Claude (auto-RE)
882dbc2ae2
Made a second save in-game (READY ROOM -> SYSTEM -> SAVE GAME -> empty slot) so the format had a differential to read against. nav_probe.sh drives it: boot to the READY ROOM, walk a scripted step list, screenshot after every step and stamp every save file's md5, so the trail says which keypress wrote a save. That stamp is what caught the first attempt failing -- the save confirm starts on YES, unlike the load confirm which starts on NO, so the load flow's extra up-press selected NO and wrote nothing. Result 1: saving the same loaded state into a new slot produces a BYTE-IDENTICAL 545-byte payload. Only the GDHA header moves, and every byte that moves is either the container FILETIME or one of the guest-pointer words -- which empirically confirms those words are uninitialised padding rather than data. So the payload holds no timestamp, no slot number and no name; a save's identity is entirely in its content header. Result 2: the LOAD/SAVE screen's Details panel prints Points 4101 P, Flight Time 000:05:24 and Clear Ratio 5 % for exactly this state, which names GHAD +24 (Points), +4 (flight time in ms -- 324773 ms = 5m24.773s) and +8 (clear ratio %). Difficulty EASY and STAGE 02 both being 2, and three fields holding 2, is left undecided on purpose: one save cannot separate them. Result 3: the 16 SHAB records are not the UI's save slots. The UI has 20, slots are separate gameNN files, and record 0's FILETIME stayed at 2026-07-23 in a save written on 2026-08-11 -- so the table is part of the game state, most likely a per-stage result record (one stage finished, one record filled), which the next cleared stage will falsify or confirm. The original save was backed up first and is untouched; the new save went to an empty slot.
Runtime-capture harness (sylph-re container)
Screenshot-driven scripts for reading the running retail game's menus under Xenia
Canary + lavapipe, headless. They assume the container helpers screenshot,
vgamepad, pad are on $PATH and HOME=/sylph-home/re.
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
skip_intro.sh |
Boot → main menu, unattended. Taps A only while the intro movie is actually playing (frame-to-frame RMSE), then once at the PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON title. Static logo screens are left alone, so a stray tap can never land on NEW GAME. |
wait_title.sh |
Older variant: wait for the title (green Ⓐ glyph at px 625,618) and tap A. Superseded by skip_intro.sh. |
step.sh |
One Arsenal navigation step (down/up/next/prev/none) + a compact capture: weapon list stacked over the DATA SHEET. |
sweep.sh |
Walk a whole weapon-type list, capturing only rows that show a DATA SHEET — locked rows (a "Conditions to Develop" panel) are detected by the brightness of the Range Class label box and skipped. |
type.sh |
Change weapon-type tab N times (RB) and report the header strip. |
hp.sh / cyc.sh |
Hangar hard-point carousel: cyc.sh steps it (d-pad down, not left/right) and captures the Name + DATA SHEET. |
Input timing under lavapipe: the game polls input at its own low frame rate, so a 60 ms d-pad tap is dropped roughly half the time. 200 ms is reliable; 300 ms starts to auto-repeat (two rows per press).
Findings produced with these: docs/re/weapon-datasheet-runtime.md.
Guest-memory tools (no screenshots)
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
gmem.py |
Read the live guest address space out of /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* (Xenia's backing file), addressed by guest VA. find / read / words. |
weapon_runtime.py |
Solve the Weapon/Shell struct layouts against the disc records and read the fields the disc defaults. |
unit_discover.py |
Find which runtime class carries a set of ID strings, assuming no vtable: tallies the word at pointer_site - k across distinct IDs. |
unit_runtime.py |
Same solver for the unit\UN_*.tbl definition objects (vtable 0x820af844). Unions several snapshots — unit definitions are per-stage. |
schema_order.py |
Merge a sub-record's field-declaration order across all tables (topological sort); the layout check that pins fields no table ever values. |
order_check.py |
Test offset = base + 4*index for one table's sub-record against solver output. |
grab_tutorial.sh |
Cold-boot Canary, walk to the Nth TUTORIAL entry, wait for the stage load, snapshot guest RAM. One emulator per capture — backing out of a loaded mission wedges it. |
Snapshot first — cp --sparse=always /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* snap.bin (~2 s) — and
point $GMEM_FILE at the copy; the running emulator pegs every core under lavapipe.