC · 36 shops", "Castlemaine, VIC · 24 shops" (roads:false -> "· marched").
- ?noassets -> the fetch is SKIPPED entirely (asset law; the shell doesn't load town caches there either).
Measured: 0 index fetches, fallback list, 0 errors.
- anything wrong with the index -> the fallback simply stands. Exercised the exact chain: 404, network error,
malformed JSON, towns:[], towns-not-an-array, junk entries (no key) -> none throws, none rebuilds from junk;
only a good index rebuilds.
REAL_TOWNS_FALLBACK is retained ONLY as that fallback (comment says so), no longer the source of truth.
Verified live: booting katoomba_real shows "Katoomba, NSW · 80 shops" pre-selected; fits (193px of 230px max);
0 page errors; navigation unchanged (onchange is set once on the <select>, so rebuilding options never clears it).
-> F: unchanged from R19 -- NO shell seam (selector is entirely hud.js, already built by createHUD) and it
lives inside #pc-hud so setVisible(false) hides it for the beta money shot. The gating call is still yours.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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