# Reading the live script state β€” the real phase counter, and per-squadron liveness Status: βœ… `ScriptMission` and `ScriptPhase` located in a running mission with no debugger, validated arithmetically; βœ… the true phase ordinal read live; 🟑 the per-unit `state` encoding needs care. This unblocks [mission-phase-membership](mission-phase-membership.md), which was stuck because "38 enemies died" could not say whether the *right* ones did. Chasing craftβ†’squadron was the wrong angle: **the script VM already keeps that table**, indexed by the `.ssb` symbol-table-2 index. Tool: `tools/re-capture/squadron_state.py`. ## βœ… Locating the objects, without gdb 1. Find the **`.ssb` header** in guest memory β€” 20 bytes of version + code offset + the two symbol-table offsets, distinctive enough to hit once. For a Stage 02 run it sat at **`0xAB840010`**. 2. `code base = file base + header code offset` (`0x24`) β†’ `0xAB840034`. 3. `[ScriptMission+24]` **is** that code base, so scan for a word equal to it. 4. **Validate arithmetically, not by eye:** `[ScriptMission+44]` must equal `file base + symtab1 offset + 4`. Measured `0xAB874C94`; predicted `0xAB840010 + 0x34C80 + 4 = 0xAB874C94`. Exact. That check is what makes this trustworthy β€” the candidate is confirmed against a number taken from the file on disc, not against "it looks like a pointer". A second candidate that also pointed at the code base failed it and was discarded. ``` ScriptMission 0xBC7A2A20 +4 ScriptPhase* = 0xBE14DD80 +20 state = 1 ("phase running") +24 code base = 0xAB840034 +28 pc = 0xAB84007C +40 PHASE ORDINAL = 1 +44 symtab1 = 0xAB874C94 βœ“ ScriptPhase 0xBE14DD80 +196 finished = 0 +244 symtab1 = 0xAB874C94 +324 unit array = 0xBC43B560 ``` `ScriptPhase+324` β†’ `+4` β†’ an array of per-unit records. It holds **122 records β€” exactly the size of Stage 02's symbol table 2**, which is an independent confirmation that the index space is the one the bytecode uses. ## βœ… The real phase counter reads 1 β€” the mirror was the wrong field `[ScriptMission+40]` reads **1** in a phase-1 mission. The runtime mirror at `[*(0x828F35F8)+236]`, which three earlier runs polled, reads **0** β€” because `ChangePhase` is only posted once the ordinal exceeds 1. So the mirror is not a phase readout at all in phase 1, and **`+40` is**. It is reachable from `/dev/shm` with no debugger, which is what made three runs of polling the wrong address avoidable in hindsight. ## βœ… PINNED: state 1 = not yet deployed, state 2 = active β€” and arrivals are real Watching `[ScriptMission+40]` and the three objective squadrons together across a live run (`data/phase-watch-s02.txt`): ``` [ 1.8s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 24 ADN110:1 ADN111:1 ADN112:1 [ 58.2s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 27 ADN110:1 ADN111:1 ADN112:1 [ 90.7s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 30 ADN110:1 ADN111:1 ADN112:1 [ 120.8s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 29 ADN110:1 ADN111:1 ADN112:1 [ 143.4s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 32 ADN110:2 ADN111:2 ADN112:2 <-- arrive [ 223.3s] phase=1 finished=0 active= 35 ADN110:2 ADN111:2 ADN112:2 ``` **All three flip 1 β†’ 2 at ~143 s**, and the count of records in state 2 climbs **24 β†’ 35** over the same window. So for these squadrons **state 1 is "not yet deployed", not "gone"** β€” the built-in table's shorthand *"1/3/4 = gone/dead/invalid"* is incomplete, and reading `state != 2` as "destroyed" would have been wrong in exactly the way flagged last iteration. Good that it was flagged rather than assumed. ### βœ… This also answers a much older question: arrivals DO happen [mission-arrival-watch](mission-arrival-watch.md) and the wave work recorded **"0 confirmed arrivals"** after many runs, measured by watching the *craft* population. The script's own unit table shows arrivals plainly: eleven more records enter state 2 within four minutes, three of them the phase-1 objective squadrons at a distinct moment. The old negative was not wrong about what it measured β€” it was measuring the wrong structure. Craft counts conflate deployment with attrition; the per-unit state field does not. ⚠️ **Both runs of this experiment froze** β€” at ~70 s and ~253 s β€” so the window above is all that was observed, and **no phase advance was reached**. The freeze witness caught both immediately, which is the only reason the truncation is visible rather than silently producing a flat line. ## 🟑 The per-unit `state` encoding is not what the summary implies For the three phase-1 objective squadrons, early in a fresh mission: ``` ADN110 idx=1 obj=True state=1 ADN111 idx=2 obj=True state=1 ADN112 idx=5 obj=True state=1 records with state==2 (active): 27-29 of 122 ``` The built-in table describes `+16` as *"2 = active; 1/3/4 = gone/dead/invalid"*. But these three have a **live object pointer and state 1**, in a mission that has barely started and where nothing has been shot. So either state 1 does not mean "gone", or it means "not yet deployed" β€” **not settled**, and worth pinning before any conclusion is drawn from it. Reading `state != 2` as "destroyed" would be exactly the kind of plausible-but-wrong inference this corpus keeps catching. ## What this makes possible The decisive phase experiment is no longer blocked on attribution β€” and it has now partly run: the arrival of the three objective squadrons is directly observed. What is still missing is a run that survives long enough (no freeze) for them to be **destroyed**, which is when `[ScriptMission+40]` should step to 2. Two attempts froze first. `tools/re-capture/phase_watch.py` is the harness: it samples the real counter and the watched squadrons together, witnesses the freeze every 60 s, and prints only on change.