eaab3b1ead
Grepping FrameCount first would have saved the previous iteration an overclaim. Withdrawn: the 8-value layout was not a discovery. stage-mission-tables already documents Route_* records as (time, quat.x,y,z,w, pos.x,y,z) with len(fields) == 8*FrameCount + 1 holding 1449 of 1449, and unit-group-table already documents 1 + 8*FrameCount for formation slot lists. I re-derived the shape from the asteroid tables and called slot 0 an "index" - it is the corpus's time slot. Corrected in asteroid-fields.md. What the asteroid pass did add is the norm test. The census the corpus was missing: both prior statements were measured on one table family each. Sweeping every IDXD record on the disc carrying a FrameCount - 10986 records, 10974 with anon == 8 * FrameCount, and the entire residual is 12 records: Formation_Fleet_01 (ratio 136) and Formation_Fleet_02 (ratio 4), six each, one per language pack. The two exceptions the doc already names are the only two on the disc. The quaternion is now measured, not asserted: over 78762 frames in five families, |q| is within 1e-4 of 1.0 on 78762 / 78762. Slot 0 is time only where something moves. It equals the running ordinal 0..N-1 in every formation (2196/2196), asteroid (384/384), placement (36/36) and test-route (24/24) record, and in only 6228 of 8334 real routes - the one family that stores true timestamps there. Two record families new to the corpus: Placement_00..02 and RouteTest_00..01, sharing a six-record template object whose sixth record is named Enumeration, two such objects per language pack. All fifteen artefacts byte-identical.
158 lines
8.4 KiB
Markdown
158 lines
8.4 KiB
Markdown
# The asteroid-field tables (`AsteroidGroup_00N`)
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**Status: ✅ decoded statically, 2026-08-28.** Every number below is an exact
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disc census over all 41 `.pak` archives using the corpus reader.
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## Where it sits in the chain
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[[stage-definition-table]] and [[stage-mission-tables]] already record that a
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stage's `Phase_N` block carries an **`AsteroidDefinition`** field naming a `.tbl`
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(`test_s8p1_asteroid.tbl` in the `_Test` template, `""` in most phases), and
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[[unit-datasheet-static]] already partitions the `Generic` records and finds
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**10 per pack whose only field is `{EnumAsteroidGroup}` — "an asteroid-group
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file"**. What neither says is what is *inside* those ten files.
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```
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Stage_SNN . Phase_N . AsteroidDefinition = "S04_asteroid.tbl"
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└── that object: Generic . EnumAsteroidGroup = "7"
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AsteroidGroup_000 … AsteroidGroup_006
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AsteroidModelName = mob_n050
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AsteroidFrameName = Frame_S04_Asteroid_01
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EnumAsteroid = 39
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```
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## ✅ The table
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**10 objects per pack × 6 `GP_MAIN_GAME_<lang>` packs = 60**, holding **384
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`AsteroidGroup_*` records** in total. Each object has **4 or 7** groups (12
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objects with 4, 48 with 7). Every group record carries exactly **three** fields,
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present on all 384 with no partials:
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| field | distinct values | what it is |
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|---|---:|---|
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| `AsteroidModelName` | 28 | the mesh — `mob_n050`…`mob_n056` (24 uses each) and `mob_n040`…`mob_n043` (18 each) |
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| `AsteroidFrameName` | 64 | `Frame_S<NN>[_pN]_Asteroid_NN` — the placement frame |
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| `EnumAsteroid` | 37 | a **count**, 1 … 588; 6 633 asteroids per pack summed |
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`Frame_S<NN>_Asteroid` is the same name [[regn-map-grid]] reports the mission
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`Route` tables showing independently — the frame is the join to the map data.
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## ✅ `Enum<Thing>` is a count; `Enumerate<Thing>` names a table
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`EnumAsteroidGroup` equals the number of `AsteroidGroup_*` records in its own
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object in **54 of 60** objects, and `EnumAsteroid` is a plain integer. That is
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the opposite of the `Enumerate*` convention, where the value is a child table's
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file name. **The `-erate` is the difference**, and it is worth checking the
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spelling before assuming which kind a field is.
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⚠️ `Count`-style fields still are not safe: the **6 failures are one object,
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repeated once per language pack** — it declares `4` and contains `7`.
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## 🔑 The tenth object is unreferenced, and it is the one that miscounts
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Joining the ten objects to the nine `AsteroidDefinition` values by frame prefix:
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| object's frame prefix | groups | declared | named by |
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|---|---:|---:|---|
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| `Frame_S01_Asteroid` | 4 | 4 | `S01_asteroid.tbl` |
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| `Frame_S04/S05/S13/S14_p1/S14_p2/S08_p1/S08_p2_Asteroid` | 7 | 7 | the matching `SNN[_pN]_asteroid.tbl` |
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| `Frame_Test_Asteroid` | 4 | 4 | `test_s8p1_asteroid.tbl` |
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| **`Frame_Alpha_S01_Asteroid` + `Frame_Alpha_S01_Haze` + `Frame_TAlpha_S01_Asteroid`** | **7** | **4** | **nothing** |
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Nine `AsteroidDefinition` names, nine matching objects, and a **tenth that no
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phase names** — an `Alpha` Stage-01 variant with its own `Haze` frames and a
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`TAlpha` set. It is also the only object whose declared count is wrong, which is
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what an abandoned table looks like.
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## 🔑 S28 has an asteroid *volume* but no asteroid *definition*
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[[mcol-collision]] lists **nine** `_AsteroidVolume_wp` collision meshes: S01,
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S04, S05, S08_p1, S08_p2, S13, S14_p1, S14_p2 and **S28_p1**. The nine
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`AsteroidDefinition` values are the same eight stages plus **`test_s8p1`**. So
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the two sets share eight and differ by one each: **`S28_p1` has the collision
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volume for an asteroid field but no table saying which rocks to scatter in it**,
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while `test_s8p1` has a table with no volume of its own.
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## ✅ `EnumAsteroid` is the frame record's `FrameCount` — 57/57 (2026-08-28)
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Each `AsteroidFrameName` is itself an **IDXD record name**. Those records carry
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one named field, **`FrameCount`**, and a run of anonymous ones:
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* **`EnumAsteroid` equals that record's `FrameCount` in 57 of 57** frames that
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have a record — **zero mismatches**, and the map is single-valued for all 64
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frame names.
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* The anonymous fields number **exactly 8 × `FrameCount`, on all 384 occurrences**
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(ratio histogram: `{8.0: 384}`). So the frame record is a table of
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**8 values per asteroid** — the placement data — and `EnumAsteroid` counts the
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rocks.
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[[mission-wave-arrivals]] already met these records: they were the outliers that
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broke its route-speed measurement, and it filtered them out by name, noting "the
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corpus already records that the 8-value frame is not universal". [[regn-map-grid]]
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already guessed the link — "a map's asteroids and debris, which the mission
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`Route` tables independently show as `Frame_S<NN>_Asteroid` records… stated as a
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reading, not a measurement; nothing here counts objects." **What neither says is
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that the count is exact.** Now it is measured.
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🔑 **The abandoned table lost its placement data too.** Exactly **7 of the 64**
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frame names have no record, and they are exactly the seven groups of the
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unreferenced object: `Frame_Alpha_S01_Asteroid_{01,02,04}`,
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`Frame_Alpha_S01_Haze_{01,02,03}`, `Frame_TAlpha_S01_Asteroid_03`. `57 + 7 = 64`,
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zero partials on either side.
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## ✅ The name→object join DOES reproduce by hash — with the path prefix
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Withdrawing the 🔴 from the first write-up. `AsteroidDefinition` values resolve
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to their objects' pak entry keys as **`name_hash("stage\" + name)`**, **9 of 9**,
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each landing on the object the frame-prefix join independently predicted. My
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first attempt hashed the bare file name; [[archive-naming]]'s resolver hashes
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`prefix + name` over a list of path prefixes, and `stage\` is the one that
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works here. (`Stage\` scores identically — the hash lower-cases.)
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**Two independent joins, 9/9 agreement**, and both leave the same tenth object
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unreferenced.
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## ✅ The 8 values are `index, quaternion(x,y,z,w), position(x,y,z)` (2026-08-28)
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Measured over every `Frame_*Asteroid*` record on the disc — **384 records,
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37 518 items** (6 253 per language pack × 6; the other 380 per pack belong to the
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seven record-less `Alpha` frames).
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🔴 **The layout itself is not new** — [[stage-mission-tables]] already documents
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`(time, quat.x, quat.y, quat.z, quat.w, pos.x, pos.y, pos.z)` for `Route_*`, and
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[[unit-group-table]] already documents `1 + 8·FrameCount` for formations. I wrote
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this up as if the shape were a discovery and called slot 0 an "index" without
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checking; the correction and the disc-wide census are in
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[[stage-mission-tables]]. What the asteroid measurement does add is the **norm
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test** and the fact that this family sets `time` to the ordinal. One raw item,
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for shape:
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```
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0 0.268744 0.505919 0.579670 0.579487 15667.14 -7199.61 -58794.88
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1 -0.053496 -0.540765 -0.260996 0.797868 -43571.37 -60583.68 -3417.80
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2 -0.696396 0.682371 …
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```
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| slot | test | result |
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|---|---|---|
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| 0 | equals the running index `0…N−1` | **37 518 / 37 518**, max **587** — and the largest `EnumAsteroid`/`FrameCount` is **588**, so the last index is `N−1`. ⚠️ This slot is the **`time`** of the shared keyframe layout ([[stage-mission-tables]]); the asteroid tables, having nothing that moves, set it to the ordinal — see the disc-wide census there |
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| 1–4 | is it a **unit quaternion**? `\|q\|` | **37 518 / 37 518 within 1e-4 of 1.0** (min 0.999999, max 1.000001) |
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| 4 | sign of the real part | min **+0.001**, never negative — the canonical **w-last** form, so the order is `(x, y, z, w)` |
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| 5–7 | position, metres | ranges **−163 858…+79 572**, **−114 308…+76 422**, **−105 224…+110 263** — inside the ±250 km half-extent of `mapmesh_box_500km` |
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And `len(anonymous fields) == 8 × FrameCount` on **384 of 384** records, zero
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mismatches.
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The unit-norm test is the control: an arbitrary 4-tuple has no reason to sit on
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the unit sphere, and **every one of the 37 518 does**. World unit = 1 metre, so
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these are metres from the map origin. **There is no scale slot** — an asteroid's
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size comes from its group's `AsteroidModelName`, which is why one group is one
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model plus one placement list.
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## 🟡 Not settled
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* Why `S28_p1` has an asteroid volume and no definition (S28 is the challenge
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mission that alone flies `rou_f004`, see [[stage-numbering-and-player-craft]]).
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* Whether the quaternion is object→world or world→object, and its handedness —
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the norm test cannot tell them apart.
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