Audit of what actually landed in context/ versus what only ever got said in
chat. Five gaps and one stale claim repeated in four files.
New env gates were the biggest hole -- BT_TORSO_LOG, BT_MYOMERS_LOG,
BT_MYOMERS_REPAIR_TEST, BT_SELF_DAMAGE and BT_POWER_DETACH_TEST were all in the
code and none of them in decomp-reference §6, which is supposed to be the hub.
Added with the reasoning that makes them usable: why the myomers probe samples
every frame while unpowered (the NoVoltage window is about a second and a 1 Hz
probe steps straight over it), why the repair test also forces Manual (or
AutoConnect restores power a frame later), why SELF_DAMAGE latches off at the
first death, and why DETACH_TEST taking a NAME is what proves failover rather
than a same-generator re-attach.
The 6am log day was in the code and the player bats but not the KB. Now in
build-and-run with the stem table, the unconditional append, the 8 MB part
roll-over and the BT_LOG-truncates trap, plus the operator-facing note in
operator-console and OPERATOR_GUIDE that you ask for the NEWEST log, never
"today's".
Recorded the crash-symbolization gap, which is the one with teeth. BTCrashFilter
writes a stack into the day log and its own comment claims "we hold the PDB". We
do not: no Release PDB is produced at all, and /O2 implies /Oy so the EBP walk is
unreliable anyway. When the Owens crash finally lands we get an address we cannot
resolve. Written down with the fix (/Oy-, /Zi + /DEBUG, archive the PDB per
build) rather than left as something I mentioned once.
New gotcha 22: HeatModelOff() reads simulationState == 1, i.e. "am I destroyed",
and has nothing to do with the heat model. Behaviour at the call sites is right,
the name is not, and while chasing #70 it reads as "novice pilots cannot twist"
and sends you hunting an experience-level bug that does not exist. Same misnomer
in torso/gyro/sensor headers.
Also documented the dist flavor trap, having nearly shipped it myself: mkdist
reads build/CMakeCache.txt, so a tree configured BT_STEAM=OFF silently produces
a -nosteam zip with no play_steam.bat and no steam_api.dll. OFF is the CMake
default; ON is the documented dev state.
Swept the stale `btl4.log` filename out of reconstruction-gotchas,
reconstruction-method, build-and-run and CLAUDE.md itself -- the log has been
<stem>_YYYYMMDD.log since 1777d5a and every "read btl4.log" instruction was
pointing at a file that is no longer written.
checkctx CLEAN.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Operator report: "X-closing the game leaves the terminal open and leaves
orphaned processes." Investigated on the rig against 4.11.600.
The terminal half is real and is THIS: :btwait polled
`tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq btl4.exe"`, which is machine-wide, so a bat that
launched nothing at all keeps spinning while an unrelated instance lives --
proved with btwait_probe.ps1. A second client, the operator's own pod, or an
orphan from a crash therefore hangs every join window, which reads as "the game
never exited" and invites people to start killing processes. All four
launchers carried the identical block.
Fix: snapshot the btl4 PIDs alive BEFORE the launch; wait only on PIDs absent
from that snapshot. The `if /I "%%P"=="btl4.exe"` guard is deliberately kept --
tokens=2 alone parses tasklist's "INFO: No tasks are running" line as a PID and
spins forever with nothing running, which would be worse than the bug.
Verified with the text lifted verbatim from the shipped play_solo.bat: nothing
running -> signs off (the regression guard); someone else's instance -> signs
off; our own generation -> keeps waiting; decoy gone -> signs off. The patched
bat still launches (pid + launch_report.txt). NOT verified: the full handoff
E2E, because the bat blocks on the FE menu waiting for a human.
The orphan half did NOT reproduce on 600: closing the MAIN window exits cleanly
in ~1s during solo model-load, in the relay join wait, and after a real console
launch, with the relay logging the seat freed. The orphans the playtesters saw
match 584 and earlier, where every close relaunched. Full write-up, including
the aux windows that hide instead of closing and the WM_QUIT that BTLoadPump
swallows, in phases/phase-12-orphan-processes.md.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The bare-launch crash was a symptom; the cause is that BT411 hands players a
developer tree. mkdist zips tracked repo paths verbatim, so the dist inherited
build\Release\btl4.exe + content\ -- while the 1995 pod (BTL4OPT.EXE sits
beside BTL4.RES to this day, in content\) and RP411/RP412 all ship ONE folder,
where cwd is right by construction and a double-click just works.
docs/DIST_LAYOUT_PLAN.md sets out the proposed tree, the file-by-file change
(~50 lines total, no game code), what it buys, and the part that actually needs
a decision: the upgrade story. Four migration options with a recommendation,
plus the wrinkle that decides between them -- the zip root is VERSIONED, so
every version may already land in its own folder, in which case the documented
extract-over-top has never worked and the migration cost is near zero.
Four open questions listed for the other author, including whether the .bat
launchers still earn their keep and whether the pod cabinet's own install shape
should be confirmed against Nick's notes before we call one folder authentic
for the cabinet too.
Not implemented pending that discussion. The 4.11.560 cwd guard stands either
way and makes both layouts work.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The 1995 pod and RP411/RP412 ship ONE folder (BTL4OPT.EXE sits beside BTL4.RES
to this day, in content\); BT411's build\Release + content\ split is an artifact
of mkdist zipping tracked repo paths, not a decision -- and it is the reason
this class of bug exists here and nowhere else.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The egg generator's known-good list was just bhk1+madcat (the only two
ever exercised as egg vehicles); the operator roster therefore leaned on
those. Swept every ModelList candidate as a solo egg vehicle: 18/18
boot a mission, spawn, and animate with no crash -- avatar, blkhawk,
loki, owens, sunder, thor, vulture and all short variants (ava1, lok1/2,
mad1/2, own1, snd1, thr1, vul1) join bhk1/madcat as first-class picks.
eggmodel now lists the canonical 8 first for the operator dropdown.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
4.10 = the 1995 arcade release; 4.11 = the win32 reconstruction; the
build number is the git commit count -- monotonic, zero-maintenance,
and every exe pins to exact source via the short hash ('+' = built
from an uncommitted tree). tools/btversion.cmake regenerates
build/btversion.h on every build (write-if-changed, no rebuild churn);
the stamp shows in the boot banner (btl4.log head, replacing the stale
'v4.10' line) and the window title (incl. the MP node tag).
Verified: build stamps 4.11.311 (980c9cd+), banner + title correct on
a live boot.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Interim pod-like grouping ahead of the authentic ConfigureMappables/
ChooseButton mapper channels (decomp-anchored in open-questions):
- Three fire channels like three pod buttons: gBTWeaponTrigger (lasers,
key 1 or SPACE), gBTPPCTrigger (PPCs, key 2), gBTMissileTrigger
(missiles, key 3 or CTRL). Keyboard only per user (mouse buttons
removed).
- EmitterSimulation picks its channel by classID (PPC 3028 vs Emitter
3016); BT_AUTOFIRE holds all three.
- The BT_BEAM_LOG sampler modulus 30 aliased to ONE weapon under the
new synchronized 5-beam volleys (5 | 30) -> 31 (coprime).
Verified: all 5 energy weapons fire (31 samples each), aimed hits land,
kill completes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
CydandClaude Opus 5