Syplheed-Reborn/docs/re/arsenal-develop-economy.md

The Arsenal develop economy, and what the save's blob indexes

2026-08-11. The save file's 54-byte blob was shown to be per-item development state by a runtime differential — one weapon bought, two entries moved, 2 → 4 for the item and 0 → 2 for the successor. That named the values. This note names the index space, and in passing recovers the whole develop economy from the disc.

Where the Arsenal gets its data

dat/GP_HANGAR_ARSENAL.pak carries one screen-config record per language whose fields point at the rest:

PATH  = dat\GP_HANGAR_ARSENAL.pak+eng\
WEAPON = weapon.tbl          STRINGS = strings.tbl
WEAPON_CATEGORIES = 8        Detail_Window_Known / Detail_Window_Unknown
ConditionToDevelop = 757,228   WeaponDesc = 734,502   Range = 891,73 …

WEAPON_CATEGORIES = 8 is the eight tabs the screen cycles with LB/RB (GUN, BEAM, LASER, MULTIPURPOSE MISSILE, ANTI-SHIP MISSILE, BOMB/ROCKET, CANNON, SPECIAL). The …= x,y fields are screen positions for that screen's labels — ConditionToDevelop is where the conditions text is drawn, not a condition.

eng\weapon.tbl — the item table (IDXD, schema 0x03c244b5, 66 records)

Its string pool opens with a stage list, then the literal key WEAPONS followed by the item ids in table order:

No_Equipment, Machiene_Cannon_MG1, Machiene_Cannon_MG2H, Machiene_Cannon_MG3,
Machiene_Cannon_MG5H, Broad_Sword_SG1, Swing_Sword_SG2H, Twin_Sword_SG3II,
Frail_GP37, Stiletto_BG1, Dagger_BG2, Rapier_BG4H, Pilum_BP, … , Wep_83,
Wep_84, Wep_85, NullWeapon_Arm1, NullWeapon_Arm2, NullWeapon_Arm3

The ids are grouped by the eight categories in the same order the screen shows them, which is why No_Equipment … Wep_83 is exactly 54 entries — the blob's length.

Each item then has a record: Size, Weight, Range, Power, Speed, Stage, MissionObjective, Dependency, Points. For the first record all of it reads straight out, and it matches the running game exactly:

field	disc	in-game DATA SHEET for Light Machine Gun MG I
Range	D	Range Class D
Power	E	Damage Class E
Speed	-	Speed Class –
Weight	0.3	Weight Class Light
Points	4000	4000 P on the develop row

Caveat, and it is a real one: IDXD string pools store each distinct string once, so from the second record onward every value that repeats an earlier string is absent from the token stream. Record 2 (MG2H) shows only its unique values — 0.4 and 3000 — and record 6 shows no number at all because its cost had already been seen. So weapon.tbl's per-item fields cannot be read from the pool alone; they need the binary node/index region, which is still undecoded (see the module docs in idxd.rs). The prose table below is the practical substitute.

eng\strings.tbl — the economy in prose (IXUD, UTF-16BE)

The same pak's string table holds, per item: the internal id, the display name, the description, and a "Conditions to obtain …" block that spells out the gate and the price:

Conditions to obtain Light Swivel Machine Gun MG2H — Completed development of the Light Machine Gun MG1 — Must spend 3000 points to develop

All 60 of them are extracted to captures/arsenal-develop-conditions.csv with the stage gate, the cost and the prerequisite split out. The shape of the economy:

• gates are stage completion (Complete Stage 1 … 15), a predecessor item (Completed development of the …), or an ace kill (Shoot down the ace pilot in Stage 11/13/14);
• costs run 3 000 → 350 000 points, and twenty items have no cost at all — they are granted the moment their gate opens (Tomahawk Alpha Rail Gun — Complete Stage 1), which is why they read as Developed in a list the player never spent points in;
• two items are anomalies worth flagging: Adhesive Mine B2A says "Must spend points to develop" with no number, and ten late entries (Ballista GSH, Designator LH, Smoke Marker Launcher, Bumble UV, Ballista 24 Rocket Launcher, Thrush 220AM, Divider L3GP, Mace GP25H, Thor Gun System, Spitfire BX) have a conditions header and no conditions — ❔ cut content or non-player weapons.

What the blob indexes: the first 32 entries, confirmed

Predicting the save state from the conditions and comparing against the actual blob is a strong test, because it is made before looking at the blob. At the captured state (Stage 1 complete, Stage 02 at standby, 4101 P) the conditions say exactly six items are developable — Light Machine Gun MG1, Broad Sword SG1, Dagger BG2, Pilum BP, Hound SMH, Dart 23 Rocket — and the blob's six 2s sit at WEAPONS-order indices 1, 5, 10, 12, 27, 31, which are those six items, in order. Nothing had to be fitted.

blob	value	item (WEAPONS order)	confirmed by
0	4	No_Equipment	always available
1	2→4	Machiene_Cannon_MG1	the differential: bought for 4000 P
2	0→2	Machiene_Cannon_MG2H	the differential: announced as newly developable
5	2	Broad_Sword_SG1	BROAD SWORD SG1 5000P, below the fold in the GUN list
9	4	Stiletto_BG1	Developed; "Initially Mounted"; mounted as NOSE WEAPON
10	2	Dagger_BG2	DAGGER BG2 5000P
12	2	Pilum_BP	PILUM BP 6000P
21	4	Falcon_9AM	Developed; "Initially Mounted"; mounted as MAIN WEAPON 1
22	4	Buzzard_10AM	Developed; free at Stage 1
26	4	Terrier_SMH	Developed; free at Stage 1
27	2	Hound_SMH	HOUND SMH 10000P
31	2	Dirt_23_Rocket	DART 23 ROCKET 3500P ("Dart" is the localised "Dirt")

Twelve concordances, no contradiction, over indices 0–31.

What the blob does not index: the tail is unexplained

Past index 31 the same alignment fails, and it fails against the screen, not against a theory:

• Tomahawk_a_Rail_Gun is WEAPONS index 38 and the CANNON list shows it Developed (it is free once Stage 1 is complete) — but blob[38] = 0.
• The blob's remaining 4s are at 33, 39, 45, 46, 47. In WEAPONS order those are EMP_Mine_B8E, Sling_75KG, Shield_Doubler, Booster, FireControlSystem — and every one of them is shown as not developed: BOMB/ROCKET lists only DART 23 ROCKET 3500P, CANNON only the Tomahawk, and the SPECIAL tab is entirely empty (all rows dashed). Their conditions agree — Shield Doubler needs Stage 12, Booster an ace kill in Stage 11, FCS Stage 6.

So five 4s in the tail correspond to nothing the Arsenal reports as owned, and one genuinely-owned item reads 0. A single +1 shift does not repair it either: blob[39] = 4 would put the Tomahawk right, but then blob[33] = 4 lands on Arrow_27_Rocket (Stage 2 + 5000 P, unreachable here) and 45/46/47 still land on locked SPECIAL items.

Tested actively, with a hand-written save

Waiting for a mission payout was not necessary. The save container's derived fields turned out to be reproducible (see savegame_edit.py — the whole container re-wraps byte-identically), so the blob could be written and the result read off the screen. A probe save was built in our own throwaway slot 03 with the blob zeroed except 0, 9, 21, 33, 38, 45 = 4 and 39, 46 = 2, and it loaded.

What it showed:

• The controls rendered. 9 → BEAM shows STILETTO BG1 Developed; 21 → MULTIPURPOSE MISSILE shows FALCON 9AM Developed. So a hand-written 4 does reach the screen, and indices 9 and 21 are those items — now by experiment, not by correlation.
• The tail probes rendered nothing. 33 should have made a BOMB/ROCKET row Developed (row 3 of that list, on screen, not below the fold) — it stayed dashed. 45 should have made a SPECIAL row Developed — the SPECIAL tab stayed entirely empty. And 38 should have been the Tomahawk — instead the CANNON list showed TOMAHAWK ALPHA RAIL GUN — 0 P, i.e. not owned.
• Clearing the real save's tail 4s cost the Tomahawk its status. In the unedited save the Tomahawk reads Developed while blob[38] = 0; the probe cleared {22, 26, 39, 46, 47} and the Tomahawk stopped being owned — so its flag is one of the cleared entries, with 39 the positional candidate. A uniform +1 shift past index 32 would explain that, but it fails elsewhere: under it the real save's 45/46/47 are Chaff Flare Dispencer / Shield Doubler / Booster, and the SPECIAL tab is empty in that same save.

So the tail is not a shifted copy of the list either. Status: ❔ — the value alphabet and indices 0–31 are settled; indices ≥32 are not, and must not go into the reimplementation. The next probe is cheap now that saves can be written: set one tail index at a time and read which row changes.

Two behaviours the probe exposed

• 2 is derived, not stored. On load the title recomputes which items are developable from its own conditions and announces the difference — zeroing Light Machine Gun MG1 and Broad Sword SG1 produced "You can now develop Broad Sword …" and both came back priced in the list. Only the owned (4) entries are authoritative state; writing 2 is pointless, and writing 0 over an item whose conditions are met is undone at load.
• The free items are bought for zero, not granted. TOMAHAWK ALPHA RAIL GUN — 0 P is what an unowned no-cost item looks like. That is the real reason a save where the player never spent points still shows items as Developed (this note previously said "granted" — the mechanism is a 0 P purchase).

Evidence

• captures/arsenal-develop-conditions.csv — all 60 conditions blocks.
• captures/arsenal-categories-all.png — the eight category tabs.
• captures/arsenal-gun-below-fold.png — Broad Sword SG1, the entry that is not visible without scrolling.
• captures/arsenal-probe-save-result.png — the hand-written save's result: controls at 9/21 render Developed, the tail probes render nothing, and the Tomahawk shows 0 P.
• captures/arsenal-gun-list-predevelop.png · captures/arsenal-mg1-developed.png — the differential itself.