TTL

TTL means "Time to live". It is a common term in networks. In ByteCart, TTL only concerns storage cart trips, so players don't have to care about it when travelling.

The TTL is a counter attached to each cart (or train) initialized to a high value (64, default value in configuration file) and decremented each time the cart crosses a router. If the cart is taken in a loop, the counter will eventually reach zero and the cart (or train) will be routed to garbage collector.

TTL counter is held in the 4th slot of storage cart. sendto command and BC7011 sign initialize the TTL to the maximum value reachable with current content of inventory. When decrementing, the item removed is not lost, it is just moved in another slot.

Since TTL initial value gives the maximum duration of a storage cart trip, users must take care to have sufficient material in storage cart to initialize TTL value correctly. Moreover, storage carts entirely filled with material should be avoided on network since decrementation can't occur.