They didn't explain those in detail because they didn't implement these concepts themselves. The GameNetworkingSockets library (and most likely also the internal network backend that was mentioned) provides them: > A reliability layer significantly more sophisticated than a basic TCP-style sliding window. It is based on the "ack vector" model from DCCP (RFC 4340, section 11.4) and Google QUIC and discussed in the context of games by Glenn Fiedler. The basic idea is for the receiver to efficiently communicate to the sender the status of every packet number (whether or not a packet was received with that number). By remembering which segments were sent in each packet, the sender can deduce which segments need to be retransmitted. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/GameNetworkingSockets

There really doesn't seem to be anything new or unique to their solution. I'm personally not surprised, because it is what has worked for thirty years.

I presume you know this, but maybe for others: judging by what was written in that paragraph, I'd indeed assume he means the same paradigm that has been driving replicated real-time simulations since at least QuakeWorld - some world-state updates (in this case _"object transforms, velocities, and player positions"_, among others) don't have to be reliable, because in case you miss one and need a retransmit, by the time you receive it, it's already invalid - the next tick of the simulation has already been processed and you will get updated info anyway (IIRC this is essentially John Carmack's insight from his .plan files).

The command messages (player operations and events) _need_ to be reliable, because they essentially serve as the source of truth when it comes to the state of the world. Each game client depends on them to maintain a state that is the same for everyone (assuming determinism the Teardown team has been working on ensuring).

I would imagine it’s all UDP and the reliable+ordered is just a different mode which does the re-sending etc.

I would be surprised if they actually had TCP at all