Entry, exit, and quest handoff

The scene graph and the questphase graph meet through names, but they remain different graph systems. First Contact exposes scene entry start, exposes named scene exit contact_done, and gives a questSceneNodeDefinition sockets with exactly those names.

Canonical four-node scene

The completed scene has four scene-node IDs:

                         +-> Section 2 -> End 3 [contact_done]
Start 1 -- one fan-out --+
                         +-> scnQuestNode 4 / PuppetAI [fire-and-forget]

Start uses one output socket with two destinations. The section controls the line’s duration and reaches End. The PuppetAI branch has no output destination, so it is deliberately fire-and-forget and does not join the line branch before the named exit.

The exact semantic edges and stamps are:

Do not turn the two Start destinations into two differently stamped outputs. The fixture has one 0/0 fan-out. Likewise, the PuppetAI destination’s 0/1 is an input stamp, not the wrapper’s output stamp.

The graph declares its boundary nodes independently of their appearance in the graph array:

startNodes: [scnNodeId(1)]
endNodes:   [scnNodeId(3)]

entryPoints:
  start -> scnNodeId(1)

exitPoints:
  contact_done -> scnNodeId(3)

startNodes/endNodes identify the graph’s boundary nodes. entryPoints and exitPoints publish named routes for callers. Preserve both layers; merely naming an exit does not add End to endNodes, and merely listing End does not publish contact_done.

The scene-local PuppetAI node

Scene node 4 is an scnQuestNode wrapper around a questPuppetAIManagerNodeDefinition, also with graph-local ID 4 in this focused fixture. Its internal quest node has:

The wrapper’s input ordinal 1 maps Start’s destination to internal socket In; ordinal 0 is the CutDestination mapping. This is why changing the destination stamp from 0/1 to 0/0 is a semantic edit, not cosmetic graph layout.

The branch requests the contact’s Cinematic AI tier alongside the spoken section. It neither ends the scene nor emits a completion signal. The section branch alone reaches End 3. Since no join waits for an AI output, treat this arrangement as fire-and-forget and test teardown separately.

Questphase scene node contract

The child questphase launches the archived scene through one questSceneNodeDefinition. Its interface is exact:

There is no output socket named end. The successful join is the exact scene-exit name contact_done. Adding a questphase end output does not make it match the scene’s End node.

The decisive non-socket properties are:

questSceneNodeDefinition
├── interruptionOperations: []
├── notAllowedToBeFrozen: 0
├── reapplyInterruptionOperationsAfterGameLoad: 0
├── syncToMusic: 0
├── sceneFile:
│   ├── DepotPath: mod\cqa\cqa005\scenes\cqa005_first_contact.scene
│   └── Flags: Soft
└── sceneLocation: scnWorldMarker
    └── nodeRef: #cqa005_sm_contact

The soft sceneFile is a depot reference to a .scene carried in the packed archive. It is not an ArchiveXL root registration. ArchiveXL registers the quest root and localization branches in this design; the active questphase resolves the soft scene resource when execution reaches this node.

sceneLocation is a typed scnWorldMarker. Its local NodeRef must resolve beneath the prefab scope available to the active phase composition. A valid scene path cannot supply a missing marker, and a registered marker cannot supply a missing scene. See Quest prefabs and NodeRefs.

Empty interruptionOperations and unconnected default interruption/return outputs are exact boundaries for this small lab. They do not prove that a larger quest can omit interruption handling, nor that CutDestination has been runtime-validated.

Start checkpoint boundary

The downloadable start checkpoint keeps a safe scene shell with only:

Start 1 (output 0/0) -> End 3 (input 0/0)

It still declares startNodes[1], endNodes[3], entry start, and exit contact_done. The root and child start quest graphs must not invoke that scene node. The shell exists so the learner edits a native resource with its actor/debug/localization/reference scaffold intact; it is not a playable pre-completion shortcut.