Players: "the actual enemy mech in external view is not showing darkened armor
panels". We swapped destroyed LIMB meshes but never darkened a panel.
The 1995 game darkens armour through the MATERIALS. MakeMechRenderables
(FUN_004cef28) built, per (damage zone, material), a watcher
FUN_004573e4(material, &zone->damageLevel, 0.1f) that snapshotted the materials
pool held dangling entity pointers across round teardown
Root cause (disasm-pinned on the shipped 4.11.659 exe): RajelAran's crash
(call to 0x65676769 = ASCII 'igge', EBP-walk return btl4+0x2b91a) is the
tgt->Dispatch vtable call in BTUpdateProjectiles' NON-MECH impact branch
(mech4.cpp:1598; the site matches the disasm literally -- the 0x12/0x64
TakeDamageMessage ctor, the EntityID::Null ternary, the getenv gate after).
The trap: the mech branch is guarded by BTIsRegisteredMech(tgt) -- but at
round teardown a destroyed mech is DEREGISTERED, so a round still in
flight (the pool is a static array that outlives the round; missiles are
slow, #84) holding it as p.target now FAILS the mech check and falls into
the !BTIsRegisteredMech branch, which treats the freed mech as a cultural
icon and dispatches into freed memory. The liveness check itself routed
the dangling pointer into the unguarded branch. Freed heap reused by a
string -> vtable slot +0x10 read 'igge' -> call 0x65676769. (The EBP
walker explains the stack shape: the faulting call pushed its return
address on ESP, but the walk reads [EBP+4] = PerformAndWatch's frame.)
Fix -- scrub at the source of truth:
- BTProjectilesDropEntity(e): every pool entry drops a dying entity from
p.target/p.shooter; called from ~Mech and ~CulturalIcon (the only free
paths for targetable entities). Flight + impact code is already
null-guarded on both fields.
- BTProjectilesClearAll(): kills all rounds at RunMissions exit (cross-
mission hygiene for the static pool).
Verified: 6 short-mission cycles (45s missions with a spawned dummy +
autofire, mission expiring mid-combat) -- 0 exceptions, 6/6 clean
'RunMissions returned'. The original crash was a heap-reuse race with no
deterministic repro; the scrub eliminates the dangling-pointer class by
construction. (Bench note: blind autofire never launches missiles -- the
launcher needs a target lock -- so the exact in-flight race was not
re-created; the non-regression + the pinned mechanism carry the verdict.)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019Zh7PTkFy4KwTzVighLR9J
A. KNOCKDOWN PACING: the 0.4s gBlockCooldown contact-hysteresis is gone.
It suppressed the crash knockdown for as long as contact was held, letting
the kinematic drive re-slam the obstacle at full commanded speed EVERY
FRAME -- continuous full-price crash self-damage, a healthy 65-tonner dead
in ~2-3s of grinding (the night-7 SAURON ram death, 110 priced frames at
|v|~34.7). The binary needs no guard (crash threshold @0x4ab178 read from
the exe = 0.0, dispatch per blocked frame is authentic): the bmp clip
zeroes the drive, and a pressed mech re-triggers the knockdown at v>6.3
long BEFORE its grind can price anything -- the type-0 divert's 0.5-pt
free floor needs v>~18.5 at 65t. Wall grinding is free taps + paced
staggers; only genuine fast arrivals pay.
B. RAW RAM DISPATCH: the *0.001 "ram economy normalization" (2026-07-12)
predated the #83 type-0 divert and became a double-normalization -- the
victim's divert scale (~4e-5) compounded with it, so NO physically
possible ram could clear the 0.5-pt free floor: rams were a no-op against
the victim while the rammer's own un-scaled crash path rattled for real.
The binary dispatches raw [T1 @part_012:15324]; the divert IS the
normalizer. Also un-starves cultural-icon crunches (trucks now crush on
contact per their authored armor, not after ~19 bumps).
Bench (scratchpad/night7/mp_rampricing.sh):
- wall leg: 150s full-throttle wall push = 125 paced knockdown binds
(~1.2s cadence, iv2 40-43), 4767 crash frames ALL under the free floor,
0 rattle, 0 deaths (pre-fix: dead in seconds).
- ram leg: BT_GOTO=enemy + BT_GOTO_STOP=2 rams the peer; raw amount
arrives byte-identical on the victim (66239.1 tx == rx), victim prices
2.55 pts internal rattle (first ram damage to a victim in the port's
history), pressed follow-ups free, 0 deaths both nodes, 108 knockdowns
-> exactly 108 type-5 records on the observer (no skating regression).
KB swept: combat-damage.md (the 1.3e6 moverMass mis-attribution corrected
to the measured 60-90k tonnage scale), locomotion.md, rendering.md.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019Zh7PTkFy4KwTzVighLR9J
falling-edge latch was blind to zone-less (collision) deaths
The peer wreck lifecycle listened to two different signals: wreck ON came
from the replicated death explosion (unconditional), wreck OFF from a
damage-zone falling edge (wasWrecked latch, armed only when a zone crossed
>= 1.0 on the observer). The #83 collision damage prices as internal
rattle and never moves a zone, so a fresh mech killed by ramming could
NEVER un-wreck on peers -- the live respawned mech drove around wearing
the hulk (night-7 field report: SAURON's Loki, screenshotted by both
observers at the exact minute the log analysis places the ram death).
MechDeathHandler::Tick now tracks prevMode and fires the rebuild + warp
when the replicated MovementMode leaves the death modes {2,9} -- only
Mech::Reset ever does that, and the state rides every record header, so
the trigger is cause-agnostic. The zone falling edge just refreshes the
cache. Side effect fixed for free: the peer respawn warp vortex now
plays for zone-less deaths too (same gate).
Bench (scratchpad/night7/mp_zoneless.sh + the new
BT_SELF_DAMAGE_TYPE=collision harness option, which dispatches type-0
through the real TakeDamage divert): 14/14 zone-less deaths un-wrecked
(mode 9->1) with zero zone rises on the observer; explosive regression
leg 12/12 with zone destruction active.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019Zh7PTkFy4KwTzVighLR9J
Joe DiPrima