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+# Capital-ship placement — does the `e106` result generalise? (WIP, 2026-07-31)
+
+**Status:** 🚧 **WIP, time-boxed session.** Two results so far: a static audit across all
+22 stage containers (done, below) and a first in-mission F10 capture run in Stage 02
+(done — three capture logs, but **no capital-ship part correlated**; see "Open").
+
+Context: [`BACKLOG.md`](BACKLOG.md) — "Capital ships assemble wrong in the viewer",
+reported 2026-07-30. The oracle and the correlator already exist
+([`ship-placement-runtime-capture.md`](ship-placement-runtime-capture.md)); the open
+question is whether the rules derived from the one validated ship (`e106`, Stage_S01)
+hold for other classes.
+
+## 1. Static audit across all stages (offline, reproducible)
+
+```
+cargo run --release --example ship_audit -- ../sylph_extract/hidden/resource3d
+```
+
+87 lines of output, of which:
+
+- **Only two OUTLIER lines, and they are the same ship twice**:
+  `Stage_S03`/`Stage_S27`, `f002_bdy_05` centroid `[-1398 6251 918]`, `dist=6540`
+  vs a cluster spread of `1071`. Every other assembled ship in every other stage
+  has all parts inside its own cluster.
+  → **The user-visible breakage is NOT a gross static-placement outlier for most
+  classes.** Whatever is wrong in the viewer is either subtler than "part flung far
+  away" (wrong rotation, wrong mirror, missing part) or lives in the viewer, not in
+  `assemble_ship`. `f002_bdy_05` is a genuine, separate, reproducible static bug.
+- **MULTIKEY**: joint tracks with more than one keyframe, which `read_trs9`'s
+  single-key read does not model. Recurring rigs: `e_rou_f104` (3), `e_rou_f105` (2),
+  `e_rou_f106` (2), `e_rou_e102` (6), `e_rou_e108_Missile_open` (2), `e_rou_e501` (1),
+  and the `e901` boss with 2–15 tracks per pose. Several of these (`Missile_open`, the
+  `e901_attack*` poses) are obviously *animation* and harmless for a static pose; the
+  plain hull rigs `f104`/`f105`/`f106`/`e102` are **not** obviously animation and are
+  the best hypothesis for a class-specific assembly error. ❔ **HYPOTHESIS — not
+  verified.** `e106`, the one validated ship, has **no** multikey tracks, which is
+  exactly how a rule that only works for single-key rigs could have passed unnoticed.
+
+Raw audit output is reproducible with the command above (not checked in; it is
+deterministic from the disc).
+
+## 2. First in-mission capture run (Stage 02)
+
+New tool: [`tools/re-capture/ship_capture_session.sh`](../../tools/re-capture/ship_capture_session.sh)
+— one blocking session (per the session-lifetime rule): boot → Stage 02 in flight →
+N× {screenshot, F10, small yaw}. Each F10 writes its own
+`xenia_ship_capture_NN.log` next to the binary.
+
+Run 2026-07-31, 5 presses requested:
+
+- **Boot to in-flight took 24 s** (`skip_intro.sh` skipped the movie at 1 s and 6 s,
+  title at 11 s, HUD shield bar at 24 s) — much faster than the ~100 s in the notes.
+- **3 of 5 F10 presses produced a log** (`_01`…`_03`, 2964 / 3111 / 3668 draws).
+  Logs (8–10 MB each) and the screenshots are at `/sylph-home/re/shipcap/`; not
+  committed for size. One screenshot is checked in as
+  [`captures/shipcap-stage02-launch.png`](captures/shipcap-stage02-launch.png).
+- The screenshot confirms the capture frames are real in-mission combat frames
+  (HUD live, `REMAINING OB 004`, ACROPOLIS + a Destroyer labelled on screen, a
+  capital-ship hull filling the bottom of the frame).
+
+### Result: no correlation yet ❌
+
+```
+correlate_capture xenia_ship_capture_03.log Stage_S02 <id> bdy_01
+```
+for `f101` (ACROPOLIS), `f105`, `f106`, `e105` reports *"no draw matches any LOD
+(culled/off-screen?)"* for essentially every part — only two speculative LOD tries
+(`f101_bdy_03` vcount 90 `[l]`, `e105_wep_01` vcount 60 `[l]`) and **zero accepted
+matches**.
+
+That is a **negative result, and it is not yet explained**. Facts collected:
+
+- The capture is not empty or degenerate: 3668 draws in `_03`, top shaders
+  `0xDA51B0745ABF85D2` (1258), `0xE0BAFB4F520FE441` (1091), `0xEEA84C59D7F95371` (770).
+  None is the `e106` ship-shader hash from the 2026-07-26 capture; the F10 path does
+  not filter by hash, so this alone is not the cause.
+- Large vertex counts *are* present (3024, 2772, 1736, 1612, 1240 …), so capital-ship-
+  sized geometry is being drawn.
+
+Candidate explanations, **untested**:
+1. the Stage-02 capital ships on screen are drawn from LOD/damage variants
+   (`_d00`, `_m`, `_l`) whose vcounts the correlator's variant list does not cover;
+2. the position-validation step rejects otherwise-correct vcount hits (the capture
+   dumps ≤64 positions — a set-membership test against the wrong variant fails);
+3. the ships in view at launch are drawn by a *different* draw path than `e106` in
+   Stage_S01 (e.g. instanced/batched), so no single draw equals one part.
+
+**First step next session:** take the largest few vcounts in the capture and ask which
+decoded part in `Stage_S02.xpr` has that count (invert the match), instead of asking
+per-part whether a draw exists. That distinguishes (1)/(2) from (3) immediately.
+
+## Honest summary
+
+- ✅ Static assembly is **not** grossly broken across stages — 1 outlier ship
+  (`f002_bdy_05`), reproducible.
+- 🟡 A concrete, testable hypothesis for class-specific breakage exists (multikey joint
+  tracks on `f104`/`f105`/`f106`/`e102`; `e106` has none).
+- ❌ The runtime oracle did **not** reproduce on a second ship class yet. The capture
+  pipeline works end-to-end (boot → F10 → logs); the correlation step is where it
+  stops. **NEEDS-HUMAN / next session**, do not assume the `e106` rules generalise.
diff --git a/tools/re-capture/ship_capture_session.sh b/tools/re-capture/ship_capture_session.sh
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+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# ONE blocking session: boot -> Stage 02 in flight -> sweep the view and press
+# F10 several times, so each press dumps xenia_ship_capture_NN.log with whatever
+# capital ships are on screen at that moment.
+#
+# Why a sweep and not a single press: the 2026-07-26 e106 capture missed the
+# bridge because it was culled at that camera angle. Several presses at
+# different headings cost nothing (the capture is a one-frame draw dump) and
+# each one is independently correlatable.
+#
+# Usage: ship_capture_session.sh [presses] [out_dir]
+set -u
+export HOME=/sylph-home/re SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy DISPLAY=:98
+SD="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")" && pwd)"
+PRESSES="${1:-6}"
+OUT="${2:-/sylph-home/re/shipcap}"
+BINDIR="/home/fabi/RE - Project Sylpheed/xenia-canary-native/build/bin/Linux/Release"
+SHOTS=/sylph-home/re/shots
+mkdir -p "$OUT" "$SHOTS"
+
+rm -f "$BINDIR"/xenia_ship_capture_*.log
+
+"$SD/launch_mission.sh" fly || { echo "BOOT FAILED"; exit 1; }
+
+# F10 goes to the emulator window through XTEST; the window must be focused.
+win="$(xdotool search --class -- xenia | tail -1)"
+[ -z "$win" ] && win="$(xdotool search --name -- Xenia | tail -1)"
+echo "WINDOW=$win"
+[ -n "$win" ] && { xdotool windowactivate "$win" 2>/dev/null; xdotool windowfocus "$win" 2>/dev/null; }
+
+for i in $(seq 1 "$PRESSES"); do
+  screenshot "$SHOTS/shipcap-$i.png" >/dev/null 2>&1
+  if [ -n "$win" ]; then xdotool key --window "$win" F10; else xdotool key F10; fi
+  sleep 3
+  # Yaw a little between presses so a culled part gets another chance, and the
+  # craft keeps closing on the friendly formation (the capital ships).
+  vgamepad axis LX 0.45; sleep 1.2; vgamepad axis LX 0.0
+  sleep 3
+done
+
+sleep 2
+cp -v "$BINDIR"/xenia_ship_capture_*.log "$OUT"/ 2>/dev/null
+cp -v "$SHOTS"/shipcap-*.png "$OUT"/ 2>/dev/null
+grep -c '^DRAW' "$OUT"/xenia_ship_capture_*.log 2>/dev/null
+echo "CAPTURE SESSION DONE"