THE HEADLINE: the port's death sweep was a total no-op, and fixing it required
fixing the arg gate in the same commit -- otherwise corpses refill their ammo.
STEP 2 -- the authentic dispatch shape:
* engine/MUNGA/SUBSYSTM.h: Subsystem::DeathShutdown gains the binary's
universal base body { DeathReset(c) } (@004ad10e). It was empty, and NO
port class overrode it, so everything the 1995 game does at death was
skipped entirely.
* mech4.cpp death sweep now passes 0, not 1 (the binary's @0049fe0c arg) --
the wreck shape: alarms/state settle, nothing refills.
* ARG PROPAGATION (mandatory once the sweep runs): AmmoBin::DeathReset is now
arg-gated exactly as @004bd26c -- refill only when arg != 0, ammoAlarm
unconditional. Ignoring the arg was harmless only while the sweep was
dead; with it restored, every corpse would have re-armed. Also forwarded
in PoweredSubsystem / HeatSink / Condenser / HeatableSubsystem / Generator
(each binary body forwards it -- verified addresses in the plan).
STEP 4 -- coverage for 5 classes that had an authentic slot-10 body but no
DeathReset, so the respawn sweep fell through to the empty base:
Torso (this is Gitea #70 -- "loosing torso twist function after a death"),
Gyroscope, Myomers, HUD, Seeker.
STEPS 0/1 -- observability + the David chain:
* Three unconditional matchlog rows: DEAD_NOTIFY (mech + resolved link),
PLAYER_LINK (player <-> vehicle), RESPAWN (mode/alive/zones/subsys/pos).
A respawn was previously INVISIBLE in the matchlog -- night 3's analysis
had to infer them from ammo arithmetic.
* Mech::PlayerLinkMessageHandler + the death dispatch site: when the engine's
one-shot registry lookup misses (no null check, no retry -> the whole
death/respawn cycle silently swallowed), recover the SAME object via the
reverse link the binary's own respawn branch walks (player+0x1FC ==
playerVehicle). Complete-type TU, no raw offsets.
* deathPending cleared in the first-spawn branch (a latch carried in would
permanently kill every later respawn -- the #57 class).
VERIFIED on the 2-pod rig (madcat vs thor, forced kills, 5 death/respawn cycles
per pod): build clean, ZERO new /FORCE unresolved externs from the 5 new
overrides; refill lines appear ONLY immediately before a Mech::Reset and NEVER
between a death and the next respawn (the corpse-refill regression this commit
had to pre-empt); all three probe rows present in both pods' matchlogs; every
DEAD_NOTIFY carried a non-null link.
DELIBERATELY DEFERRED (documented, not forgotten): the mechsub.cpp rename pair
(ResetToInitialState -> GenerateFault, ClearStatus -> the root reset @004ac22c),
deleting HeatableSubsystem::ResetToInitialState, and deleting RespawnRepair.
Those need the HeatableSubsystem vtable-slot-10 pre-flight the plan calls for,
and we have no binary image here to dump the vtable from -- guessing at it
risks the vptr-alias trap. Next session with the decomp shards open.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Clean, self-contained extraction of the BattleTech-specific work from the
reverse-engineering workspace -- engine + game + content + build, with nothing
from Red Planet or the raw archive dumps. Builds green (Win32) and runs the
single-player drive->animate->target->fire->damage->destroy loop out of the box.
Layout:
engine/ MUNGA + MUNGA_L4 shared 2007 engine, carrying our BT render/loader
work (bgfload/L4D3D/L4VIDEO: BSL bit-slice decode, LOD/ground/shadow
models) + image codec; the minimal rp/ headers the audio HAL needs
game/ reconstructed BT logic + surviving-original BT source + fwd shims
+ WinMain launcher
content/ full runtime tree (BTL4.RES, VIDEO/, GAUGE/, AUDIO/, eggs, BTDPL.INI)
docs/ format specs + reconstruction ledgers
reference/ raw Ghidra pseudocode (recon source-of-truth) + decomp exporter
tools/ MP console emulator + map/resource scanners
One top-level CMake builds munga_engine lib + bt410_l4 game lib + btl4.exe.
All paths relativized (186 fwd shims + ~437 CMake abs paths -> repo-relative);
DXSDK is the one external, overridable via -DDXSDK. Verified: builds to a
byte-identical 2.27MB exe and runs combat (TARGET DESTROYED, 0 crashes) against
the bundled content.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
