test(cliffs): exonerate the tile resolver as issue #18's residual (#74)

The lava collision rejection (#73) costs 10 real cliffs, and the guess
recorded alongside it was that the Vulcanus tile resolver - ~98.2% on the
19-way tile name - is worse at a lava boundary. Measured now, on the two
committed fixtures, with no Factorio run needed. The guess was wrong in
its premise and right in its conclusion.

The binary lava/not classification, which is the only thing
`tryToAddCliff` reads, is EXACT: 381 oracle positions, 49 lava and 332
not, zero mismatches in either direction. All 7 name errors are
non-lava/non-lava confusions inside one biome family, and the 42
positions sitting directly on a lava boundary are 42/42 correct on the
full name.

It is still off by about a tile, and every real cliff proves it: the game
ran this same rejection and kept the cliff, so it saw no lava in that
box. 10 of the 1400 real cliffs we place contradict us (0.71%), and in
all 10 the offending tile sits at Chebyshev depth 1 inside our own lava.
Depth 1 alone does not discriminate, so the control is region
[1500,1500]'s 173 correct rejections, spread across the whole range (65
at depth 1, 52 deeper than 6).

That rules the resolver out as a cause of the remaining over-placement,
which is why it was worth measuring before reading more of
generateCliffs. An under-calling resolver would leave false positives
next to lava; they are not. Only 4.2% of region [0,0]'s 95 surviving
false positives come within 2 tiles of lava against 7.2% of its matched
true positives - the wrong way round - and elsewhere the bulk (42/62,
20/29) are more than 8 tiles from any lava.

Adds a zero-mismatch pin on the lava classification, with its sensitivity
measured rather than assumed: planted scale factors on lava's probability
show 1.02 and 1.2 pass while 2, 5 and 20 fail, so it guards against a
broken range expression and not against a sub-tile shift. Says so at the
assertion.

No production code changes.


Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_013eczw9uoWDfN6Wc6kA7UBY

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: wormeyman

docs/noise/cliffs-NOTES.md

@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ extracted from the low word only.
 Also note the address above (`0x1016067a0`) is from the build this file was first
 written against; under 2.1.12 the symbol is at `0x10160c3ac`. Re-derive from `nm`.
 
-### The collision rejection - NOT ported, and it is issue #18's residual
+### The collision rejection - PORTED 2026-07-30 (PR #73), and it is half of issue #18
 
 `EntityMapGenerationTask::tryToAddCliff` (`0x101625038` in 2.1.12) does not just
 record the cell. It switches on the `CliffOrientation` (a 20-entry jump table),
@@ -209,13 +209,53 @@ the rule with the real per-orientation boxes and our own tile resolver:
 collapsing to 0.65 / 0.70. The real arm rejects almost only false positives.
 
 So it explains region `[1500,1500]`'s over-placement essentially in full and
-**does not** explain regions `[0,0]` or `[-1200,800]`, which barely move. It also
-costs 6 true positives at `[0,0]`; the tile resolver is ~98% accurate overall and
-plausibly worse at a lava boundary, but that is a hypothesis, not a measurement.
-
-The rejection itself is **not implemented** - only the tables it needs are. Wiring
-it in gives the cliff overlay a dependency on the Vulcanus tile resolver, which is
-a render-cost decision, so it is deliberately a separate change.
+**does not** explain regions `[0,0]` or `[-1200,800]`, which barely move.
+
+#### The 10 true positives it costs are a one-tile boundary, and the resolver is not the residual
+
+Wiring the rejection in gives the cliff overlay a dependency on the Vulcanus tile
+resolver, so the obvious next suspect was that resolver: it is ~98.2% accurate on
+the 19-way tile name, and the natural guess (written into this file and into
+`vulcanusCliffEntities.spec.ts` when the rule landed) was that it is worse at a
+lava boundary. **Measured 2026-07-30. The guess was wrong in its premise and
+right in its conclusion, and neither half needed a Factorio run** - both fixtures
+are committed.
+
+- **The binary lava classification is EXACT.** `tryToAddCliff` only ever asks
+  whether a tile carries `water_tile`, never which tile it is, so the 19-way
+  argmax is the wrong thing to have been quoting. On all 381 positions of
+  `oracle-vulcanus-tile-names.seed123456` - 49 lava/lava-hot, 332 not - the
+  resolver lands on the correct side in **both** directions, zero mismatches.
+  All 7 name errors are non-lava/non-lava confusions inside one biome family.
+  Nor is it worse near a boundary: the 42 positions at Chebyshev distance 1 from
+  a tile of the opposite lava-ness are 42/42 correct on the full name.
+  `test/vulcanusTiles.spec.ts` now pins the zero.
+- **But every real cliff is a negative-space oracle, and 10 of them contradict
+  us.** The game ran this same rejection and kept the cliff, so the game sees no
+  lava in that box. Over the 1400 real cliffs we place across the three regions,
+  10 boxes hold our lava - **0.71%** - and in all 10 the offending tile sits at
+  Chebyshev depth **1** inside our own lava, on its perimeter. Not one is deep.
+  Depth 1 is the common case for any lava tile, so that alone does not
+  discriminate; the control is region `[1500,1500]`'s 173 correct rejections,
+  which spread across the whole range (65 at depth 1, 52 deeper than 6). The
+  rule's real work is nowhere near the boundary.
+
+**This rules the resolver out as a cause of the remaining over-placement**, which
+is why it was worth measuring before reading any more of `generateCliffs`. A
+resolver that UNDER-called lava would leave false positives sitting next to lava.
+They do not: of region `[0,0]`'s 95 surviving false positives only 4.2% come
+within 2 tiles of any lava, against 7.2% of its 222 matched true positives - the
+wrong way round - and in regions `[1500,1500]` and `[-1200,800]` the bulk (42/62
+and 20/29) are more than 8 tiles from the nearest lava tile. Whatever remains is
+not a lava question, and it is not a tile question.
+
+One cheap fixture improvement fell out of this and has **not** been done: the
+cliff dump records only `{x, y, name}`. Adding each entity's `cliff_orientation`
+would turn the fixture into a direct oracle for `CLIFF_CODE_TO_ORIENTATION` end
+to end - today that table is validated only against the binary's own jump table -
+and would give the true collision box for the ~60 real cliffs per region we miss
+entirely, which is currently unobtainable because we have no orientation for a
+cell we never place.
 
 #### `rotbb` boxes
 

test/vulcanusCliffEntities.spec.ts

@@ -122,10 +122,40 @@ describe("Vulcanus cliff placement vs find_entities", () => {
       // **Reported rather than smoothed over: recall gets WORSE in two regions.**
       // Region 0 loses 6 true positives (0.806 -> 0.784) and region 1 loses 4.
       // Those are cells where the game placed a cliff and our tile resolver puts
-      // lava inside its box. The resolver is ~98.2% accurate overall
-      // (`vulcanusTiles.spec.ts`) and is plausibly worse at a lava boundary, but
-      // that is a hypothesis and has not been measured - it is the first thing to
-      // check before concluding the collision geometry is wrong.
+      // lava inside its box.
+      //
+      // **Those 10 are a one-tile boundary error, and that is measured now
+      // (2026-07-30), not assumed.** This comment used to carry the guess that
+      // the resolver "is plausibly worse at a lava boundary"; the guess was
+      // wrong in its premise and right in its conclusion, so both halves are
+      // worth stating:
+      //
+      // - The resolver is NOT worse at a lava boundary. Its binary lava/not
+      //   classification - the only thing `tryToAddCliff` reads - is EXACT on
+      //   all 381 oracle positions, 49 lava and 332 not, in both directions
+      //   (`vulcanusTiles.spec.ts` now pins this at zero mismatches). The 42
+      //   positions sitting directly on a lava boundary are 42/42 correct even
+      //   on the full 19-way name.
+      // - It is nonetheless off by about one tile SOMEWHERE, because each real
+      //   cliff the game placed is itself a negative-space oracle: the game ran
+      //   this same rejection and kept the cliff, so the game sees no lava in
+      //   that box. Over the 1400 real cliffs we place across the three regions,
+      //   10 boxes contradict that - 0.71% - and in **all 10** the offending
+      //   tile sits at Chebyshev depth 1 inside our lava, i.e. on our own
+      //   perimeter. Not one is deep water.
+      //
+      // Depth 1 is the common case for any lava tile, so that alone would not
+      // discriminate; region 1's 173 correct rejections are the control and they
+      // are spread right across the range (65 at depth 1, 52 deeper than 6). The
+      // rule's real work is untouched by the boundary.
+      //
+      // **This also rules the resolver out as a cause of the residual below**,
+      // which was the reason to measure it first. An under-calling resolver
+      // would leave false positives sitting next to lava; they do not. Of region
+      // 0's 95 surviving false positives only 4.2% come within 2 tiles of any
+      // lava, against 7.2% of its matched true positives - the wrong way round -
+      // and in regions 1 and 2 the bulk (42/62 and 20/29) are more than 8 tiles
+      // from the nearest lava tile. Whatever is left is not a lava question.
       //
       // A control run pins that the rejection is not just deleting cells at the
       // background lava rate: sampling the same lava field 10,000 tiles away

test/vulcanusTiles.spec.ts

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import { describe, expect, it } from "vite-plus/test";
 
 import fixture from "./fixtures/oracle-vulcanus-tile-names.seed123456.json";
+import { VULCANUS_CLIFF_BLOCKING_TILES } from "../src/noise/preview/renderVulcanusCliffs";
 import { makeVulcanusTileResolver } from "../src/noise/tiles/vulcanusCatalog";
 
 /**
@@ -49,4 +50,52 @@ describe("makeVulcanusTileResolver vs get_tile oracle", () => {
     // remaining boundary-flip count.
     expect(agreement).toBeGreaterThan(0.978);
   });
+
+  /**
+   * The BINARY lava classification, separately - because that is the only thing
+   * the cliff collision rejection reads. `tryToAddCliff` asks "does this tile
+   * carry `water_tile`", never which tile it is, so the 19-way argmax above can
+   * confuse `volcanic-folds` for `volcanic-folds-flat` all day without moving a
+   * cliff. **It is exact**: measured 2026-07-30, all 49 `lava`/`lava-hot`
+   * positions and all 332 others land on the correct side, in both directions.
+   *
+   * Pinned at zero rather than at a fraction. Every one of the 7 name mismatches
+   * is a non-lava/non-lava confusion within a biome family, so nothing is being
+   * rounded away - and the standing hypothesis this falsifies was specific: the
+   * Vulcanus cliff rejection drops 10 real cliffs (issue #18), and
+   * `vulcanusCliffEntities.spec.ts` recorded the guess that the resolver is
+   * "plausibly worse at a lava boundary". It is not worse at a lava boundary;
+   * the 42 fixture positions that sit directly on one (Chebyshev distance 1 to a
+   * tile of the opposite lava-ness) are 42/42 correct even on the full name.
+   *
+   * **Know what this zero is worth before leaning on it.** Its sensitivity was
+   * measured by planting scale factors on `lava`'s probability (2026-07-30):
+   * `1.02` and `1.2` both still pass, `2`, `5` and `20` all fail. 381 sparse
+   * oracle positions do not sit close enough to a lava boundary in probability
+   * space to register a small shift, so this is a regression guard against a
+   * broken lava range expression, NOT a sub-tile boundary check. The boundary
+   * really is off by about a tile somewhere - the 10 dropped cliffs prove it -
+   * and this spec cannot see that. The thing that can is the negative-space
+   * oracle in `vulcanusCliffEntities.spec.ts`: a real cliff the game placed is a
+   * standing assertion that the game found no lava in its box.
+   */
+  it("classifies lava exactly, which is what the cliff rejection reads", () => {
+    let ourLava = 0;
+    let gameLava = 0;
+    let mismatch = 0;
+    for (let i = 0; i < positions.length; i++) {
+      const p = positions[i];
+      const ours = VULCANUS_CLIFF_BLOCKING_TILES.has(resolve(p.x, p.y).name);
+      const game = VULCANUS_CLIFF_BLOCKING_TILES.has(want[i]);
+      if (ours) ourLava++;
+      if (game) gameLava++;
+      if (ours !== game) mismatch++;
+    }
+    // Non-vacuity: the fixture really does carry lava, and plenty of it. Without
+    // this, a resolver that returned a constant non-lava tile would pass the
+    // mismatch assertion by agreeing with an empty set.
+    expect(gameLava).toBe(49);
+    expect(ourLava).toBe(49);
+    expect(mismatch).toBe(0);
+  });
 });