In VLC 3.0, reconnection is automatic based on the size of the stream.
Thanks, Rémi. It does still seem like --no-http-reconnect and --http-reconnect will override this though. Is there a way I can tell VLC to give up on a stream once it starts getting too many "http stream error: cannot connect"? Currently it seems like it will just retry forever, and using --no-http-reconnect means it will never retry which could end the stream prematurely if there's a network hiccup.