Four probes against slot 01 (the save the title-menu screens read), each backed up
and restored byte-identically:
- SHAB[1..7] filled -> MISSION SELECT still locks Stage02-08, cursor will not
leave Stage01. The per-stage record table is not the unlock gate; the earlier
SHAB[1] attempt used a throwaway slot and could not show this.
- GHAD +36/+52/+56 = 5 -> still locked, panel still STAGE 02 / EASY.
- GHAD +16 = 4 -> panel still STAGE 02, so it is not a 0-based stage index.
- live-RAM writes into the loaded GDHA header -> panel unchanged.
The useful part is why the panel cannot answer this: guest RAM at that screen holds
NO payload bytes (neither the 4101/4101/79 triple nor the 54-byte develop blob),
but it does hold the save's GDHA container header with a summary copy of Points,
flight time, clear ratio and a FILETIME. savegame_edit.py copies the donor header
verbatim, so a payload edit leaves that summary stale — "the panel did not change"
therefore cannot separate "not the stage field" from "the panel never reads the
payload". Future stage/difficulty probes must patch the header too, or be judged by
what the game does on load.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NptfmpjdpNCKEez6d2xvA9
Claude (auto-RE)
0cf9220d24