Death = the burning WRECK-HULK swap (effect 104) -- the authentic chain, reconstructed

The user was right: a dead mech turns into a pile of wreckage.  The authentic
1995 chain, recovered end-to-end:

  kill -> the victim's per-mech DEATH ModelList ('blhdead'/'lokdead'/'owndead'/
  'thrdead', .RES ids 22-25) -> its authored effects: 104 (the WRECK script) +
  1007 (dnboom big explosion) + 1001 (ddthsmk rubble smoke plume) + a damage-
  smoke burst (3/4/5/15).

Effect 104 = ExplosionScripts case 4 (part_008.c:2663, LIVE in the 1996 binary;
the "disabled" warning is case 6): loads the destroyed hulk + flamesml/flamebig
flame meshes with sweep flicker.  Every mech ships its hulk (BLHDBR/MADDBR/
LOKDBR/... + GENDBR generic); the 1996 script hardcoded thrdbr.bgf (dev
shortcut) -- we use the victim's own.

Reconstructed as BTL4VideoRenderer::SwapToWreck: hide every segment mesh, hang
"<prefix>dbr.bgf" on the tree root (pending-swap if death precedes tree build);
routed from the engine's ExplosionClassID dispatch (effect 104 ->
BTSwapMechToWreck(explosion->GetEntityHit())).  The kill now fires the
authentic 'blhdead' resource (manual 7+1 pfx calls removed -- the list carries
1007/1001 itself).  Verified live:
  [death] firing authentic death list 'blhdead' id=22
     ** effect_number = 104
  [BTrender] wreck swap: victim -> 'blhdbr.bgf'

Follow-ups noted: mesh flames + hulk settle (cosmetic), DeathSplash.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

scratchpad/anibmp.py

@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+import struct
+data = open(r'C:\git\bt411\content\BTL4.RES', 'rb').read()
+labOnly, maxID = struct.unpack_from('<ii', data, 4)
+offs = struct.unpack_from('<%dI' % maxID, data, 12)
+
+# resource record: [id][type][name 32][size?][dataOffset?] -- find layout empirically
+# checkres used: rid, rt at +0, +4; name at +8..+40.  Locate stream bounds via the
+# next resource's offset (records are packed with their data).
+recs = []
+for o in offs:
+    if o == 0:
+        continue
+    rid, rt = struct.unpack_from('<ii', data, o)
+    nm = data[o + 8:o + 40].split(b'\0')[0].decode('ascii', 'replace')
+    recs.append((o, rid, rt, nm))
+recs.sort()
+
+def stream_of(target_id):
+    for i, (o, rid, rt, nm) in enumerate(recs):
+        if rid == target_id:
+            end = recs[i + 1][0] if i + 1 < len(recs) else len(data)
+            # header: id,type,name32 then likely [size][...]; data runs to `end`
+            return data[o:end], nm
+    return None, None
+
+def root_y(rid, label):
+    blob, nm = stream_of(rid)
+    if blob is None:
+        print(label, rid, 'NOT FOUND'); return
+    # find the ANI payload: after the 40-byte record header there may be extra
+    # header ints; the payload starts [A][B][x] with plausible counts.
+    for hdr in range(40, 72, 4):
+        A, B = struct.unpack_from('<ii', blob, hdr)
+        if 1 <= A <= 200 and 1 <= B <= 100:
+            payload = blob[hdr:]
+            # root channel = last (A+1)*12 bytes
+            need = (A + 1) * 12
+            if need > len(payload):
+                continue
+            tail = payload[len(payload) - need:]
+            ys = [struct.unpack_from('<3f', tail, k * 12) for k in range(A + 1)]
+            print('%s (id %d, %r): A=%d kf, B=%d joints, hdr=%d' % (label, rid, nm, A, B, hdr))
+            print('  root (x,y,z) per kf:')
+            for k, v in enumerate(ys):
+                print('   kf%02d  x=%8.3f  y=%8.3f  z=%8.3f' % (k, v[0], v[1], v[2]))
+            return
+    print(label, rid, 'no plausible header found; first ints:',
+          struct.unpack_from('<8i', blob, 40))
+
+root_y(908, 'blhbmp (knockdown)')
+print()
+root_y(898, 'blhwwl (walk-left, baseline)')

scratchpad/ml104.py

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+import struct, re
+data = open(r'C:\git\bt411\content\BTL4.RES', 'rb').read()
+labOnly, maxID = struct.unpack_from('<ii', data, 4)
+offs = struct.unpack_from('<%dI' % maxID, data, 12)
+recs = []
+for o in offs:
+    if o == 0:
+        continue
+    rid, rt = struct.unpack_from('<ii', data, o)
+    nm = data[o + 8:o + 40].split(b'\0')[0].decode('ascii', 'replace')
+    recs.append((o, rid, rt, nm))
+recs.sort()
+print('=== all type-1 ModelLists ===')
+ml = [(o, rid, nm) for (o, rid, rt, nm) in recs if rt == 1]
+for o, rid, nm in ml:
+    print('  id=%4d %-14s' % (rid, nm))
+print(len(ml), 'total')
+print()
+print('=== strings inside each ModelList stream (video object names = effect numbers) ===')
+for i, (o, rid, rt, nm) in enumerate(recs):
+    if rt != 1:
+        continue
+    end = recs[i + 1][0] if i + 1 < len(recs) else len(data)
+    blob = data[o + 40:end]
+    strs = re.findall(rb'[ -~]{1,12}', blob)
+    toks = [s.decode() for s in strs if s.strip()]
+    print('  id=%4d %-12s -> %s' % (rid, nm, toks[:10]))