fd113868bc
534 IXUD entries across 36 paks, 94 distinct keys, 92 resolved by name. Content identified: mission objective/lose/hint panels, 91 bonus-objective banners, scripted radio, cutscene dialogue, the reactive combat-chatter pool (MSG_ADAN 23,236 fields, MSG_RHIN 21,196, ...), resupply barks, speaker labels and the hangar weapon Name/Desc/Condition. Verified independently: language\MissionDialog_local_string.tbl decodes to 600 fields with the trailer identity holding, giving Stage 02's real objectives -- phase 1 'Shoot down all invading enemy fighters / while watching out for attacks / on the ACROPOLIS', phase 2 'Protect the Admiral's ship the CALIBAN', phase 3 'Destroy the interstellar cruise missiles'. That matches the script exactly: the phase-1 condition polls three enemy squadrons and the escort's loss is the fail branch, and phase 2 is positional, which is why no kill count appears there. The .ssb symbol names (S02_P1_OBJECTIVE etc.) are NOT IXUD keys -- they are records in an IDXD map, message\MissionDialogMessage.tbl, whose positional fields list the lowercase per-line IXUD names; *_GRAPH holds a texture instead. Structure: one record per object (except the six 63-record hangar files), 624,440 named fields, 55% of them empty line slots, no control characters, the only escape a literal two-char \n in block-text tables, and records/fields in ascending key order so lookup is a binary search. '[OB]' turns out to be a HUD marker label in this text -- the same one the REMAINING OB work chased. Six languages confirmed D/E/F/I/J/S; J omits the trailing empty line slot in 78 of 86 objects. Two keys remain unresolved, byte-identical across all six paks (untranslated Japanese voice transcripts). Also corrects mission-objectives-text.md: SUBOBJ_009 does have text, and SUBOBJ_005 is two fields.
143 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
143 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
> ✅ **CORRECTED 2026-08-25** by decoding the IXUD containers directly — see
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> [structures/ixud-localised-text](structures/ixud-localised-text.md).
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> Two errors here: `SUBOBJ_009` **does** have text (`'You destroyed all enemy
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> units!'` — all 91 of 91 sub-objectives have an `_Mes_L1` string), and
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> `SUBOBJ_005` is **two** fields (`'You rescued'` + `'the ally destroyer!'`),
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> which a single-line rendering drops.
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# The mission script in plain English — and why phase 1 never completed
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Status: ✅ the localised string tables are decoded and readable; ✅ the phase
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structure is confirmed narratively *and* by roster composition; 🟡 a concrete,
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testable reason the phase never advanced in any run.
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## ✅ `IXUD` — the localised string container
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`language\*_local_string.tbl` (the prefix is `language\`, a third convention
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after `stage\` and `message\`) is **not** IDXD. Magic is `IXUD`, and its strings
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are **UTF-16 big-endian**. That is why every earlier ASCII-oriented dump of these
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files produced garbage.
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Reading them is immediate once the encoding is known, and it makes the mission
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design directly legible instead of inferred.
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## ✅ Stage 02's nine sub-objectives, in words
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| id | text |
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|---|---|
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| `SUBOBJ_005` | You rescued the ally destroyer! |
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| `SUBOBJ_006` | You destroyed all enemy fighters! |
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| `SUBOBJ_007` | You sunk all enemy warships! |
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| `SUBOBJ_008` | You rescued the ally cruiser, Amalthea! |
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| `SUBOBJ_010` | The ally cruiser CALIBAN took no damage! |
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| `SUBOBJ_011` | You sunk the enemy destroyer targeting the ACROPOLIS! |
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| `SUBOBJ_013` | You destroyed all enemy cruise missiles! |
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| `SUBOBJ_014` | You destroyed all enemy missiles and units! |
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(`SUBOBJ_009` has no text.) 91 objectives are defined across the game.
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## ✅ The three phases, confirmed twice over
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The guide script reads as three distinct acts, and each matches the per-phase
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roster composition found independently in
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[mission-phase-deployment.md](mission-phase-deployment.md):
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| phase | script | roster |
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|---|---|---|
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| 1 | *"The attackers with the orange markers, right?"*, *"Protect the ACROPOLIS!"* | turrets, attackers, fighters |
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| 2 | *"destroy the ship's engine"*, *"destroy that ship's weapons"*, *"take out the enemy's shield projector"* | destroyers, frigates, cruisers |
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| 3 | *"start by taking out that missile"*, *"Concentrate on destroying the missiles one by one"* | **`UN_e201_ADAN_ISCMissile` ×9** |
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Phase 3's nine cruise missiles against `SUBOBJ_013` *"You destroyed all enemy
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cruise missiles!"* is an exact match between two files decoded on different days
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by different routes.
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## 🟡 Why phase 1 never advanced: the pilot killed the wrong things
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The phase-1 objective is stated outright — **destroy the marked attackers**:
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> *"Rhinos, prepare for combat. Are you all clear on your targets?"*
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> *"The attackers with the orange markers, right? Roger that!"*
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> *"Katana, those attackers are our targets!"*
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Those are `UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S`, of which phase 1 fields four squadrons.
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**The hunting pilot targeted turrets almost exclusively.** Every loss line in the
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run logs reads `UN_e007_ADAN_Turret`, with `UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S` appearing
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only twice across all runs — unsurprising, since `SYLPH_HUNT` was built to make
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turrets targets and `SYLPH_KEEPOUT` was tuned for them. So 42 kills were
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overwhelmingly the *wrong* 42.
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That gives a mundane explanation for the whole run of null results, and it does
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not require the frames reading or event-gating to be settled first.
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**Prediction:** destroying the phase-1 `UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S` squadrons should
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advance the phase, which is directly observable as `deployed` jumping from 41
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toward the phase-2 roster.
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**Test:** a pilot that prioritises `e010` over `e007` — a target-preference knob,
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not new decoding — and the existing probe watching `deployed`.
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This is 🟡, not ✅: the objective text is certain, but that *this particular
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objective* gates the phase advance is inference from the script's structure.
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---
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# The target-preference knob works, and the blocker is now combat, not RE (2026-08-24)
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## ✅ `SYLPH_PREFER` added and measured
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`pilot.py` gained a target-preference knob: a unit-name substring whose matches
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get their target score multiplied by 0.05 and everything else by 4.0. With
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`SYLPH_PREFER=e010`, one clean 320 s run (witness: **0 stalls**):
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| killed | count |
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|---|---|
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| `UN_e007_ADAN_Turret` | 8 |
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| `UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S` | **2** |
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The preference is real — `e010` kills went from about one *across all previous
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runs* to two in a single run — but it is **weak**: turrets still outnumber
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attackers 4:1 in the kill log. Target commitment (`COMMIT_MAX`, `COMMIT_DROP`)
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and simple proximity keep pulling the nose back to turrets, which are far more
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numerous.
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`deployed` stayed at **41** throughout. No phase advance.
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## 🚧 The blocker, quantified
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Phase 1's roster, by craft rather than by squadron:
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| unit | members | craft (`sum(n)`) |
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|---|---|---|
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| `UN_e007_ADAN_Turret` | 12 | **108** |
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| `UN_e106_ADAN_Destroyer` | 7 | 7 |
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| `UN_f001_TCAF_DeltaSaber_T` | 7 | 7 |
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| **`UN_e010_ADAN_Attacker_S`** | **4** | **16** |
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Clearing the marked attackers means destroying **16 craft**. At the measured rate
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of 2 per 320 s that is **~2560 s — roughly 43 minutes** of continuous
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verified-live flight, across many chained attaches, with a freeze rate of about
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two runs in five.
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**This is no longer a reverse-engineering problem.** Everything needed to observe
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the phase advance is built and validated: the roster link, the liveness read, the
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stall witness, chained attaches, the discard rule. What is missing is a pilot
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good enough to actually complete the mission objective, and that is game-playing
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work with an uncertain payoff.
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## The choice, which is the user's to make
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1. **Invest in the pilot** — better target selection, missiles, using the
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marker/lock the script keeps referring to. Uncertain, potentially several
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iterations, and drifts away from RE.
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2. **Accept the static answer.** The phase structure, per-phase rosters, route
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paths and objective texts are all decoded and cross-confirmed. Only the
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*trigger* is inferred rather than observed, and it is inferred from the game's
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own guide script naming the objective outright.
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3. **One very long run** — 40+ minutes of chained attaches — betting against the
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freeze rate.
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Recorded rather than chosen, because it is a question about how much effort this
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one confirmation is worth, not a technical unknown.
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