53 objects in GP_MAIN_GAME_E carry a Phase_1 record, in TWO families: 29 are
the resource manifest the corpus already owns (Phase_N = 4 fields) and 24 are
the settings table (Phase_N = 31-90 fields). That answers the 24-vs-28 puzzle
left open by the scoring entry -- the 29 is a different table, not the settings.
Camera: three chase rigs in metres, 13 of 14 fields identical in every stage --
Nose (0, 4.5, 7), Near (0, 10, 40), Far (0, 15, 80), FOV 0.92; only CameraFar
varies, once. Player: BulletLimit 512 / HomingLimit 256 / LaserLimit 32 and
the three 0.30 axis adjustments are constant, GravityFactor is non-zero in 4 of
24 stages, and IsBoss16Enable appears in exactly ONE object -- the first
per-stage handle for a family whose filenames do not resolve.
Difficulty_Easy/Normal/Hard is a SECOND difficulty record (8 damage and
guidance multipliers), separate from Score_*.
New doc structures/stage-settings-table.md; mission_scoring.py extended.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
sub_8230D1F8 -- the loader that contaminated the AA_/AV_ offset search -- is the
stage-settings loader. Reading its 122 field NAMES instead of its offsets found
the scoring block, which nothing in docs/re owned.
24 IDXD objects per language pack x 6 = 144, each holding Score_Easy /
Score_Normal / Score_Hard: 72 records per pack on one 22-field schema, no
variants. Difficulty moves 10 of the 22 fields and never the five RankScore_*
thresholds -- the rank bar is per stage, difficulty scales the earning rate
(x0.5 / x1.0 / x2.0) and the penalties. 23 of 24 objects differ from the
commonest Normal record; 9 of 72 records zero the scoring entirely.
Not settled: which object is which stage. None of AUTO_SETTINGS's 28 filenames
resolves to any of the 24 under 19 prefixes, and 24 vs 28 is unexplained.
New doc structures/mission-scoring.md, regenerator mission_scoring.py, artefact
data/mission-scoring.txt. Twelve artefacts now.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Route 3 (call-graph bound): sub_821A6CF0 and sub_821AB650 each read 196/200/204
off THREE different base registers -- three unrelated objects, not the block.
Route 4 (data-flow bound): the definition object lives in the global at
0x828F358C; 18 functions touch it, 9 also touch block offsets. The two best
are refuted -- sub_8230D1F8 is the rank/score loader storing
CraftScore_Adjustment, FFPenalty_Zessel_Maximum and RankScore_S/A/B at exactly
256/320/324/328/332, and sub_82398CC0 uses r19 as a float-constant pool.
So the offset region is shared by two unrelated objects and a constant pool:
offset-based discrimination is contaminated by construction, which is why it
has now failed three times. Catching the selection needs a runtime watch.
Side finding, unowned by the corpus: sub_8230D1F8 is the rank/score loader.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
sub_822F9498 (the unit-definition loader, called only from sub_821A6CF0) is the
only function referencing the AA_/AV_ name strings. Mapping each name to the
stfs that follows gives an exact interleave: AV_ at X, AA_ at X+8, for all five
axes -- PitchPlus 196/204, PitchMinus 212/220, Yaw 228/236, Roll 244/252,
AxisMode 320/328. A selector is an offset of 0 or 8, not two lookups.
The 20 strings exist twice in the image; the first block is referenced by
nothing. Data control: the ten suffixes match exactly between families.
The selection stays a reading: functions loading two or more of 196/204/320/328
number 39 image-wide, and only two are call-graph-reachable from the loader.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The 13 tables that voice every player-facing event are all
PresetMessage_Katana_*, the PLAYER's own sets -- unit-group-table.md already
names the link (DeltaSaber_T_Player carries msg=MessageSet_Katana). Exact
partition: 13 voice all 14 events, 131 voice none, 0 voice some, and no
non-Katana table voices any of them. CharacterKATANA is the only speaker
exclusive to the set.
Corrects preset-message-rules.md, which called those the wingman tables. The
wingman roster is owned by isl-condition-builtins.md (UNITS: Bird1-Sandra ...
Rhino2-Katana, Rhino3-Ellen) and needed no experiment.
Residual: Katana_09_S10-1 and Katana_14_S16-2 voice none of the 14.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
sub_82210C38 retires a line and is the only chatter function reading the rule's
+20/+24 as words: node[+16] = Fluctuation * rand01 + Interval frames, state
0x20. Interval is a floor, Fluctuation a uniform additive jitter.
The queue node IS the cooldown timer -- the tick counts +16 down and only then
frees the slot, so the already-queued bail in sub_82210670 and the cooldown are
one mechanism: a speaker cannot repeat an event until its node expires. A
lingering node still holds one of the 128 pool slots.
Also: +20 on the node is a ducking level, raised while a higher-priority line
plays and released on retirement.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
sub_822109B0 allocates 68-byte nodes from a pool capped at 128; the Pattern
byte at +23 doubles as the occupancy flag. Priority orders the pending list
descending; the >=10 front-push arm is dead because the disc's range is 1..9.
The tick sub_8220FC50 does rule[+36] |= (1 << node[+25]) & rule[+32], so a
line enters the used mask only if its Yes bit is set: Yes = one-shot, No =
repeatable. 388 one-shot lines on the disc. Closes what reads +32.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
36 of the 64 event names are executable strings, so the string-xref join names
the eight sites that raise them; all eight share one entry, sub_8220FA98.
Probability is a per-cent roll -- the scaling constant at 0x820856F8 is exactly
100.0. sub_82210670 suppresses an already-queued (speaker, rule) pair, treats
a message as eligible only if its bit is clear in the runtime mask at +36, and
picks uniformly, then hands Pattern/Priority/EffectiveTime to sub_822109B0.
Measured negative: the pick path never reads +20, +24 or +32.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
sub_82215A58 reads CrewCount + PresetMessage_Phase1/2/3 and reaches the loader
from ONE call site, so the three phase tables fold into one map keyed by the
event record name. Every merge collides; sub_82213840 reconciles on the
message list plus +16/+17/+18/+20/+24/+28 (NOT the +32 Yes mask), and the
incumbent always wins. Measured: 26432 collisions, 26208 identical, 224
different (189 differ only in the message list), 0 mask-only differences.
Refuted handle: intersecting functions by the object's offsets finds dozens of
unrelated layouts -- offset shape is not an identifier.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The one function referencing all seven field-name strings is the rule table's
loader. Interval / IntervalFluctuation / EffectiveTime are SECONDS, emitted
as *60 frame counts; Probability is a percentage and zero skips the record;
Pattern is a 4-arm enum of which only Sound and Window ship; the Yes/No pair
element is a u32 bitmask, which is why MessageCount is clamped to 32 (max on
disc is 26). 40-byte object layout recorded. 13 dead records characterised.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Three more naming routes: strip _msg from a message table (137/144, superset
of route 1, zero non-rule hits), predict the name from the Sperkers roster
(6/6, control 0/4), and sweep the naming grammar (1/144). Union 144/144,
and every rule table has its _msg companion.
Refutes the reading left by 3f20787: the undeclared tables are two story-stage
tables and six TCAF fleet/ship tables, no tutorial content at all.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
864 records = 144 rule tables per language pack x 6. One schema for all
9216 event records; MessageCount*2 == positional count with zero mismatches.
Named 136/144 by two independent routes that agree as sets. 2388/2405
message ids join the settled sound-cue table.
Corrects squadron-orders.md: the executable misspells all four SQUADRON
entries of the 0x820AEEB0 enum as ORDOR_, and the disc data matches.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Chasing more prefixes for the 419 HUD config paths would have been the
same mistake twice, so this censuses the whole disc: harvest every
plausible asset-name string from every archive (6027), hash each under
the 16 known path prefixes, and ask per archive what fraction of its TOC
that explains. idxd-container.md and idxd-tag-hash.md own the hash;
neither says which archives are reachable by it.
The result is bimodal. GP_TITLE 16/16, GP_PAUSE_MENU 11/11,
GP_STAGE_CLEAR 44/44, GP_CHALLENGE 151/151, GP_MOVIE_THEATER 56/56,
MiscBin 40/40, GP_GAMEOVER, GP_BUNK, GP_SYSTEM, GP_TUTORIAL and fonts
are at 100%; tables.pak 78/79, GP_DIALOG 139/140, the six language paks
115/117; GP_MAIN_GAME_* 751/1119. Then the cliff: the six
GP_MAIN_GAME_*2D.pak at 0 of 711 each, and GP_READY_ROOM at 6 of 1106 --
the largest UI pak on the disc, not previously noted anywhere.
Eleven paks at 100% in the same run is the control that makes 0.0% a
finding rather than a failed guess.
So the 419 HUD paths are not missing assets: nothing in the 2D paks is
reachable by name from the disc's own strings at all. Those TOC keys
hash names that are not written anywhere readable.
Also refuted first: the 419 values under 13 name transformations, every
one scoring 0 against the E2D 711 and against all 16630 entries.
Not settled: what those names are. The lever left is the hash's shape
-- the top byte is the character-sum checksum -- but that needs a name
corpus the disc does not contain.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; the other eight regenerate
byte-identical.
Checked first: no docs/re file mentions ArmsStatus, RangeFinder, Radar,
Sight, Wing, NamePlate or ResourceTable. Only HudResource had been
opened; the other fifteen records had not.
The six IDXD entries of GP_MAIN_GAME_E2D.pak: two carry the 16-record
HUD config, two the 13-record ObjectiveMarker_*/TutorialMarker_* set,
one Face (52 portrait sprites), one ResourceTable. Between them they
name 419 distinct asset paths -- the whole flight HUD -- with new
subdirectory prefixes throughout (ArmsSt, ActvArm, RangeF, Marker,
Manuva, Map, Speed, Radar, Sight, Wing, Hitmark, Lockon, Info).
The decisive control uses the config's own exact path strings, so no
guessing is left in the loop: 419 distinct .prt/.t32/.tbl values, ZERO
resolve as a pak entry under 10 prefixes, and the four config filenames
resolve to nothing either. The .t32 sprites certainly exist -- 574 T8aD
in that pak. So the 2D pak is not addressed by name_hash of the name
its config uses.
This supersedes the earlier framing: the 28 'dangling' .prt names were
never a missing-asset story; they are 28 of a set where none of the 419
resolves.
ResourceTable is 58 positional fields = 29 pairs, alternating
HudResource.tbl / HudMarkerResource.tbl, identical in all six language
paks, with exactly one override at pair index 25 -- HudResource_S26.tbl.
Reading: indexed by stage number minus 1, so index 25 is S26, the one
stage with its own HUD config. Arithmetic exact, indexing unproven, not
adopted.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; the other seven regenerate
byte-identical.
structures/mission-script-ssb.md owns this manifest and names its 40
fields but never read the 11 that are not MISSION<n> = StageNN.ssb.
They are DIALOG_MESSAGE, DIALOG_LOCAL_STRING, FONT (+size), TEXT_POS,
TEXT_LINES and the five pgmsg_*.prt. Two sibling records were also
unread: GP_TEST (PATH = dat\GP_TEST\, a debug archive not on the disc)
and TEXTS (a second text style).
Probed 7 values x 33 prefixes x 41 archives. One resolves:
message\MissionDialogMessage.tbl, in all six GP_MAIN_GAME_* paks --
200 records, 25280 bytes, every name S<NN>_P<n>_<KIND> with five kinds
40 each (HINT_PAUSE, HINT, OBJECTIVE, GRAPH, LOSE), fields positional
and tagged 0..3, each value a message key. An index from (stage,
phase, kind) to the localised strings, on the same S<NN>_P<n> keying
the ISL corpus already uses.
Control: the 40 stage-phases span stages 1-16 and 24-29 -- a subset of
the 28 shipped, and the six with no hints are exactly 18-23, the
tutorials. A fifth independent route to the story/tutorial split, and
it gives the phase count per stage.
The other six do not resolve, with the control in the same sweep:
MissionDialog_local_string.tbl and all five pgmsg_*.prt are not a pak
entry under any of the 33 prefixes, while
message\MissionDialogMessage.tbl and Stage\script.tbl both resolve in
6 archives.
name_hash is CASE-INSENSITIVE (message\ == Message\); tag_hash is not.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; the other five artefacts
regenerate byte-identical.
The corpus knew '28 stages' and 'six tutorials with no AIParams'. It
did not know the NUMBERS, and they are not 1..28. Hashing
stage\UnitGroup_S%02d.tbl for N=0..39 against GP_MAIN_GAME_E.pak:
1-16 and 18-29 ship, 17 does not -- 28 files -- and the six with no
AIParams_SNN.tbl are exactly 18-23. So S01-S16 story, S17 absent,
S18-S23 tutorials, S24-S29 story: 22 + 6.
eng\GP_HANGAR_ARSENAL_3D.tbl's ResourceID record keys a player-craft
mesh by stage: Unit_St1_6 -> rou_f001 (DeltaSaber T), Unit_St7_16 ->
rou_f002 (W), plus six further fields tagged with the raw numbers
24,25,26,27,28,29 -> rou_f002 x4, rou_f004 (DeltaSaber A) at 28,
rou_f002. The bare tags are the last six story-stage numbers. Control
in the same record: tag_hash(name) == tag for 11/11 named fields, so
those six genuinely carry no name.
Cross-check from a different file: grouping the Arsenal pak's 168
stage-scoped entries by which _Player craft their loadout mounts gives
f001 = 6, f002 = 15, f004 = 1, tutorials 5+1 = 6, and every number
closes against ResourceID -- 6 = Unit_St1_6; 15 = Unit_St7_16 (10) plus
tags 24,25,26,27,29 (5); 1 = tag 28; 6+15+1+6 = 28.
So the player flies the DeltaSaber A in exactly one mission, S28, and
the DeltaSaber T only for the first six.
Not settled: the Arsenal entry filenames, so which of the 168 is S24 vs
S25 is constrained but not pinned.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; the other five artefacts
regenerate byte-identical.
15 loadout records, one per flight position x pilot (Bird1-Sandra ..
Rhino4-Yoji), each with Arm1/Arm2/Arm3/Nose + UnitID.
The same trap as PlayerWeapon, one level up: Arm1/Arm2/Arm3/Nose do NOT
name items. They name a per-slot ALLOW-LIST record -- one of 24 whose
only named field is Type (the slot kind) -- and the candidate items are
that record's positional, unnamed fields, in order. Four hops:
Rhino4-Yoji.Arm1 -> STANDARD_ARM1 -> [Falcon_9AM, Condor_105AM, ...]
-> item.PlayerWeapon = Turret_NNN -> slot.WeaponID -> Weapon.ID
Controls: Arm1/2/3/Nose -> allow-list record 60/60; allow-list
positional entries -> arsenal item 70/88, and every one of the 18
misses is the single sentinel No_Equipment -- one of the four
WEAPONS-roster values with no item record, i.e. the empty-slot marker.
UnitID is two ID spaces at once: 5 rows name a unit Generic.ID (the
three -Katana rows are the player -- a _Player craft plus an extra,
empty PlayerUnit field), 8 name a character, resolving as Character +
the value into the 64-record character table.
Two values resolve to nothing, both single rows against 13 that do:
Rhino2-Ellen.UnitID = UN_f001_TCAF_DeltaSaber_W exists nowhere (checked
as a Generic.ID across every pak and as a record name, 0 hits) while
UN_f002_TCAF_DeltaSaber_W does -- consistent with a shipped typo,
reported not diagnosed -- and Rhino4-Brandon.UnitID = BRANDON has no
CharacterBRANDON among the 64.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; the other four artefacts
regenerate byte-identical.
An Arsenal item does not reference a Weapon record. It references a
Turret_NNN HARDPOINT SLOT on the player craft's own unit table, and the
slot is what carries the WeaponID. Three hops:
Arbalest_155KG.PlayerWeapon -> Turret_050 (a slot on
UN_f001_TCAF_DeltaSaber_T_Player) -> .WeaponID ->
Weapon_DSaber_P_wep_50_Cannon
Controls, both in the same loop: 0/59 distinct PlayerWeapon values are a
Weapon.ID; 59/59 are a Turret_NNN slot id; the full chain lands on a
Weapon.ID 59/59. WingmanWeapon resolves identically. The WEAPONS
roster's 59 = 55 item names + 4 empty-slot sentinels.
Wingmen fly a cheaper gun: following the same 59 slots across craft
variants, the _Player tables give each item its own weapon record (59
distinct) while the AI tables collapse all 59 onto 10 generic classes.
That is most of the 131.
Upgrades yesterday's 'hardpoint catalogue' reading from 21 to adopted,
proved from an independent file, and corrects its '10 distinct WeaponID'
figure -- that was the AI variant, not the player's.
Also adds an __main__ guard to unit_substructures.py so importing
pak_entries from it does not run its report; its artefact is unchanged
and still byte-identical.
The corpus has named these since unit-struct-runtime.md but never
opened them. Per unit table: Turret_NNN 835 records (max 63 on one
unit), ShieldGenerator_NNN 46, Thruster_NNN 38, Hatch_NNN 26,
Bridge_NNN 25, plus one each of Shield/Mass/SE/Explosion/
StructureCount and NS_Body on 68 of 114.
Turret/ShieldGenerator/Thruster/Hatch/Bridge are ONE record shape: a
shared 19-field destructible-part base (ID, Name, ParentStructureID,
Frame = a mesh NODE name, NomalModel, CollisionModel, Radius, HP, the
four Is* flags, SpreadDamage, damaged/destroy motion + time, and the
three Effect_*), with per-kind extras. Turrets add WeaponID,
AngularVelocity, YawLimit, PitchLimit_Elevation/_Depression, CoverArea,
IsAuto, HasBarrel and up to 80 CannonModel_NNN/CannonFrame_NNN. Shield
generators, thrusters and bridges add PowerRatio. Hatches add
SquadronID, LoadedCount, MaxAvailableCount, TakeoffInterval -- a
carrier's launch bay.
Control 1: StructureCount.<Kind>Count == #<Kind>_NNN records, over 684
comparisons -- 612 equal, 55 "0 declared, one blank placeholder"
(55/55 blank in Name AND NomalModel AND Frame), 11 differ, 6 kind
absent. All 11 exceptions are Turret and all are declared < records.
Control 2: 835/835 Turret_NNN.WeaponID resolve to an ID in the
131-record Weapon datasheet, zero unresolved; 26 weapons are never
mounted on a turret.
Refuted in the same pass: "the DeltaSaber's 59 non-NULL hardpoints are
the 59-name WEAPONS arsenal roster". The counts match exactly and the
sets overlap in 0 values -- two namespaces, one coincidence.
New structure doc, artefact and regenerator; other artefacts unchanged.
Same technique as the weapon tables -- field names are literal, so a
field-shape search over 190782 records finds the carriers.
Generic (394 per pak, 110 field names, 178 distinct IDs) is the unit
datasheet: HP, ShieldRatio, DefencePoint, AttackCraft/VesselPoint, the
five Resistance* terms, Size_X/Y/Z + radius, RadarRange 10000,
FCSRange 8500, MountedFCS, MountedShieldGenerator, Score/Damage/Mass,
NozzleCount with per-nozzle FX, and Model rou_e006 -- which ties the
sheet to the mesh names the corpus already decodes.
Maneuver (114) is the AI flight model: MaximumVelocity 1200,
CruisingVelocity 700, Acceleration 600, Deceleration 400,
SideThrustAcceleration 1000, Turn_AngularVelocity 180,
MaximumBank_Normal 60, per-axis DragFactor 3.0, afterburner and
reverse-thrust factors, plus nine named manoeuvres each with its own
timing/ratio/length bounds and AA_/AV_ rate pairs. This is the static
source for what flight-speed-law.md measured at runtime.
Corrects a guess in the same pass: HP_CLASS/HP_ID are not ship stats --
they sit on records named for wingmen and ship classes alongside
HPGauge/RadarCursorType, i.e. a HUD gauge binding table.
New structure doc + artefact; ISL artefacts byte-identical.
The corpus's weapon numbers came from a runtime capture; the static
tables are now read with no emulator. The move: IDXD field names are
literal strings in the pool, so the stat-shaped keys already harvested
from the disassembly (MegaTons, GuidanceType, SpiralType, ...) can be
searched directly. 8648 records carry at least one, clustering on
three record names in every per-language GP_MAIN_GAME_*.pak:
Weapon 131 records, 21 fields -- the launcher
Shell 131 records, 37 fields -- the projectile
AssortMissileParam 9 records, 20 fields -- missile guidance
131, not the 59 of the WEAPONS roster: that roster is the arsenal
menu's list, not the full set.
Controlled negative in the same pass: stageNN_settings.tbl does not
exist. AUTO_SETTINGS names 28; four path prefixes give 0/116 while
both controls in the same loop are found.
Also decoded: EnumUnit (54 unit ids tying eNNN/fNNN mesh prefixes to
faction/class names), ArmsItemFile (59 weapon -> HUD icon mappings),
SETTINGS (sound config), Parameters (HUD markers).
New structure doc + artefact; ISL artefacts byte-identical.
mission-phase-timers.md left 180 open as "a limit and a warning
threshold is the obvious reading, but not established". Reading
sub_822639B8 -- ScriptPhase::Update 0x82263528, same dt as the
stopwatch bank -- settles it the other way:
if running: [+304] += dt
if armed: [+308] -= dt while [+308] > 0
else [+312] -= dt, clamped at 0
[+312] is never compared with [+308]; it is decremented, and only in
the A<=0 arm. Two sequential countdowns. Disc-wide the second
argument is 180 in all 29 timer_set sites while the first varies
(600 x19, 1200 x8, 900, 1800).
Built-ins 123-127 are vtable slots 90-94 on five scalars at
[phase+304..320]. 125 and 126 have ZERO call sites in all 28 scripts:
the script arms, starts and stops this clock but never reads it.
Corrects mission-phase-timers.md, which merged this clock with
stopwatch 0 -- timer_resume starts [+304], set_flag(0) one instruction
later starts the stopwatch the timeline's kind=0 reads.
Docs only; all seven ISL artefacts regenerate byte-identical.
The open question was the unit, not the array. Following the writers of
[phase+88] settles it:
* sub_822710D0(phase, dt), called from ScriptPhase::Update, does
prev[i] = cur[i] then, only while [phase+120][i] == 1, cur[i] += dt --
so +88/+104/+120 are current / previous / running, 32 entries each.
* dt is seconds by a non-circular round trip: frames * (1/60) * 10000
-> clamp 3200 -> * 1e-4, in the timing singleton at [0x828F35B4].
The clamp is 0.32 s, a frame ceiling.
* 675/675 timeline kinds are indices their own phase starts (control
11.2 %), which is why kind is only ever 0 or 5.
Corrects isl-builtins.md twice: set_flag writes 0.0 not 1.0, and
clear_flag clears the running flag rather than the value. Confirms its
grouping of 8/9/93 as one family. Docs only -- all seven ISL artefacts
regenerate byte-identical.
The doc carried a 🟡 saying cross-run stability was untested. Tested now on a
fresh guarded Stage 02 run (stage asserted): the HUD reads "Remaining OB : 004"
while RAM at the documented 0xbdb59668 reads 95748078, constant over four samples
12s apart. Not 4, not near 4, not moving. So the address belongs to that run's
heap, as the corpus's own heap-reallocation warning predicts.
No constant-shift shortcut either: a BE u32 equal to 4 occurs 1654 times within
+-1 MB of the old address and 11202 times within +-16 MB, far too many to isolate
without the transition filter. The durable result is the METHOD (ob_scan.py:
scan at one value, filter against live memory at a DIFFERENT value), not the
number.
Also fixes a contradiction in INDEX.md, which said in one row that the address is
"still ❔" while another row linked the doc that had already CONFIRMED it.
An audit of BACKLOG.md turned up a class of error with a single root cause: the
README defines only the CONFIRMED/PROBABLE/HYPOTHESIS confidence scale, while
the pages actually use a second vocabulary -- and 🔴 appears 98 times without
ever being defined. It gets used for two different things, "refuted" and
"blocked", and three entries slid from one into the other.
README now defines ✅/🟡/❔/🔴/❌/🚧 and states the rule the corpus was missing:
🔴 never means "we have not run it yet". That is ❔ or 🚧. Its blocked sense is
only for a real limit of the box -- no push credentials, no hardware Vulkan, a
decision only the user can make -- and since the box can run the emulator,
script input, screenshot and read guest memory, "needs a run" is never blocked.
I made exactly this mistake on the world-unit item earlier today, which is what
prompted looking for others.
Fixed in BACKLOG.md:
* the elimination test, marked 🔴 UNRUN and in fact run and refuted nine
lines further down;
* the frozen capture, marked 🔴 STILL UNRUN and in fact taken eleven lines
down -- 🔴 wrong twice, since "the freeze did not happen this run" is a
scheduling outcome and not a refutation;
* a 🚧 STILL UNRUN item whose stated blocker (the boot-nav bug) is fixed;
* the objective-counter heading, which asserts 0xbdb59668 as the answer while
its own first body line refutes that address -- retitled to say what is
actually solved, the method;
* the paint-order "third measured permutation" question, answered inside its
own entry by a third, fourth and fifth screen;
* the UTF-16 endianness question -- resolved, and it is not a stale comment:
localization.rs both documents LE and decodes with u16::from_le_bytes, so
it is a code bug worth filing.
Also fixes the corpus's only dangling link (INDEX.md pointed at
structures/idxd-unnamed-keys.md, never written).
MCOL sits beside REGN in hidden/MiscBin.pak, 11 of each, never decoded. Over all
11: POF0 at data_size+16 11/11, bbox pad words 1.0/1.0/0.0 11/11, and
extent == max-min 11/11. So the header prefix is the same shape as REGN's and
the POF0 mechanism applies, which means the chunk+0x10 base and the loader's own
pointer list -- the two things that cracked REGN -- are available here too.
The map parameters are not merely similar but identical in distribution: bboxes
2/6/3 at 250k/50k/25k and the 0x40 triple 2 at 50000 and 9 at 10000, matching
REGN exactly. Eleven maps, each with an MCOL and a REGN over the same volume at
the same cell size. Noted that this matches distributions, not a demonstrated
object-to-object pairing.
Everything past 0x40 diverges from REGN and is open. Also recorded that my own
POF0 delta decoder is wrong here -- eight leading zero deltas -- and that the
working one is regn_decode.py on auto/regn-reader, which should be used rather
than re-derived. Re-deriving it is the mistake I made.
Found the reader. It is the deserialiser, not a consumer, and it answers the
question twice: the fixup base is chunk+0x10 (82465198 addi r3,r31,16), so
every offset previously recorded was read 16 bytes early — which is why twenty
correlation tests sat at chance — and the POF0 table names every pointer word
in the file.
Six sections, not four. cell {count,item*} → item {n@+0x10, refs*@+0x14} →
array of pointers into section 1 → a 96-byte tetrahedron. Section 2 is a face:
plane, its three vertices, the two tetrahedra either side (0xFFFF = hull) and
their face slots.
All 11 objects: face passes through exactly 3 of its tet's 4 vertices in
253 722/253 722 (random control 0.07–2.2 %); portal cost == face-centroid
distance in 380 460/380 460; sphere reaches its cell 98.7–100 % vs 18–28 %
with transposed axes.
Refuted and kept: 'REGN'/'MCOL' are never built as constants in the executable
(0x474E occurs zero times in 1.87 M instructions), so no magic-dispatch site
exists; and "zero portal-pair float marks a hull edge" shows no lift at all.
Still open: the runtime consumer of the grid, the second portal float, and the
four flag bytes at tetrahedron +0x54.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Chasing w0 I decoded leading waves and the output matched neither trailer word.
Following that into RIFF waves, where the extent is certain, the decoded sample
count exceeds the seek table's last cumulative sample by a median 9.7%.
The tiebreak is the bank's own PsuedoBytesPerSec: over 14 banks it agrees with
an actual FFmpeg decode to a mean of 0.007 s and with the seek-table duration
only to 0.287 s. Two independent quantities agree with each other and both
disagree with the seek total, so that last entry is the last SEEK POINT, not the
sample count.
Both artifacts regenerated with data_bytes / PsuedoBytesPerSec. Total audio is
408.3 minutes, not the 390.9 I published -- 4.3% in aggregate. Dialogue timings
all rise, e.g. 'They got Leader!' from 1.78/2.46 s to 2.25/2.93 s.
What made this hard to catch is worth recording: the seek total gave BGM of 2.4
minutes, chatter of 2.8 seconds and cutscenes of 11 minutes, and I cited that as
the chain validating itself. It validated the structure, not the scale -- a
uniform 10% error preserves every ratio I checked.
With the wave boundary exact and Channels read rather than assumed, every field
describing a bank can be read: path, cue, sound id, channels, rate, data bytes,
packets, samples, seconds. Duration comes from the last cumulative sample in the
seek table over the sample rate -- arithmetic, no decoding.
Nothing was fitted to an expectation, yet every category lands where its content
says it should: BGM mean 146 s, Movie mean 79 s with an 11-minute maximum,
Briefing 10.8 s, in-mission Voice 2.79 s never exceeding 7.3. If the boundary
rule, the channel field or the seek table were misread, the numbers would not
sort into those five shapes.
Incidental: 4 banks run at 44100 Hz against 48000 everywhere else, and the BGM
tracks are the stereo ones. 1021 of the 5135 FILES paths have no RIFF and are
excluded as headerless.
The declared sizes are honest (seek magic at data_at + declared_size, 7620/7620)
and VOICE_TCAF_608 was stereo decoded as mono, not truncated. The four offsets
are a segment-packing phase, not a per-directory header size. Neither was closed
by finding something new; both were closed by correcting a mistake of mine.
Closes the open question at the bottom of slb-data-offset.md.
X = (cumulative start of the .pNN segment holding the wave) mod 2048
The XMA packet grid is 2048-aligned inside each individual segment file,
but the .pak TOC addresses entries in the flat concatenation at offsets
that are themselves multiples of 2048. The segment files are not multiples
of 2048 long, so each join shifts the grid by size % 2048 — and the four
disc-wide values are exactly the running sums:
1392 = |p00| % 2048; 1468 = +76; 1600 = +132; 1728 = +128
Exact for 7620/7620 banks with a RIFF and 1163/1163 RIFF-less ones via
their seek chunk, 0 mismatches. Supersedes both heuristics (the 99.62 %
packet scan and the 99.97 % seek-residue rule) and dissolves the 28 ties.
The refutation test — an entry straddling a segment join must show two
phases in one file — passes on all 3 straddlers.
The leading bytes are the previous bank's audio, not a header: byte
diversity per offset is indistinguishable from a known packet (101.06 vs
101.90, no fixed field anywhere), the seek packet counts chain exactly
across consecutive entries, and the inter-entry bytes no TOC entry claims
are 1903/1928 non-zero.
Also recorded: the real bank header layout (id, block size 0x800, header
size in blocks, XMAWAVEFORMAT), and the loader search — a null result.
None of the four values exists as an immediate, a table or a float
anywhere in default.xex, which is what a pack-time artifact predicts.
Sound subsystem addresses mapped for the next pass.
Withdraws the 🟡 "most banks declare more data than they store" finding:
declared data sizes are exact (260/260), the bytes are just outside the
TOC window. Also withdraws my own "the header is unique, so nothing is
shared" inference — the windows tile, they do not overlap.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The ties needed a different signal, not a longer scan. Banks carry one: a seek
chunk sitting on a packet boundary, so seek_pos % 2048 IS the data offset. On
the 6033 labelled banks with a seek before their first RIFF, 6031 agree
(99.97%) -- better than the packet scan and structural rather than statistical,
so scan_data_offset now tries it first.
On the scan's 28 ties it resolves 26 correctly and 0 wrongly (2 have no usable
seek). Combined rule scores 7354/7358 = 99.95%, up from 99.62%. 762 of the 1495
RIFF-less banks carry a seek, so the signal exists where it is needed.
Also ruled out, since a wrong offset was this page's whole subject: the header
is not audio being discarded. Adding 0 to the candidate set, it wins 6 of 7358.
7 disc tests pass.
static.slb (8970240 bytes, the shared SE bank) and Pj_Silph.xgs (533 bytes, XACT
global settings) both hash into the TOC. Their names come from the BANK_SE and
SETTINGS records of the very IDXD object this page documents -- I had printed
them at the top of the write-up and then reported the entries as unidentified.
9519 of 9519 now: 5100 jpn + 4382 eng + 35 root + these 2.
The three unnamed built-ins are one family, and the chain from the dispatch
table to the field write is now followed for all of them:
builtin -> ScriptPhase vtable slot -> interpreter command word 0xAB<op>BA
-> command-table thunk -> opcode handler -> unit message 0xED08nnDE
-> the GROUP pump sub_8232C4C0, which rebroadcasts to each child as
0xED09nnDE
-> the entity base handler sub_82398CC0, which writes the field.
26 -> [unit+532] = min(max(def.HP * pct, 0), def.HP) = set_unit_hp_pct
29 -> [unit+676] = pct, a multiplier on damage TAKEN = set_unit_damage_taken_pct
28 -> [unit+672] = pct, default 1.0 = 🟡 damage DEALT
101 -> the same message as 29 with a hard-wired 0.0, broadcast to every unit
= all_units_invulnerable
`damage_unit` is WITHDRAWN for 26. The handler sets an absolute value rather
than subtracting one, and 100 heals to full -- which no damage primitive does.
It is pinned three ways: [unit+496] is the unit definition (the constructor
sub_82393868 fills it from the same std::map::find built-in 15 uses), [def+84]
is HP in unit_definition_layout.txt and the constructor seeds [unit+532] from
it, and crossing zero loads [def+584] = Delay and raises a flag, i.e. the
destruction sequence. So 0 destroys, with the datasheet's own death delay.
29 is the strongest of the three: [unit+676] has three independent readers
(sub_8237B020, sub_823800A8, sub_82398CC0) and every one multiplies a damage
amount immediately before it reduces [unit+532].
28 is deliberately left 🟡. The write and the 1.0 default are certain, but the
field has exactly ONE reader in the whole image -- the craft update's projectile
spawn, where it ends up as a multiplicative term in the damage message. That is
the mirror of 29 and it is tidy, which is exactly the shape that produced the
wrong names this file has already had to withdraw. What is not established is
that it reaches every weapon; the sibling damage sender sub_82388FF8 has no
+672 term at all.
Three usage tests, all measured over the 28 stages:
* operand ceilings -- 26 is 97/97 inside [0,100] and 29 is 164/164, while 28
(identical signature, identical x0.01 conversion) reaches 2000;
* the craft cross-tab -- 26 splits cleanly into disposable props at 0,
warships at 30-80 and the tutorial player craft at 100; 29 lands on the
player, the tutorial boxes and the escorted TCAF hulls; 28 orders
boss > ace > elite > line > prop;
* the setup idiom -- activate_unit, then 15/29/28 as a speed/toughness/
firepower trio, with 26 added wherever a unit must arrive pre-damaged.
Refutations attempted are recorded, including the two that turned into
confirmations (Stage 28 makes each tutorial box invulnerable with 29 and then
removes it with 26) and the offset-search trap that produced three false
readers, because projectiles have their own fields at 672 and 676.
Also corrected: the state guards. 26 rejects states 3 and 4; 28 and 29 reject
1, 3 and 4. This file said otherwise for both.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Independently reproduced across all 33 paks: 7750 IDXD objects, 1485577 unnamed
field entries, 7094 distinct never-named keys splitting cleanly into 7052 in an
ordinal band (<=0x2198, 94.6% equal to their own field index) and 42 hash-shaped
(>=0x2677C), with ZERO keys in the gap between. The 42 carry exactly 504
entries -- six language copies of one object times two records.
So the preimage target was 42, not 504, and my earlier wording invited the
misreading. Cross-referenced to the idxd-unnamed-keys write-up, which shows the
42 belong to <lang>\script\ID.tbl and cannot be recovered from a 24-bit hash.
The row still described ixud.rs as a cue reader and said nothing about the
record table or the caption families. Rewritten with the measured numbers:
* the IXUD record/field table is decoded and wired in -- IxudObject mirrors
IdxdObject, uniform 16-byte records, 12-byte fields, every offset in CHARS,
and the word at 0x08 is record 0's hash rather than a schema id. Verified
1104/1104 objects, 1476/1476 records, 628165/628165 named fields.
* caption text goes 537 -> 8800 lines, which is 8800 of 8800 distinct keys,
in two steps: generalising the key parser to all eight families took it to
8074, and switching from token adjacency to record fields finished it.
The row also carries my correction rather than quietly dropping it: the
earlier "1.3% of the game's text" counted occurrences across blocks, and the
honest denominator is 8800 distinct keys, so the starting point was 6.1%.
And it keeps the DEMO control, which is the part a reader should remember:
token adjacency finds 537 lines in that family, fields find 541. The old
reader was dropping lines in the one family it was written for.
Status moved from 🟡/✅ to ✅.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The two headline rows for weapons and units were the last place still telling
a reader that these values are not on the disc. Both corrected in place, with
numbers I measured rather than adopted.
Weapons: re-reading captures/weapon-runtime-fields.csv through the record
table, 1514 of the 4393 rows labelled defaulted-on-disc DO have a value on
disc; 2879 are genuinely absent. I state that as an upper bound -- my matcher
counts a field when it appears in ANY record of the object, and a per-record
count gives ~1448. Either way the headline "4393 values the disc does not
carry" is wrong by about a third.
The spot checks are exact rather than aggregate: wep_05/wep_60
TriggerShotCount 4, wep_02 Power 100.0, wep_60 Power 1000.0 (refuting the
recorded "C band 150-500" bracket), wep_25 MaximumRange 4000.0,
wep_11/28/36/70 LoadingCount 6/5/5/0.
Units: the ~30-field player-craft table is on disc at exactly the values the
runtime "recovered", spread across the Generic / Shield / Mass / SE records
-- which is why a reader that could not name a record saw them as absent. And
"18 of 23 vessel records are missing at least one of Size_X/Y/Z/HP" is false:
0 of 114 objects with a Generic.Type (43 Craft + 71 Vessel) miss any of them.
Status markers moved from ✅ and ✅/🟡 to ✅/❌ so the rows no longer read as
settled-and-correct.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The corpus recorded that some unit fields the disc leaves defaulted inherit
from a sibling: Size_Y from Size_X, FCSRange from RadarRange, DefencePoint
from AttackVesselPoint. Size_Y was marked the one to trust, on 9/9 support
across 7 independent ships, and it is restated in INDEX.md.
The premise is false. These fields are not defaulted -- they are on disc for
113-114 of 114 unit tables -- and Size_Y DIFFERS from Size_X in 90 of them.
The mechanism, cross-tabulating "legacy reader missed it" against "equal on
disc":
pair seen+differ seen+equal miss+differ miss+equal
Size_Y / Size_X 90 0 0 24
FCSRange / RadarRange 54 0 1 58
DefencePoint / AttackVesselPoint 51 0 1 61
seen+equal is 0 for all three: a value shared with a sibling is ALWAYS
invisible to the string-pool reader, because the pool stores each distinct
string once. And the reader almost never misses a value that differs. So
"the missing value equals the sibling's" was true BY CONSTRUCTION -- the rule
re-derived the very condition that made the field go missing. That is why the
support looked perfect: it could not fail on the cases it was fitted to.
The two miss+differ cells are its real wrong predictions, both named:
UN_e104_ADAN_Carrier DefencePoint is 0.2 (rule says 0.003), and
UN_e011_ADAN_Attacker_B_HF_Wayne FCSRange is 3000.0 (rule says 6000.0).
Retracted in unit-struct-runtime.md (original reasoning kept below the
correction), live-unit-definitions.md and INDEX.md. Pinned by a disc test
that asserts the seen+equal cells stay zero, so the mechanism itself is
guarded, not just the counts. Artifact: examples/sibling_rule_check.rs.
This one was found by my own check after the subagent assigned to it stalled.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
movie_manifest::parse now reads BASE_INFO's positional field keys (the game's
own cutscene ids, stage*100 + slot) and follows each to its record, instead of
scraping the string pool. The pool stores each distinct string once, so a
REPEAT reference produced no token and read as "no binding".
That single cause explains every wrong cell: 13 later references to
VOICE_D_450..454, two to SUBTITLE_hokyu_LS_s11A.tbl, and MS01A's share of
pwterop_s01a.prt. All 18 hokyu movies are bound, not five.
Counts, verified independently by me against the disc before recording:
104 cutscene SLOTS binding 101 distinct MOVIES; 99 slots / 96 movies with a
voice track, 99 / 96 with a subtitle, 22 / 22 with a telop. The docs' old
94 / 83 / 21 are exactly the counts of DISTINCT POOL STRINGS -- not wrong
measurements, measurements of the wrong thing. Three denominators were being
conflated; the new test pins all three.
Two assertions in movie_manifest_disc.rs were false and are corrected:
hokyu_DS_s13A binds VOICE_D_452 and resolves to eng\etc\VOICE_D_452.slb. The
in-game verdict that rejected that value tested an INFERENCE from a shared
demo id, on a decoder that discards 85-87% of banks in this class -- see
voice-bank-leading-region.md, committed earlier today.
The ~104 script ids are no longer open: they are literal positional keys,
each naming its record, and all 104 resolve. The old "counts differ by three,
positional pairing does not work" has a concrete cause -- three resupply
movies are bound by TWO slots each.
Also corrected: the naming convention has 3 subtitle exceptions (s24A/s27A
borrow s11A's track) and 18 voice exceptions, not one and five.
The legacy scraper is kept as a fallback for blobs with no record table, so
the synthetic unit fixtures still exercise it.
Artifacts: examples/movie_map_csv.rs regenerates the CSV, now slot-keyed
(104 rows; the movie-keyed version silently dropped one slot of each
duplicate). Disc tests green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
With the record table decoded there is finally a ground truth to check the
old string-pool reader against. It infers `key -> value` from pool adjacency,
which is a consequence of how records are written, not a rule of the format.
Verified by hand against the disc, with an independent parser:
* `FCSRange` = 500000.0 — the module docs' own canonical example of a field
"left at its default" that "omits the value string".
* `ShieldRatio` = 1.0, where `tests/pak_idxd_disc.rs` asserted None with the
comment "a defaulted/omitted field must be None". That test encoded the
false belief; it now keeps the None as a deliberate characterisation of the
legacy reader, with the true value asserted beside it.
* `get_raw("Model")` on GP_HANGAR_ARSENAL returns the first record's model for
every record — silent corruption, not an absent value. New test pins four
records that disagree with it.
The cause is the flat API having no way to name a record: only 548 of 6325
objects have one. `HP` on the DeltaSaber answers 1000.0, the hull, while 63
Turret_* records each carry their own 100.0 (measured — a first draft said 34,
taken from a report rather than from the disc).
Disc-wide rates are recorded as single-source and labelled as such: get_raw
52% wrong, typed getters 38% miss, but 100% correct on single-record objects.
Also records a negative result: the 504 unnamed field keys were NOT recovered.
A 572464-string dictionary and 73191 variants gave 0/42. The key deltas do
prove the preimage ends with the two decimal digits.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
The binary region in front of the string pool was the parser's oldest open
note ("Not yet decoded"). It is a uniform 16-byte record array sorted by
name hash, a field count, a 12-byte field array sorted by key, a pool size,
and the pool. The trailing `pool_size == file_len - pool_base` identity makes
the layout self-checking, which is what caught the first wrong version.
Verified over the WHOLE disc with zero failures: 7750/7750 IDXD objects,
190782/190782 records reproducing their stored tag_hash, 1271462/1271462
named fields reproducing their key. IXUD is the same container with
ixud_hash, UTF-16BE and every offset in chars — 1104/1104 objects,
628165/628165 fields, checked with an independent parser.
Field names are stored on disc, so no preimage search is needed: a field's
middle word points at its own name. Only 504 fields disc-wide are hash-keyed
with no name; the other 1485073 nameless fields are positional, keyed by a
literal integer (line slots, movie ids).
Two long-held beliefs are WITHDRAWN:
* The word at 0x08 is not a schema hash. It is record 0's name_hash — the
format has no type field at all, and an object's kind is known only from
the caller that loads it. It survived as "schema" because tables of one
kind share their lowest-hashed record name. Caught by a test asserting
every movie id names a real record: 1005 -> STAGE10_PHASE01 failed because
tag_hash("STAGE10_PHASE01") IS 0x067025B9, that table's supposed schema id.
* The field's middle word is not an always-0xFFFFFFFF flags word. It is
0xFFFFFFFF for 54% of fields, enough to look constant in a small sample;
the tell was that it is constant per key ACROSS records, which a per-record
flag cannot be but a per-name pointer must.
`schema_hash` keeps its name rather than churn 33 call sites, with corrected
docs. The first sweep globbed dat/** and missed hidden/DefTables.pak (1425
objects); the test now walks the whole disc root.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
One new data point on the in-mission freeze. The refuted resume-spin lead rested
on refused resumes being normal -- thousands during gameplay, more in a healthy
run than a frozen one. Today's freeze log contains zero of them across 1147
lines, and the mission still froze at about 267 s with a black screen, against
2447 in an older log. So the warning is not even necessary for a freeze, let
alone sufficient, which closes the lead from the other side.
Also refuted today, before this file was found: the burst of BaseHeap::Release
failures at the end of the short log looks like a freeze signature and is not.
In the longer log the same failures span lines 1044 to 5210 and the log
continues for 2700 lines afterwards; they begin at mission load in both runs and
are routine.
The uncomfortable part is that both were already settled in
mission-freeze-resume-spin.md, as was the 0xbdb59668 address that a previous
iteration rediscovered independently. That is twice in one session that existing
work was redone.
The cause is mechanical rather than forgetfulness. docs/re/INDEX.md listed 20 of
43 notes and none of the recent ones, so searching the index for prior work on
the freeze returned nothing -- the corpus was searched, but the search was
blind. INDEX.md now carries a generated table of every note under docs/re/, 59
entries with title and status, and states outright that it should be searched
before starting an investigation. Regenerating it is a few lines of Python and
should be redone whenever notes are added.
The item that has been open through this whole run is answered: the paint order
is the screen object's reordered child array at +0x30, not any table in the file.
BACKLOG and INDEX now lead with that, and the investigation behind it is kept in
full underneath — most of it refutations, which is what made the answer findable.
What is left is stated in the same breath, because it is what the port needs:
deriving that order from the bundle without running the game. Until then the
viewer paints in declaration order and the title screen composites wrongly, which
is now a documented defect rather than a mystery.
The plan was to separate ptlogo_back2eff from ptlogo_back2eff5 (same 1133x280,
declaration 20 vs 18, either side of ptlogo_back2 at 19) by their resting fade
alphas. Carried out, and refuted: both quads come back at alpha FF, and reading
the bundle again, both elements REST at 255 under this project's own max-dwell
rule — back2eff5's longest hold is t=74 at 255, and the 192 I had quoted is a
later, shorter keyframe, not its resting value. The ambiguity stands.
What the colour did buy is worth more than the tie-break: the first check of the
fade/keyframe decode against the RUNNING GAME rather than against another parse.
Every static element draws at exactly the resting alpha the bundle predicts, and
the only two quads whose alpha moves between consecutive frames (88->88/86->87
and 3C->38) are the rotating effect pair and the PRESS (A) glow — the two things
visibly animating on screen. Nothing had confirmed before that the alpha channel
of a keyframe is what drives that throb.
The previous entry called the title's Ⓐ a hard blocker. It is not: the main menu
is reached and screenshotted (NEW GAME / LOAD GAME / TUTORIAL / OPTIONS /
EXTRAS). What is true is narrower — Ⓐ advances the title only intermittently,
about one attempt in four, with the press verifiably delivered every time and no
Xenia UI active.
Three candidate causes were eliminated with measurements rather than argument:
* IsUIActive is now observable (Canary logs when it swallows a keystroke) and it
never fires on the failing runs;
* the driver filter is fine — the game polls with flags=3 and the file pad
reports Controller=1, so FilterDrivers keeps it;
* the game makes no content/user/signin call on the press at all — tracing every
Xam call around it shows only input polling.
And two traps in my own measuring rig, which cost more than the bug and are
written down so nobody repeats them: a FIFO trace consumer that exits STALLS the
emulator (the guest stops polling — indistinguishable from a dead pad, and it
produced two runs of false evidence), and phase-A's kernel.return events carry a
placeholder return_value of literally 0, so "every keystroke call returns
SUCCESS" was an artifact of the logger, not a finding.
