[ui] round 4 notes

All five orders shipped. The honest parts: SIM's research gating breaks SIM's
own reference factory at HEAD (GEN 80 vs DRAW 100, permanent brownout), nothing
in the game can make a science pack so research can't be performed by playing,
and the order's numbers went stale mid-round for the third round running.
No contract requests; one proposal (grantResearch, so tests stop coupling to
the save schema).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

fktry/lanes/LANE-UI.md

@@ -367,3 +367,104 @@ and needed a manual re-dispatch. Say the word.
 **NEXT (suggested):** tech panel the moment `tech.json` has entries; verify RENDER's
 demolition tint once it lands; SANITISING's real fiction (The Correction's buyback) when
 M3 arrives — the hardcoded `anchor-slab` id should become data by then.
+
+### Round 4 — 2026-07-17 — Opus 4.8
+
+**SHIPPED:** All five orders. New: `power.ts` + `power.test.ts`, `research.ts` +
+`research.test.ts`, `techpanel.ts` + `techpanel.test.ts`. **145 UI tests** (was 105);
+`npm run check` clean.
+
+1. **The BROWNOUT bug is fixed.** BROWNOUT is now the sim's flag and nothing else. A
+   covered deficit gets its own amber, steady, non-flashing state: **"ON RESERVE · 34s"**,
+   from `stored/(draw−gen)` — the same arithmetic SCREEN drives dread with, and honest
+   because v3 ruled `stored` is bandwidth-SECONDS. Four states now: ok / tight / reserve /
+   brownout, all pure in `power.ts` and pinned by tests, including the exact case that was
+   lying (`gen 100, draw 134, stored 1000, brownout:false` → reserve, **not** brownout).
+   Bonus: the buffer readout is a fuel gauge now (`0/900`) using v4 `bandwidth.capacity`.
+2. **Selection protocol migrated.** Writes go through `bus.setSelection()`, `REMOVE_DEF`
+   is deleted, and **my `remove` dispatch is gone** — main.ts owns it. Verified live: one
+   click, one removal, no double-fire. A legacy fallback remains for a host that doesn't
+   serve `setSelection` (it's optional in the contract) and is tested.
+3. **Research UI.** `T` opens the STANDARDS COMMITTEE: every tech grouped by era in era
+   order, cost chips in item colours, era prefix stripped from node names, `UNLOCKS:`
+   tooltips in machine names. Pick → `setResearch`; picking the active one stands it down;
+   ratified nodes are inert. Locked machines in the bar are greyed + padlocked with
+   `REQUIRES: <TECH>`, can't be picked by click *or* hotkey, and the padlock falls off in
+   the same frame `researched` lands. `researched` → "STANDARD RATIFIED. NEW CRIMES
+   AVAILABLE."
+4. **`?uidemo`** — boots the reference factory after init. It already paid for itself.
+5. **Accent adopted**: `MachineDef.accent` → first-output derivation → codex kind table.
+   **LANE-RENDER: confirming we read this identically** — same three tiers, same order.
+
+**VERIFIED — live, in the browser** (`?uidemo`, screenshots taken): the factory builds on
+boot with no console poking; the STANDARDS COMMITTEE renders all 23 techs across REEL /
+BROADCAST / DISC / STREAM / FORTRESS; clicking SOFTWARE DECODING dispatches `setResearch`
+and the node goes hot magenta reading **IN COMMITTEE** with a progress bar (round-tripped
+through the real sim); the POWER page shows DECODE ASIC bright and free next to SOFTWARE
+DECODER and ASIC COOLER greyed with padlocks and `REQUIRES: STREAM SOFTWARE DECODING` /
+`REQUIRES: BROADCAST ASIC COOLING`; `bus.selection()` reads `{mode:'remove'}` and a click
+demolishes the mosh reactor once — DRAW 100→92, "UNIT RECLAIMED. THE FLOOR REMEMBERS."
+
+**VERIFIED — headless** (`live.test.ts`, real sim + real DOM, 16 tests): the whole
+research loop the DoD asked for — **lock visible → `place` silently dropped by the sim →
+build a lab → pick the tech through the panel → packs delivered → `researched` → toast →
+padlock falls off → the same `place` now succeeds.** Its harness is now a faithful main.ts
+(typed selection; *it* dispatches place/remove), which is what caught the double-fire.
+
+**DECISIONS:**
+- Packs in the research run are teleported into the lab's intake via the sim's own
+  `save()`/`load()` (v4 hardened; `load()` re-runs `applyUnlocks`). Everything after that
+  is the sim's real `drainLabs → researched → applyUnlocks` path, unmocked. Reason in
+  BLOCKED: nothing in the game can currently *make* a science pack.
+- With no `ResearchState` at all, the safe reading of the v4 rule is that gates **hold**
+  (padlocks on) rather than fall open, and the panel says RESEARCH OFFLINE instead of
+  rendering a tree that can't do anything. The sim always ships a ResearchState today, so
+  this is belt-and-braces.
+- `live.test.ts` no longer hardcodes reference-factory coordinates — it finds the i-only
+  assembler by its recipe. reference.ts moved it from (-6,5) to (-6,6) *during this
+  round* and broke my own test; that's my brittleness, fixed.
+
+**BLOCKED/BROKEN (read this part):**
+- **SIM's research gating breaks SIM's own reference factory, and it's live right now.**
+  `stream-software-decoding` gates `software-decoder`; the sim silently drops placements
+  of gated machines (`if (!isAvailable(def.id)) return`); reference.ts places two software
+  decoders for its 200 of generation. Result at HEAD: `?uidemo` builds a factory with
+  **GEN 80 against DRAW 100, buffer 0/900, permanent BROWNOUT** — it can never run. My
+  screenshots show it. Either reference.ts should use decode-asics, or the demo should
+  pre-unlock, or that tech shouldn't gate the generator. (This is also why every
+  reference-factory test in `live.test.ts` now runs with research pre-granted.)
+- **Nothing in the game can make a science pack yet, so no research can actually be
+  performed by playing.** Packs come only from `artifact-bottler`, whose recipes need
+  `field-splinters` / `v-hold-roll` / `static-canister` — a broadcast-era chain that
+  neither the reference factory nor any tech-free layout builds. The tree is *reachable*
+  on paper (18 techs have satisfiable costs, and DATA fixed the artifact-bottler deadlock
+  I was about to report), but unreachable in practice. Suggest reference.ts grow a
+  research rig — it would make this verifiable by playing rather than by save/load.
+- **LANE-SIM's `reference.test.ts` is red at HEAD** ("keeps the demuxer alive by voiding
+  surplus rather than jamming"), and the factory layout shifted twice while I worked. Not
+  mine; flagging because the suite isn't green.
+- **RENDER's demolition tint is still unverified from my side.** The typed `mode` reaches
+  `setGhost` via main.ts now, so the magic string is no longer my problem — but I never
+  saw the tint land.
+- **The order's own numbers went stale mid-round, again — third round running.**
+  "24 nodes" is 23 at HEAD; `tech.json`'s era distribution changed under me; the
+  artifact-bottler deadlock I'd have reported as blocking was fixed by DATA while I
+  worked; SIM landed *all* of research after my round-start grep said it had none. I now
+  re-probe everything against a running sim before writing a word of NOTES, which is the
+  only reason this entry is accurate. Worth considering whether lanes should get a
+  "HEAD as of" line rather than counts baked into orders.
+- Minor, mine: the tab row wraps to two lines now that RESEARCH joined (8 tabs + REMOVE).
+  Legible, not pretty. Real fix is a scrolling tab strip; say the word.
+
+**CONTRACT REQUEST:** none this round. v4 gave me everything I asked for and the
+`SelectionState` migration was clean.
+
+**PROPOSAL:** `Sim.grantResearch(techIds)` or a `?unlocked` demo flag. Every research-
+adjacent test I wrote needs research pre-granted, and my only route is
+`JSON.parse(sim.save())` → mutate → `load()`. That works and uses public API, but it
+couples my tests to SIM's save schema — if they rename `research` in the blob, my suite
+breaks for no good reason.
+
+**NEXT (suggested):** verify RENDER's tint; research rig in reference.ts so a pack economy
+exists to test against; scrolling tab strip if the catalog grows again; era-skinned tech
+panel once eras mean something visually (§8).