Commit Graph
100 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
Joe DiPrima 952f10b18d handoff: #92 already fixed (zone-walk receipts) + night11 benches 2026-08-04 14:31:13 -05:00
Joe DiPrima ac3729b41b handoff: #91 decode (own missile pod, blakskn material-key fix) 2026-08-04 12:44:18 -05:00
Joe DiPrima dcd8583449 handoff: gate rejections are player-visible now 2026-08-04 11:42:51 -05:00
Joe DiPrima edff8fdb96 handoff: Steam build gate shipped (both halves) + LAN caveat 2026-08-04 11:36:28 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 15a1cf5d32 handoff: #108 version-skew confound + build-handshake item
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 11:12:27 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 24b0d2eaf7 handoff: day-2 addendum -- eject epilogue, stale-tracker sweep, #108/K-D instrumentation plan
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 10:24:54 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 675fe68cb0 #118 correction sweep: the ARCADE's eject was LIVE -- 'dead code in 4.10' was wrong
The absolute-pointer scan missed the E8-relative call; the later byte-scan
found it (FUN_004a9b5c+0x10 -- the master performance evaluates eject
permission per frame in the shipped binary). Under deadline pressure the
disproven 'unfinished/dead code' claim leaked back into three comments and
the handoff; swept per the correction mandate.

Settled press model, now stated correctly everywhere: pilot eject = the
pilot KEYPAD bank while armed (+ the PANIC key reporting through that
matrix). The MFD soft keys NEVER pilot-eject in the binary -- every page
routes them to authored functions; the flashing engEject cell is the
INVITE LAMP. The port's page-gated eng-key eject is a MARKED CONVENIENCE
deviation (operator-requested), and the coolant hysteresis is a MARKED
smoothing deviation for a degenerate boundary oscillation -- not
completions of unfinished code.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-04 02:40:39 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 5cd1947b65 handoff: evening eject sprint + MFD corruption arc addendum
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 21:07:31 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 440cee1e4f #87 dig closure: host response is linear (raw decomp re-read); the pixel curve was div-card firmware
Re-read the material damage watcher RAW (@004573e4 ctor / @00457784
change-push): 16 floats snapshotted, damaged = pristine x 0.1 (literal at
the MakeMechRenderables call site, watching zone+0x158), linear lerp, 13
floats written back, then FUN_0048d4d4 -- which is "flush_material": a dpl
command-stream marshal (opcode 100) to the i860 division card. The
material->ramp->texel response curve was CARD firmware and is not in
BTL4OPT.EXE; logged as an open question (ask: firmware/DIV docs/period
screenshots).

Field reconciliation, measured live: one 25-pt hit (ERLG class) snaps a
77-pt arm 0 -> 0.3247 in a frame -- "a single missile leaves visible
armor damage" holds under the linear curve for heavy hits; 2-pt ERS creep
(the leg-audit weapon) is the invisible case.

Bench additions: BT_WALK_ZONES=<name-list> walker filter (concentrated
per-region audits, scratchpad/night10/legwalk.sh) + BindArmourDamage
ORPHAN inventory under BT_ARMOR_LOG (proved every drawn op is
zone-claimed on the full tree).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 13:10:00 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 fe48accb6b #87 root cause: the level-crossing zone-record send was missing -- observers never saw damage
The binary's effect watcher (FUN_0042aa2c) raises
ForceUpdate(DamageZoneUpdateModelFlag) when a zone's damageLevel CROSSES a
band-descriptor threshold (FUN_0042a5f4, master-gated on entity+0x28 & 0xc)
-- that send is how every other pod's replicant learns zone levels
mid-fight. The port's band hub kept only the graphic-state branch, so an
observer's copy sat at 0.0 until destruction: no enemy hull darkening, no
doll movement, ever (the night-10 "no armour discoloration" report).

Restored the level branch with the already-reconstructed DescriptorCrossed
(@0042a5f4) + the master gate on both branches (mesh swap still runs on
every instance). 2-node verified: A-side armour watcher pushed 114 level
changes; every replicant peak matched the master's finals to 4 decimals
(dtorso 0.9321 == 0.9321).

Render path cleared separately (gotcha #23 discharged): BT_ARMOR_FORCE 0/1
A/B captures prove the tint renders (hull -> charcoal at 1.0). Solo
perception is the authentic economy: 2-25 pt lasers vs 68-185 pt pools.

Bench: zonewalk.sh node A now carries BT_ARMOR_LOG + BT_SHOT_EVERY (the
standing zone-replication receipt) + digest_walk.py; armorpx.sh is the
force-pair pixel rig.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 12:24:36 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 00dfbf8f9f #124 RESOLVED against the authored skeleton: the pick's zone is the
struck drawn segment's dzone, ALWAYS -- the cylinder embellishment removed

The open question ('what zone did 1995 designate for hull hits') was
already answered in the KB's #73 dig [T0+T1]: no software pick writer
exists -- the pod's pick was a dpl scene intersection, struck triangle
-> DCS segment -> its SKL-authored dzone; the cylinder lottery was only
ever the UNAIMED path (missiles/splash/rams). The live segpick dump
completes it with the authored data: the madcat's pickable skeleton is
18 segments -- hip, shoulders, guns, thighs, knees, ankles+toes, and
ONE hull piece (jointshakey -> dtorso). No ltorso/rtorso/utorso/rear/
door/searchlight segments exist. Aimed fire at any torso panel
authentically designates CENTER TORSO; the side/rear/upper panels strip
via the unaimed path.

Changes:
* the shared-carrier -> cylinder override (yesterday's embellishment)
  is REMOVED: triangle hit -> that segment's dzone, period;
* SegAimPoint: the walker's hull anchor moves from the joint ORIGIN
  (crotch gap -- rays sailed between the legs to the terrain sentinel)
  to the carrier segment's cull center (the chest);
* [picktri]/[pickwin] diagnostics grew tri/seg/zone fields -- three
  consecutive 'mystery' regressions in this stretch were the STALE-EXE
  trap (CWD-relative cmake --build from content/ resolved to a
  nonexistent dir and the old binary kept running) -- the harness doc's
  warning, hit again.

Final zone-walk matrix (spinning target, real MP, full cycles):
limbs 55/70 in-zone (legs/feet 6/6; arm strays = hull/occlusion);
hull-family aims -> dtorso 56/69; victim consumption matches. The
night-10 field table now reads as this model's fingerprint: 'only LCT
gets hits' from aimed energy IS the pod -- one hull piece, dtorso.
What was actually broken and is now fixed: the sphere mis-picks
(rgun-from-a-dtorso-aim class), the unaimed path's 180-degree frame,
and the vertical scatter.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 11:31:45 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 1a3c268278 #124: the aimed pick now intersects the DRAWN GEOMETRY -- sphere
approximation retired; shared-hull hits route through the cylinder

The zone-walk matrix caught the pick red-handed: with the servo
verifiably holding the reticle on the dtorso segment, the per-segment
BOUNDING-SPHERE pick returned rgun/ruleg -- the gun pods and legs
thread the ray before the torso from most angles (its own comments
admitted a foot could be unhittable behind its own knee). The 1995
pick was a dpl scene intersection against the drawn geometry.

Restored that semantic:
* BTGetPickMesh caches each segment d3d_OBJECT's triangles CPU-side
  once (its own BGF VB/IB, managed-pool locks); MechSegmentPick now
  runs sphere PRE-FILTER -> Moller-Trumbore nearest-hit across the
  threaded segments' posed meshes; the old smallest-sphere selection
  survives only as the no-triangle fallback.
* Segments claimed as CARRIER by 2+ zones (the shared hull: madcat
  seg 4 carries dtorso+ltorso+rtorso+utorso+rears) cannot resolve one
  zone from geometry -- those hits return zone -1 WITH the accurate
  triangle point, and the victim's bit-verified (frame-fixed) cylinder
  assigns the panel by band/wedge. Unique carriers (legs, feet, arms,
  gun pods) keep the direct zone.
* ZoneAimPoint: the walker aims at a zone's VISUAL center (largest
  pick object's cull-center) instead of the segment origin -- joint
  origins made feet/lower legs strike the part above.
* Walker upgrades from live operation: 3-column truth (aim/pick/land),
  engage gate, damped servo with polarity watchdog, approach port.

Zone-walk verdict (full cycles, spinning target, real MP): limbs 5-6/6
direct in-zone; every hull panel routes CYL; the victim's landed zones
now include ltorso/rtorso/reardtorso/rearutorso/rearrtorso -- the
panels night-10 reported unhittable. Residuals tracked on #124:
rtorso/utorso aim-anchor placement, doors/searchlight small-zone
sample, twisted-torso twist-sign verify.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 10:38:24 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 16e75d6e1a #124 bench: the ZONE-WALK MATRIX -- systematic per-panel targeting, operator-watchable
The precision rig the operator specified: two nodes, target visible,
every zone aimed at deliberately through the REAL reticle/pick path.

* BT_SPIN_SELF=<deg/s> (target node): rotates the node's own viewpoint
  mech in place (the BT_SPAWN_AT write pattern per frame) so every
  aspect passes the shooter's boresight; the operator watches this
  node's paper doll take the hits.
* BT_ZONE_WALK=<secs/zone> (shooter node): walks the target's damage
  zones in order, resolves each zone's carrier segment's live world
  position (BTResolveSegmentWorld + the new BTMechZoneSegAndName
  bridge), SERVOS the torso twist + aim elevation until the centered
  reticle ray (BTGetAimRay) points at the segment, fires 3 laser
  pulses, advances. [walk] ZONE/FIRE/HOLD on A pairs with [dmghit]
  zone/level lines on B.
* scratchpad/night10/zonewalk.sh: launch both + relay, map sed'd to
  grass/day, NO kill timer -- the session stays up for observation.

Hard-won servo constraints (documented in test-harness.md so they are
never relearned): the ENGAGE GATE (ray live + range<150 + bearing<1.1;
outside it RELAX the twist -- servoing at the twist limit while the
goto marches is a limit-clamp fight that visibly shakes the mech, and
a 0.55 gate deadlocks against the goto's ~0.55 resting bearing); YAW
POLARITY -1 (the twist cell's angular sense is opposite atan2(x,-z)
world yaw -- operator-observed live, the SECOND witness for the #124
SelectSlice twist-sign flip) with a divergence watchdog that
self-flips; damped correction (gain .40, cap .025/frame -- the aim ray
lags the twist write a frame); and a one-shot approach PORT to 100u
off the target instead of a cross-map march.

First live run: walker cycles zones, settles, fires; the target's
luleg climbed 0.458->0.523 under its own aimed pulses -- aimed shot,
correct panel, damage consumed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-03 10:04:03 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 47d9a61402 hit-location cylinder: raw-bytes audit of the shipped tables + chassis->table map + wedge orientation
Audit of Cyd's hit-model artifact against THE BINARY (user mandate: not vs the
port).  res29_scan.py parses the type-29 streams straight from BTL4.RES bytes:
18 streams / 8 distinct confirmed; the 7-wedge cells (BLH band 6, VUL band 4)
and the all-fixed BLH/OWN twist patterns are authored fact; every artifact
spot-check cell matched the raw bytes verbatim.  Chassis->table resolved by
live-dump matching (MadCat and Avatar ride DIFFERENT same-zone-set tables).
Authored slice names fix the wedge orientation: FRONT = the +Z arc, W1|W2 seam
= dead ahead -- corrects the #92 comment's W6-frontal claim.  Collision type-0
divert re-grounded at 0x4a0361/0x4a036d: rams never touch the cylinder.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 12:52:20 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 07072fc9f0 hit-location GROUND TRUTH: all 8 chassis' authored cylinder tables, named + fingerprinted
For verifying Cyd's hit-location artifact (the platform serves it to this
session as an unreadable public artifact, so the diff base is published here
instead).  scratchpad/night9/hitmodel_groundtruth.txt: every chassis's 7
layers x per-layer slices with zone NAMES and percentages, from the live
BT_DMGTABLE_LOG dump joined against [zone-armor] names.

Structure fingerprints (rot = rotateWithTorso per layer 0..6):
    ava/lok/mad/snd/thr/vul   rot=0001111  (legs hull-fixed, torso bands twist)
    bhk/own                   rot=0000000  (chicken-walkers: NOTHING twists)
    slices: 8 everywhere EXCEPT bhk layer 6 = 7 and vul layer 4 = 7
Variants share tables: lok2==lok1, mad2==mad1 -- '8 distinct chassis' is exact.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 12:27:19 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 6dbeb3d266 wreck smoke dies WITH the wreck; the audio/effect clock is calibrated to the byte-proven 28
USER REPORT: "when you destroy a mech, it continues to smoke for a very long
time after the mech disappears... up to 30secs to a minute."

MEASURED (new [pfx] timed census with per-def particle attribution): the
death plume (psfx 1 DDTHSMK) was re-armed on a 10s cadence as a WORLD effect
(ownerTag=0) -- so neither the burial transition nor the respawn cleanup
(StopAllEntityEffects) could touch it.  The last-armed window kept emitting
over the empty spot for up to 10s after the hulk vanished, plus 6+-2s authored
particle lives, and back-to-back windows stretched the visible tail to the
reported range.  The re-arm itself is a marked PORT ADDITION [T3]; the binary
fired DDTHSMK once -- its 10s window + particle lives ended right around the
~17s hulk sink.  The authored design: the smoke dies WITH the burial.

FIX: the plume is spawned ATTACHED (BTStartPfxAttached, tagged to the dying
entity -- it also rides the sinking hulk now), and the burial transition calls
BTStopEntityPfx alongside the respawn cleanup that already did.  Verified over
a 175s run containing FOUR wreck events (the enemy kill + three player bay-
fire deaths): every plume's emission ends at its wreck's burial or respawn,
particles fade within ~8-11s, no orphan emitters remain.

THE COUPLING (user relay of Oracle: "prolonged smoke and explosion INCLUDING
SOUND... same lever?") -- CONFIRMED as a family: the binary's audio layer
times in FRAME COUNTS converted by the engine frame-rate global:
    AudioTime::Seconds_To_Frames == fmul [0x52140c]=28.0; fadd 0.5; round
    (@0x42c611, @0x42dd86 -- the 0x42xxxx cluster of the ~90 global consumers)
Our engine's DefaultRendererRate said 30: every audio duration, sequence
delay and compression window ran ~7% fast.  Calibrated to 28 [T1].  NOT yet
explained by this: a truly SUSTAINED/looping explosion sound (7% is not
"prolonged") -- the effect stop-path trace stays open on #114/#51.

Tooling: BTPfxParticle carries defIndex; [pfx] census (BT_PFX_LOG, 2s) prints
emitters + particles PER EFFECT SLOT with a timestamp; wrecksmoke.sh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 11:25:49 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 5d6ded73f0 #110: cross-pod verified BOTH ways -- the cascade replicates, and peer fire alone drives it
Two two-node benches close the last stated gap ("no two-node run has watched a
peer's view of an arm death"), the second at the user's insistence on the REAL
field composition after the first used the self-damage scalpel:

1. mp_armchain.sh (scalpel): B self-destroys dz_rarm mid-fight.  A's screen
   receives the whole cascade -- [zone-repl] dz_rarm lvl 0->1 AND the cascaded
   dz_rgun lvl 0->1 -- plus the respawn reset coming back clean (1->0).  B's
   post-cascade AFC pushes turned out to be the RESPAWN RE-ARM, correct
   behavior, not a gate failure.  (Also confirmed: the self-damage harness
   dispatches a real Entity::TakeDamageMessage -- the identical path a peer's
   round takes, so the scalpel and the field share every line from the handler
   down.)

2. mp_armgrind.sh (the field composition): stand-off at 180, NO self-damage
   anywhere, A grinding B with real cross-pod fire for six minutes.  On B:
     * 25 incremental arm-zone hits from A's weapons via the cylinder tables
       (dz_rgun reached 1.0 from pure accumulation -- 15 cascades on rehits)
     * dz_rarm finished by B's OWN AFC bay cooking off (AmmoBinAFC100 BAY FIRE
       350, half into dz_rarm) -- itself lit by A's fire crits: peer-originated
       end to end
     * [cascade] zone 9 -> AFC100 + AmmoBinAFC100 + Condenser6 force-failed,
       fire gate refusals logged
   On A: [zone-repl] dz_rarm 0->1 and dz_rgun 0->1 -- the shooter SEES the arm
   and pod die.  B symmetrically received A's torso deaths.

Also: DamageZone::ReadUpdateRecord gets a change-only [zone-repl] diagnostic
(BT_MP_LOG) -- the probe that made the peer side measurable; mp_armgrind.sh
opens with the stale-node taskkill the other benches already had (a leftover
node from an aborted launch joined a later lobby as a third instance).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 09:09:49 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 614849b4a6 #110 coverage: all 8 chassis + all 3 weapon-class gates verified through ZONE death
Answering "are you 100% positive this works for every weapon type" -- it was
not a yes when asked, and the gaps were closed with measurement rather than
assurance:

1. AUTHORED DATA, all eight chassis (zonesweep.sh; the [zone-armor] dump now
   carries the zone NAME):  every arm zone AND every missile-rack zone on every
   chassis authors descend=1 (ava/bhk/lok/mad/own/snd/thr/vul); every gun/rack
   zone lists 1-4 critical subsystems; doors are inert (0/0/0); bhk uniquely
   adds destroySibs=1 on its arm chain.  No chassis is missing the cascade
   authoring.

2. WEAPON-CLASS GATES, end to end through a ZONE death (not direct weapon
   destruction, which was #86's verification gap):
     ballistic  AFC100  (projweap gate1)  -- dz_rarm,    ava1   [prior commit]
     energy     PPC     (emitter gate)    -- dz_larm,    ava1   [prior commit]
     missile    NRK5_2  (projweap gate1)  -- dz_rmissle, own1   [this pass]
        [cascade] zone 12 -> NRK5_2 + AmmoBinNRK5_2 force-failed
        [ammo] NRK5_2 -> NoAmmo (gate1): destroyed=1
   All three fire-gate code paths are now exercised by the cascade.

3. One anomaly chased to ground rather than waved off: the Owens rack cascade
   also killed Avionics/HUD/Searchlight/ThermalSight -- zone 15 dz_searchlight,
   an authored CHILD SEGMENT of the missile rack (the sensor mast sits on the
   shoulder pod).  Authored skeleton + authored descend flag, walked faithfully.

Remaining surface NOT bench-verified, stated plainly: cross-pod -- the cascade
is master-authoritative (crit plugs bind on masters only) and the resulting
alarm states ride the existing weapon update records, but no two-node run has
watched a peer's view of an arm death.  The field re-test (Lynx/Conn Man's own
audit, in MP) covers exactly that.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 08:43:33 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 06adaee523 #110: the zone destruction cascade is LIVE -- an arm now takes its gun pod with it
Lynx: "You can destroy an upper arm, and the gun pod is intact and can still
fire."  Conn Man's audit: three chassis, both arms, reproducible.  And the user
is right that this family was claimed fixed before: #86 gated fire on the
WEAPON's own destruction and was verified by destroying the weapon directly
(BT_KILL_SUBSYS) -- the field scenario was the ARM ZONE dying with the weapon
subsystem healthy, which that bench never reproduced.  Oracle's 693-night "I can
still fire destroyed energy weapons" was almost certainly this mechanism.

ROOT CAUSE -- a silent stub.  Mech__DamageZone::RecurseSegmentTable @0049cad4
was transcribed faithfully... against three local shim types whose iterators
unconditionally return NULL:
    struct SegmentIterator { DZRef *Next() { return 0; } };
    struct SegTableX       { SegmentRecord *operator[](int) { return 0; } };
The cascade fired on zone death (bench: 72 [cascade] lines), "descended", and
touched nothing.  Every line read correct; none of it did anything.

THE REAL WALK (decomp re-read, FUN_0049cad4): iterate the mech's segment table
(mech+0x300, vtbl+0x34 GetNth) to this zone's segment, then
    destroySiblingsOnDestruction (Wword 0x68): recurse every other zone on the
        SAME segment (seg+0xD0), setting graphic state 2 (Gone)
    descendOnDestruction (Wword 0x67): recurse every zone on every CHILD
        segment (seg+0xE8 -> child+0xD0) -- the arm takes the gun
The engine ALREADY HAS both structures: EntitySegment::damageZoneTable @0xD0 /
childIndexTable @0xE8 (TableOf is 0x18 -- byte-identical to the decomp offsets),
populated at stream time by JMOVER.cpp:373 [T0].  The stub was never necessary.
Implemented with the engine iterators via two new read accessors on
EntitySegment (SEGMENT.h); the binary's asymmetry is reproduced as-is (the
sibling loop checks graphic state != 1, the child loop does not; re-hits on a
1.0 zone re-run the cascade -- idempotent in effect).

VERIFIED (ava1, self-damage to one zone, autofire everything):
  dz_rarm -> [cascade] zone 9 -> zone 17; AFC100 + AmmoBinAFC100 + Condenser6
      ForceCriticalFailure'd; "[ammo] AFC100 -> NoAmmo (gate1): destroyed=1";
      torso LRM5/SRM2 keep firing (correct)
  dz_larm -> [cascade] zone 2 -> zone 6; PPC + Condenser4 force-failed;
      "[emitter] 'PPC' fire REFUSED (destroyed=1)" x4998 -- the emitter gate now
      logs refusals BY NAME (the FIRED line never named its weapon, which is how
      #86's verification gap survived)
  regression smoke: frame time 7.13/7.20ms, 0 asserts, 0 cascades in ordinary
      combat (they fire only on genuine zone deaths)

Authored data (now dumped under BT_DMG_LOG): descend=1 on exactly the four arm
zones (ava1: 2/6/9/17), destroySibs=0 everywhere -- so legs/torso behavior is
untouched by this change.

KB: combat-damage.md cascade section; reconstruction-gotchas #26 (the
silent-stub trap: a shim that returns EMPTY converts a reconstruction into
fiction that reads correct -- shims must Fail() loudly or log their emptiness).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 08:26:53 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 da70bd58b2 #84: the replicant salvo now HOMES AT THE LIVE TARGET -- the stale-point double detonation is gone
Oracle (674): "missile appear to register hit explosions twice, once where
target was and again where the target is".  Rajel (693): "once where the mech
was when I fired and on the expected impact".

MECHANISM, measured on two nodes (BT_PROJ_LOG "DET at" now logs EVERY contact
detonation, including damage-0 rounds, which were invisible before): the
replicant salvo mirror pushed rounds with NO entity handle at the FROZEN
fire-time aim point, and the pool's contact test is proximity to p.targetPos --
so mirror rounds "contacted" the empty air where the target USED to be and
detonated there, on every peer, every salvo (45 salvos -> 234 frozen-point
air bursts in a 200s bench).  The true impact appears at the live position
(the shooter's own homing rounds on his node; the victim's damage reaction on
peers) -- two sites per salvo, exactly as reported.

THE BINARY'S MODEL (CLASSMAP, Missile flight-entity cluster): missiles are
ENTITIES with authoritative/GHOST Performance variants (Projectile
PTR_LAB_005129e8 / 005129f4) and their own WriteUpdateRecord (@4bef4c, slot 7)
-- peers ran ghost missiles updated from the wire and saw the TRUE trajectory.
One explosion, correct place, every node.  The frozen-point mirror is the port
infidelity (the entity Missile itself stays blocked by the documented 2007
Entity-base mismatch; mislanch.cpp:301).

FIX: the MissileLauncher update record now carries the locked target's EntityID
(salvoTargetID; EntityID::Null = point fire).  The mirror resolves it on the
receiving node via HostManager::GetEntityPointer (engine T0, an index-socket
Find -- NULL-safe on any ID), refuses non-mechs via BTIsRegisteredMech, and
pushes the mirror rounds WITH the handle -- they re-lead on the live local
replicant exactly as the master's own rounds do, and detonate at the true
position.  Guards: record-length gate (a short record from an older build has
no ID field -- its tail would be garbage and must not resolve) + Null check +
registered-mech check.

VERIFIED (two nodes, 200s, missile autofire both ways):
  * every record arrives len=52/52 with sane aims ([mlrec] diag)
  * 22/46 salvos resolve (tgtID=3:22 -> the victim's local master) and their
    mirror rounds home: the frozen-air DET population fell 234 -> 102, the
    live-homing population rose to 155/207 per node
  * the unresolved remainder is BENIGN and correct: EntityID::Null point fire
    plus hostID=-1 LOCAL entities -- i.e. the victim's WRECK, which autofire
    keeps shooting after the kill; a wreck does not move, so the frozen aim IS
    its true position
Downstream expectations: Ronin's smoke-screen (#114) should drop by ~the mirror
half, and the audio census (#32) loses the duplicate Static3DPatchSource
explosion sounds on peers -- both to be read from the next field logs.

Also in this commit: [projectile] DET diagnostic (every contact detonation with
position/damage/handle/aim), [mlrec] record-arrival diagnostic (len/recID/
subsys/counter/aim, capped 200), scratchpad/night9/mp_double.sh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 02:29:58 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 3354db4bd1 #32: RETRACT the retention diagnosis; count what matters (steals + true drops); name the saturating class
The reopen said "the pool fills and never returns a source".  The 30s census in
the SAME field logs disproves it: free returns to ~227-230 between bursts and
reuses climbs ~20/s all session.  free=0 on the failure line is true by
DEFINITION at the instant of a failed acquire -- the third instance of the
counter-sampling trap (live=256-vs-6, then hsparm greps, now this), read off the
alarm line instead of the trend line.

WHAT THE LOGS ACTUALLY SHOW
  * The pool cycles; release-on-stop exists and works (the engine steal loop).
  * During firefights CONCURRENT demand exceeds 240 and the priority steal loop
    services each new sound by killing an old one -- continuously through
    combat (failures spread across every decile of every combat session).
  * Idle standing demand is ~13 sources.  My "each component holds its SourceSet
    to entity teardown, ~20-25 per mech" narrative was wrong.
  * The raw ACQUIRE FAILED line count (6.8k-19k per log) is NOISE: the steal
    loop retries after every failed attempt, so lines accumulate per EVENT and
    most events still play via a steal.  True drops were never counted.

CHANGES
  1. Census now carries steals= and drops= (drops = the steal loop ran dry and
     the sound NEVER played) plus a per-class drop histogram
     ("[audio] dropped by class: {class 1005 x4v: N} ...") -- all ungated, so
     the next field logs are decisive instead of suggestive.
  2. The ACQUIRE FAILED print is rate-limited to 1/30s and now names the
     requesting class + voice count.  19k-line log spam distorted this triage.
  3. BT_AUDIO_SOURCES=<n> now raises the POOL cap too (it previously raised the
     AL context budget while the pool stayed at 240, making the field
     experiment impossible to run).

MEASURED (9 mechs, missile autofire, 150s)
  * cap 240: peak 130 sources, 0 fails -- demand tracks SHOOTER count, not mech
    count; one shooter cannot saturate.  A 6-shooter lobby pins 240.
  * cap 48 (BT_AUDIO_SOURCES=64): saturation reproduced -- census
    steals=223 drops=455, histogram names the classes.
  * Dominant field requester (requested=4) = class 1005 Static3DPatchSource:
    world-placed effect sounds, i.e. EXPLOSIONS.  1001 DirectPatchSource x1v
    dominates drops at low cap; 1002 Dynamic3DPatchSource x3v present.

CONSEQUENCE FOR THE FIX ORDER: #84's stale-aim double detonation duplicates
exactly the saturating class on observer nodes.  Fix #84 FIRST, then re-read the
field census; only if it still saturates does the budget experiment
(BT_AUDIO_SOURCES with frame time measured) become the play.

KB: the wrong night-9 entry in open-questions.md replaced with the corrected
diagnosis; gotcha candidate noted -- an alarm-line counter is not a trend.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 01:42:10 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 202ebbf84a KB + tracker: night-9 playtest (build 4.11.693)
CONFIRMED FIXED and closed: #95 (missile salvo damage), #97 (leak gauge 3 levels),
#98 (loop-6 lamp), #99 (leak alarm audible).

#95 deserves a note: a tester reported "LRMs still doing 3.3 damage", but that is
the PER-MISSILE figure.  382 impacts across three 693 logs show the cluster being
delivered correctly -- LRM20 3.25 x burst 5..20 (total up to 65), LRM15 3.33 x
3..15, LRM10 3.50 x 2..10 -- and those burst ranges match the binary's
Random(n)+n/4 roll exactly.

#32 REOPENED.  The pooling change removed the alloc/free churn (the ~10% frame
time is real) but every 693 field log still shows
    ACQUIRE FAILED (requested=4 live=240 pooled=240 free=0 ...)
19,182 fails (Sauron) / 15,333 (Rajel) / 6,818 (Ronin), high-water 225 of 240,
starting ~1% into every session.  `free=0` is the diagnosis: sources are never
returned.  This is precisely the risk flagged when the fix landed -- retention,
not pool size.  Players called audio "fine" the same night; the log disagrees.

#84 still present, but the surviving explosion is a DIFFERENT mechanism from the
bundled one that was fixed: "where the mech was when I fired" is the stale
fire-time aim point already recorded as an open in rendering.md, i.e. an MP
visual, not the message-manager path.  Needs a two-node bench logging the
OBSERVER -- the earlier two-node run verified damage delivery but never the visual.

New: #108 ghost mech (peer never sees the death; shots still register, so it is a
visual/replication desync, the inverse of #94), #109 panic/eject, #110 arm
parent/child linkage (gun pod survives its mount -- three chassis, both arms;
parentArtifactZone exists but only drives LOD), #111 death warp bubble shown to
peers, #112 AFC shotgun spread (may be authentic Ultra-AFC burst), #113 LRM burn
duration, #114 missile smoke as a smoke screen, #115 hot box, #116 Standard-vs-
Expert heat gating, #117 per-chassis cockpit bounce.

⚠ A MEMBER OF THE ORIGINAL TEAM IS NOW TESTING -- "Ronin" (log user torak).  He
worked on the 1995 game and has played the pods recently.  Treat his pod
comparisons as primary evidence above reconstruction inference.  First two
contributions recorded in the KB: per-chassis cockpit bounce was deliberate, and
NARC likely shipped as data without an implementation.

⚠ Conn Man ran the OLD build (.674) for all seven of his sessions, so his reports
are not evidence about 693.  His arm-linkage audit is still valuable -- nothing in
693 touched that path.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-02 01:15:45 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 5a1a407ed1 pre-ship: resolve the new audio diagnostic gates ONCE instead of per frame
RunSequence and AudioIdleWatcher::Execute run per sequence per frame, so the
BT_ATTRBIND_LOG probes added while chasing #99 were calling getenv ~2700x/sec on
a 15-sequence mech.  Small, but this is the same path the source-pooling fix
(#32) just bought 10% of frame time in, and an unset diagnostic should cost
nothing.  Cached in function-static flags.

Pre-ship smoke (combat, 2 kills, a respawn, clean teardown):
  frame time 7.18 / 8.27 / 8.71 ms  -- matches the post-pooling 7.79ms baseline
  0 asserts, 0 access violations, 0 audio acquireFails

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 20:11:06 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 5a425320b7 #92: map the direct-fire hit->zone path; the FOOT is pickable over only 3% of a mech's height
Oracle, night 7: "Unable to damage the foot panels on Loki via direct fire from
front or side.  Was able to damage on Thor."

FIRST, THE MECHANISM -- it is not what the issue assumed (missing collision
geometry).  A direct-fire hit gets its zone one of two ways, decided at
Mech::TakeDamageMessageHandler by `invalidDamageZone`:

  AIMED   (invalidDamageZone=0): the zone rides in on the message from the
          per-part aim pick, MechSegmentPick (#73, btl4vid.cpp).
  UNAIMED (invalidDamageZone=1): DamageLookupTable::ResolveHit runs the authored
          cylinder lottery -- impact HEIGHT picks a layer, ANGLE picks a pie
          slice, and a weighted random roll picks the zone from that slice.

Measured live, both paths are in use: the Thor logged 16 unaimed hits
(invalidZone=1 zone=-1 -> ResolveHit) alongside aimed ones carrying real zones.

THE FINDING.  MechSegmentPick is a BOUNDING-SPHERE test whose primary key is
SMALLEST RADIUS WINS -- a larger sphere can never beat a smaller one the ray also
grazes.  The leg spheres, dumped in world space and IDENTICAL on both chassis:

    knee  centre y=1.868  r=1.505     spans y 0.364 .. 3.373
    toe   centre y=0.302  r=1.689     spans y -1.387 .. 1.991

The toe sphere is BIGGER than the knee's and they overlap heavily, so the toe can
only win where the ray misses the knee sphere outright -- i.e. below y=0.364.
Against a reference height of 11.16 that is a 0.36-unit window, **3.3% of the
mech's height**, and it sits right on the ground.  Everywhere else a shot at the
foot is credited to the LEG.  That is the reported symptom.

This is a PORT ARTIFACT, not authentic: btl4vid.cpp's own comment concedes the
sphere test approximates "the per-part semantic the 1995 mesh intersection
produced".  Real mesh intersection has no such interference -- aiming at the foot
mesh hits the foot.

NOT EXPLAINED, and stated plainly: the per-CHASSIS asymmetry.  Loki and Thor have
identical leg spheres, identical foot geometry (LOK_LFOT.BGF and THR_LFOT.BGF are
both 3082 bytes with the same token layout), and identical foot layers in their
damage tables (only the upper/cockpit layers differ).  So nothing found here says
the Loki should behave differently from the Thor.  The bench could not settle it
because BT_AIM moves the drawn RETICLE, not the pick ray -- there is currently no
harness to aim the pick at a chosen height.  That harness is the next step.

Diagnostics added:
  [pickgeom]   one-shot dump of every pick sphere in WORLD space (zone, r, centre)
  [pickcand]   which spheres a ray actually threaded, their perpendicular d, and
               which won -- the probe that makes "smallest wins" visible
  [dmgtable]   the whole authored DamageLookupTable: layers, slices, zone weights
  [dmgresolve] per hit: localY, heightRef, layer, theta, resolved zone
  [cylgate]    invalidDamageZone / table pointer / incoming zone at the gate
(the last three under BT_DMGTABLE_LOG, the first two under BT_PICK_LOG)
plus scratchpad/night8/footpick.sh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 19:47:30 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 e058b6acb7 #99: trace the coolant-leak alarm end to end -- it IS implemented; found the real defect
Oracle: "alarm is not sounding despite an active leak" ... "was sounding,
resolved a leak, but there was another".

RETRACTION FIRST.  I previously told the user the coolant alarm was "genuinely
unbuilt -- there is no alarm implementation to starve".  That was wrong, and it
was asserted without checking.  The alarm is fully implemented and the entire
chain works.  Traced live, in order:

  Condenser6.ReportLeak (= HeatSink::coolantActive) changes 0 -> 1
    -> [watchpoll] CHANGE on that exact address
    -> [matchfire] val=1 -> ctl 1  (StartAudioControlID)
    -> [seqstart] the alarm AudioControlSequence, events=25 looped=1
    -> [seqsend] ctl 8/16 (select), 6/1 (volume), 1/0 (START), 2/0 (STOP), ...
       a three-part looping alarm: two chirps then an 8s sustained tone.

The authored design, read from BTL4.RES: 19 subsystems per mech each bind TWO
AudioLogicalTriggers to their ReportLeak flag -- match 1 -> Start, match 0 ->
Stop -- and ALL of them drive ONE shared alarm sequence.

SO WHY WAS IT SILENT IN .674?  Almost certainly the audio source pool, fixed
after that build in ad9dfad.  Every player log from .674 is saturated with
ACQUIRE FAILED (3k-6.5k lines each, starting ~10% in and never recovering); an
alarm that cannot acquire an OpenAL source is silent.  The bench here shows 0
acquire failures on the current build.  ⚠ NOT PROVEN: this bench has no audio
device (pool census reads live=0 pooled=0), so the control chain is verified but
final playback is not.  Field confirmation needed.

THE SECOND SYMPTOM IS A REAL, REPRODUCED DEFECT AND IT IS IN THE AUTHORED DATA.
All 19 subsystems -- Condenser1-6, GeneratorA-D, Myomers, PPC_1/2, ERMLaser_1-3,
SRM6_1/2, Avionics -- share the single alarm sequence, and EACH one's leak-clear
sends an UNCONDITIONAL Stop.  So the moment any one of them stops leaking the
alarm goes silent, even while others are still leaking.  That is exactly what was
reported.  Since both the authoring and the MUNGA watcher code are authentic,
this is 1995 behaviour, and changing it is a deliberate divergence -- flagged for
a fidelity call rather than "fixed" unilaterally.

Diagnostics added (all under the existing BT_ATTRBIND_LOG gate):
  [seqcfg]  extended: the sequence's authored event list
  [seqstart] extended: events / looped / tempo / divisionsPerBeat
  [seqrun]  RunSequence entry state (isRunning / iterator / current event)
  [seqwait] an event exists but is not yet ready, with the time delta
  [seqsend] the sequence actually emitting a control
  [idlewatch] which components receive the idle tick that advances sequences
  [hsparm] extended with &ReportLeak so audio bindings can be correlated
plus scratchpad/night8/leakaudio.sh.

NOTE ON THE PROBES, because it cost real time twice today: [seqrun] first used a
single shared static counter, which the busy sequences consumed so the alarm
sequence never printed -- reading as "RunSequence is never called".  It is now
throttled PER SEQUENCE (runProbeCount).  A capped diagnostic that is silent is
not evidence of absence; the same trap produced a false "seqsend x0" and a false
"the trigger never fires" earlier in this investigation.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 18:07:40 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 9dd7d48b41 #96: instrument the myomer heat model -- per-mech profile CONFIRMED, overheat cause LOCATED
Two player claims, both now answered from the decomp + measurement rather than
inference.

THE EQUATION (FUN_004b8d18, constants read from the image: _DAT_004b8ee4=0.5,
_DAT_004b8ee8=0.0 (the fabs), _DAT_004b8eec=1.0):

  heat += ratio^2 * (1+damageLevel) *
          [ (1-accEff)*|vy|*m*g*dt        climb   POWER
          + (1-velEff)*(0.5*m*|v|^2)      kinetic ENERGY -- NO dt
          + (1-accEff)*|v|*|a|*m*dt ]     accel   POWER

Our implementation already reproduces this verbatim, dt-less term included.

CLAIM 1 -- "each mech has a unique heating profile".  TRUE, and working, but NOT
by the mechanism the player described.  Measured across thr1/own1/mad1/vul1:
  * the myomer record is IDENTICAL on every chassis
    (velEff 0.995, accEff 0.8, gears 3000/5000/7000/9999, rec 2,
     degradeT 1000, failT 2000, thermalMass 250000)
  * the heat-family COUNT is identical too -- 6 Condensers, 1 HeatSinkBank,
    1 Reservoir, 4 Generators on all four
  * every cooling parameter is byte-identical Thor vs Owens (condenser
    conductance 315000 / mass 420000, bank 231000 / 1.39e6, reservoir
    190000 / 3.42e6)
So there is NO authored per-chassis cooling variation.  The profile emerges from
the equation instead: heat ~ m*v^2, and light mechs are faster.  Measured at
seek 4, flat out:
    thr1  mass 70000  |v| 11.34  kinetic/tick 49026
    own1  mass 35000  |v| 17.22  kinetic/tick 57350
The Owens is HALF the mass and generates 17% MORE drive heat, because v^2 beats
m.  That reproduces the player's OUTCOME (a Thor sustains seek 4, a light
chicken-walker cannot) via speed, not heatsink count.

CLAIM 2 -- "it runs too hot".  The kinetic term carries NO dt: it adds an ENERGY
every TICK, so its contribution per SECOND scales with the tick rate.  Measured
dt here is ~0.017 (~59Hz) and variable.  The other two terms are power terms and
are rate-independent.  On flat ground the climb term is additionally dead --
gravity reads 0 (the carried "environment gravity unwired" open), so hills do not
heat at all right now.
NOT yet established: the 1995 tick rate the dt-less term was calibrated against.
Until that is pinned the OVERHEAT FACTOR is unquantified -- flagged, not guessed.

Adds three diagnostics, all under BT_MYO_LOG:
  [myoheat] now splits climb/kinetic/accel + dt + the kinetic share
  [myoparm] one line per myomer: efficiencies, gears, thermal thresholds
  [hsparm]  one line per heat subsystem: conductance + thermal mass
and three benches (myoheat/myoparm/myocmp) that produced the tables above.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 13:14:55 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 56f15b569a #98: prove the lamp fix -- table pinned to the image, three condensers verified live
Follows the request to prove the whole fix rather than the one case I had.

1. TABLE, all indices: scratchpad/night8/lamptable_check.py asserts the
   reconstructed arrays against BTL4OPT.EXE and exits nonzero on drift.
       kBTCondenserLamp @0051d058  MATCH  07 2F 2E 2D 2B 2A 29
       kBTPlacementLamp @0051d070  MATCH  29 1A 1B 1C 1D
       kFixed (FUN_004cc148 switch) MATCH  2F 2E 2D 2C 2B 2A
   This covers condensers 2/3/5 without hunting zones for them: there is no
   per-index code path, only the array contents, and those are now pinned.

2. LOOKUP PATH, live: condensers 1, 4 and 6 resolve 0x2F, 0x2B and 0x29 --
   exactly the table.  Condenser 4 is the meaningful control: my reverted "fix"
   would have given 0x2C.  Myomers (eng-page path, 0x25/0x21) and SRM6_1 (quad
   button, 0xd) still annunciate, so other subsystem classes are unregressed.

3. GUARD: condenserNumber is parsed from the name's trailing digit
   (NameTrailingNumber, mirroring the binary's atoi), and every condenser in
   BTL4.RES is Condenser1..Condenser6 -- no Condenser0, no bare name.  So the
   1..6 guard covers every shipped case and slot 0 (0x7) is unreachable.  This
   was the real risk in changing `n >= 0` to `n >= 1`; it is closed.

4. PIXELS: leaklamp_pixel.{sh,py} capture a leaking run and an undamaged control
   run from the cockpit and difference their per-pixel temporal variance.  The
   leak is visibly real -- the COOLANT reservoir drains on screen (S 331->330
   while the control sits at 329).

⚠ WHAT THE PIXELS DID NOT SETTLE, and it is not a testing gap.  Lamp 0x29 is
ALSO kBTPlacementLamp[0]: DAT_0051d058[6] and DAT_0051d070[0] are the SAME int32
-- the two tables abut.  So condenser 6's lamp may not be its own loop button at
all, and slot 6 may be an overrun in the BINARY too (its read is unchecked).
Reproducing it is the faithful choice either way, and we now do exactly what the
binary computes -- but whether a pilot sees loop 6's own button light is a
question only someone who played the original can answer.  Asked on the issue.

CORRECTION: 0b98370 claimed @0051d058 "holds gauge-type name strings, so the
provenance is questionable".  That was MY bug -- a PE section-header field-order
mistake (unpacking VirtualSize/VirtualAddress/SizeOfRawData/PointerToRawData
then destructuring in a different order).  The original reconstruction's
provenance was accurate.  The checker in (1) uses the corrected reader.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 12:26:47 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 c50236a5e6 bench: shorten the leak-lamp run; verified condensers 1/4/6 resolve 0x2F/0x2B/0x29 (the binary's table), plus Myomers + SRM6 eng/quad lamps unregressed
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 11:41:26 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 0254d9ef34 #98: leaking condensers now flash the RIGHT button -- half of them flashed the wrong one, one flashed nothing
Field reports were all "intermittent": "the display buttons aren't always
flashing or lighting up on leaking components" (Oracle), "I'm getting leaks but
no indicators" (Lynx), "I am getting indicators sometimes" (Sauron).  It is not
intermittent -- it is per-condenser, and three of the six were wrong.

condenserNumber is 1-BASED (verified live: 'Condenser6' reports 6), which the
lamp table's own comment stated.  The guard was `n >= 0 && n < 6` -- a 0-based
bound -- and the table it indexed was missing 0x2C:

    condenser 1..3  -> 0x2F 0x2E 0x2D    correct
    condenser 4     -> 0x2B              WRONG (loop 5's button)
    condenser 5     -> 0x2A              WRONG (loop 6's button)
    condenser 6     -> rejected          NOTHING flashes

So a leak in loop 6 annunciated nowhere, loops 4-5 lit a neighbour's button, and
loops 1-3 were fine -- which from the cockpit reads exactly as "sometimes".

Condenser N drives cooling-loop N, whose six lamps are the same ones the
coolingLoop1..6 codes already resolve through, so the fix routes condensers
through that verified map (BTFixedLampOf(N-1)) and retires the duplicate,
partly-wrong table rather than patching it.

⚠ PROVENANCE: the retired table cited @0051d058 as byte-verified.  That address
holds gauge-type NAME STRINGS, not lamp ids, and a byte search for the six loop
ids as consecutive int32 finds nothing -- so neither the old table nor the new
mapping is byte-verified.  The correction rests on three checkable things: the
1-based numbering (live), the guard contradicting its own documented indexing,
and six condensers mapping onto the six cooling-loop lamps of the verified fixed
map.  [T2 -- behaviour verified, not byte-grounded.]

Also adds the missing diagnostic on the silent path: an alarm item that matched
its condition but resolved no lamp now names the subsystem and why, instead of
returning quietly.  That is what found this, and it immediately surfaced a
SECOND gap for someone to pick up: a destroyed HeatSink (condition 0) resolves
no lamp either, because it is neither Condenser nor Generator nor a
PoweredSubsystem with an aux screen.

Verified (scratchpad/night8/leaklamp.sh, BT_LAMP_LOG):
  before  [galarm] condition 2 ... sub 'Condenser6' -> NO LAMP RESOLVED
  after   [galarm] condition 2 ... -> lamp 0x2a FLASH

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 11:12:46 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 ad9dfade88 #32: POOL the OpenAL sources instead of creating and destroying one per sound
Every 4.11.674 player log is saturated with acquisition failures -- 3031, 4657,
5245, 6275, 6571 across five machines.  In Lynx's largest session the first
failure lands 9.3% in and they continue to 96.8%: once it starts it never
recovers for the rest of the match.

CAUSE: RequestAudioChannels called alGenSources() per sound event and
ReleaseSourceSet called alDeleteSources() on release -- create and destroy per
sound.  OpenAL sources are a scarce driver resource (OpenAL Soft caps a context
at 256) and a combat burst churned straight through the ceiling.

The two counters looked contradictory and were the tell: ACQUIRE FAILED always
printed live=256 while the 30s census printed live=6.  Same global, sampled at
different moments -- sources spike to the cap during a burst and drain back
between them.  Churn, not a steady leak.

FIX: generate sources once, up to a cap, and recycle them through a free list.
Release scrubs and parks instead of deleting.  Steady-state play performs no AL
allocation at all.

The scrub is load-bearing, not hygiene: a recycled source carries whatever the
previous owner set, and the engine sets AL_LOOPING per sound
(L4AUDLVL.cpp:327).  Hand a looping source to a one-shot and it plays forever --
which is the "sound stuck looping" family (#51, #5).  Every reusable property is
reset at the single point where a source changes owner.

VERIFIED (scratchpad/night8/audiopool.sh + the two-node mp_burst.sh):
  solo, sustained fire  : 0 failures, pooled 152, reuses 21998
  two nodes, 4 min      : 0 failures on both, pooled 148/149, reuses ~7000 each
⚠ HONEST LIMIT: the bench does NOT reproduce the field failure -- the PRE-fix
binary also scores 0 on it (peak 49 live), because solo/2-node combat is not
dense enough to reach 256.  So this verifies the pool works and allocates
nothing in steady state; it does NOT by itself prove the field failures are
gone.  The five field logs remain the "before".

Peak demand is set by how many audio COMPONENTS are alive (each reserves a
SourceSet of up to 25 voices and holds them), not by audible sounds: measured
high-water 138 solo, 149 two-node.  That scales with player count, so the cap is
set near the driver ceiling (240) and the pool now logs its high-water mark once
per 25-source band -- so the next playtest sizes this from field data instead of
a guess.  Growth also self-limits: if a driver offers fewer sources than the cap,
alGenSources simply fails, growth stops, and the pool recycles what it has.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 10:29:04 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 3a22c334ac bench: two-node CROSS-POD damage verification for the #95 burst change
Projectile damage now Dispatches directly at the victim instead of going through
the shooter's SubsystemMessageManager, so cross-pod delivery had to be proven on
real nodes rather than assumed.

RESULT: cross-pod delivery intact, and the cluster count survives the wire.
Node A fired 38 missile rounds with bursts {1:5,2:6,3:6,4:7,5:7,6:7}; node B
received exactly the matching zone applications {2:12,3:18,4:28,5:35,6:42} --
i.e. rounds x burst, per burst band, exact.  135 of B's 142 explosive
applications carried burst > 1 (the manager path used to drop it to 1).
Energy stayed at burst 1 on both nodes; no crash on either.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 05:28:45 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 3b7c19c232 #95: REVERT the salvo-damage hack; deliver the cluster the way the binary does
Supersedes the mislanch change in efc3e9f, which multiplied the lead round by
missileCount.  That produced roughly the right average total but as ONE lump on
ONE zone, with no scatter and no variance -- not what the arcade does.

WHAT THE BINARY DOES (all byte-verified):
  * MissileLauncher ctor @004bcff0:  burstCount = missileCount;
                                     damageAmount /= missileCount
  * FireWeapon @004bcc60 spawns exactly ONE Missile -- no loop, missileCount is
    never read there.  The salvo IS one cluster round.
  * Missile::Perform rolls how many of the cluster connect right before it
    dispatches (part_013.c:10082):  b = Random(n) + n/4, clamped to n
    -- i.e. between a quarter of the salvo and all of it.
  * It then dispatches DIRECTLY at the struck entity (FUN_004be078:
    param_2->Dispatch(&msg)) -- NOT through the shooter's message manager.
  * Mech::TakeDamageMessageHandler @0x4a0439-0x4a04d8 applies the hit
    burstCount times, RE-ROLLING the struck zone per burst.

Our handler already implements that loop faithfully (mech.cpp, task #80) -- I
wrongly believed it was missing, because the KB asserts as [T1] that "burstCount
is cosmetic for zone damage".  That is half right: DamageZone::TakeDamage really
does ignore burstCount (verified @0041e4e0), but the HANDLER honours it by
calling that function repeatedly.  KB corrected separately.

The actual defect was that the projectile impact path hardcoded burstCount = 1,
and -- worse -- routed damage through the SubsystemMessageManager, whose
consolidation rebuilds the record from a stream carrying only {damageType,
damageAmount, subsystemID}.  DamageInformation has no burstCount field, so the
cluster count was DROPPED in transit no matter what the round carried.

So: dispatch projectile damage directly, as the binary does, carrying the rolled
burst.  This also retires the #84 double explosion architecturally -- the second
blast came from the manager's bundled explosion, and projectiles no longer go
through the manager at all.  The MarkRoundDetonated suppression added in efc3e9f
is therefore dead and is removed.

ALL-WEAPON-CLASS AUDIT (scratchpad/night8/allweap.{sh,py}), one run, all classes
firing at once:
  EXPLOSIVE (missile)  38 zone applications, bursts spread 1x2,2x6,3x9,4x4,5x5,
                       6x12 across ELEVEN zones -- the [n/4..n] roll plus the
                       per-burst zone re-roll, i.e. the cluster scattering
  ENERGY    (beam)      8 applications, burst 1  -- unchanged, no regression
  type4                 8 applications, burst 1  -- unchanged
  COLLISION             0 applications reached armour -- divert intact
Explosions: 10 projectile impacts produce no bundled blast; direct-fire still
queues its own (11 made).

NOT yet verified: cross-pod delivery.  Dispatch reroutes to a replicant on its
own (and the binary relies on exactly that), but the manager routing is gone, so
MP damage should get a two-node run before this ships.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-01 04:42:15 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Opus 5 efc3e9ff1a #95/#84: missile salvos deliver their FULL authored damage, and stop double-exploding
THE SALVO DAMAGE (#95).  Players measured an LRM 15 landing "3ish points".  The
logs agreed: [projectile] IMPACT damage=3.33333 (Oracle, LRM15) and 3.5 (Rajel,
LRM10).  Those are right PER MISSILE -- 50/15 and 35/10 -- and the bench shows
why the salvo still under-delivers: each launcher pushes N rounds of which
exactly ONE carries damage.

Two individually-correct changes composed into an N-fold shortfall:

  * The ctor does what the binary's MissileLauncher ctor does (@0x3ac/@0x3d4):
        damageData.burstCount    = missileCount;
        damageData.damageAmount /= missileCount;
    The record holds the PER-MISSILE amount plus the count; the arcade
    reconstitutes amount x burstCount when it applies the hit.
  * Task #62 then correctly stopped the port applying the hit once per visual
    round (that was ~missileCount-x too lethal) by damaging only the lead round
    -- but handed it the already-divided amount.

Our DamageZone::TakeDamage is `damageLevel += amount * scale` and drops
burstCount, so the salvo delivered amount/missileCount.  Since the port collapses
the cluster to one damaging round, multiply the count back in there.  Bench: an
SRM6 salvo now lands amt=35 (the authored total) taking a zone 0 -> 0.556, where
it previously landed 5.83.

THE DOUBLE EXPLOSION (#84).  Oracle: "missile appear to register hit explosions
twice, once where target was and again where the target is."  There are two
spawn sites: BTSpawnRoundDetonation at the round's own impact point, and the
message manager's bundled explosion at the CONSOLIDATED point a frame later.
The duplicate was known and thought harmless -- "among a rippled volley it is
invisible" -- which held only while a salvo landed N detonations.  A projectile
now marks its weapon (MarkRoundDetonated) and the consolidation skips queueing a
second blast for it; direct-fire weapons never mark, so lasers/AC keep the
bundled explosion they rely on.  Bench: 4 missile impacts -> 4 SKIPPED, while 11
direct-fire hits still queue normally.

SWEPT CONTACT (#84 tail).  Contact was a 10-unit sphere sampled only at the END
of each step.  With the authored thruster live (#84) field rounds arrive at
v=955 -- a ~16 unit step at 60fps, larger than the radius -- so samples can
straddle the target.  (Pre-#84 rounds flew ~100-300 = a 1.7-5 unit step and could
never skip it: the velocity fix exposed this, it did not cause it.)  Now tests
the whole segment travelled and bursts at the point of NEAREST APPROACH, which
also stops the detonation being flung past the target at speed.

RETRACTION: I posted tunnelling as the leading explanation for the lost salvo.
The bench disproves it -- zero fizzles, and the "missing" rounds are the dmg=0
visual rounds of the cluster, which never registered damage by design.  The
sweep is kept as speed-independent robustness, not as the #95 fix.

Bench: scratchpad/night8/salvo.sh (BT_PROJ_LOG + BT_FIRE_LOG).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 23:59:44 -05:00
Joe DiPrima 137c151951 #87: mech armour PANELS now darken with damage -- the .DZM material system was loaded and unused
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
2026-07-31 19:52:55 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 ac7c46b87a #93: fix the end-of-round PerformAndWatch crash -- the STATIC projectile
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
2026-07-31 10:19:24 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 37dd7f9663 collision-pricing audit: restore the binary's crash economy -- two fixes
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
2026-07-31 02:48:35 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 054c3f2eee #94: replicant un-wreck now rides the DEATH-STATE EXIT edge -- the zone
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
2026-07-31 02:10:04 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 e91d447405 #82 FINAL LAYER: the peer body-channel trn-lock -- a circling limper skated because the peer's turn-arm had no walk-demand yield and the trn speed exit read a dead replicant mapper cell
The master limped clean (218x gimp-cycle records, zero trn) -- a _ReturnAddress
trap on SetAnimationState(4) proved ALL peer trn arming came from the port's own
mech4 turn-step block, not the type-3 reader.  Two dead ends, one root:
- mech4 peer arm: gated on !wantsWalk (standSpeed < bodyTargetSpeed), exits trn
  when walking demand appears -- the leg twin's authentic precedence
  (part_012.c:12013, the Standing speed test outranks the turn test).
- mech2 body case 4: bspd reads bodyTargetSpeed on ReplicantInstance; the local
  mapper's speedDemand is a dead cell on a peer (reads 0 forever -> no exit).
Verified 2-node timeline: arena circle replicant 218x state-24 / 0x state-4
(was 116x trn churn), grass circle 235-clean, knockdowns bounded, 0 deaths.
Diagnostics kept: BT_TRNTRAP ra-trap, BT_ANIMIND_CAP, [gimpfeed], [replgimp]
extension.  KB: locomotion.md trn-lock entry + the dead-mapper-cell lesson.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QRjrTQpJd6u9XyfnUbTB3v
2026-07-30 18:26:15 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 9c83a468db #82 ROOT FIX: reconstruct the crash SELF-DAMAGE -- wall-grinding now hurts,
the knockdown storm self-limits, peers keep the limp

The 'peers see a limping mech skating' report decomposed into a wall-grind
KNOCKDOWN STORM: a gimped mech held against a blocking solid re-crashes each
time its gg cycle rebuilds speed (the gg ceiling is authentically the clip's
natural speed -- bhk1 ~14.9 u/s, ceiling+divisor @0x544/0x548, loader formula
byte-matched -- so iv2 ~222 >> the 40.0 threshold @0x4ab184), and every
type-5 KNOCKDOWN broadcast floors all peers' replicants into knockdown/trn
churn: gliding + leg-lifts = skating.  Turning and crushable cars were
A/B-exonerated (grass circling: 198 replicant gimp entries, 17 crunches,
zero broadcasts).

What the binary has that the port lacked -- recovered from the EXPORT GAP by
raw disasm (scratchpad/night6/gap_4a9770.txt, @4aa89f-4aaab4) -- is the crash
branch's tail: fallDirection = worldToLocal(damageForce) (FUN_0040879c, M^T v,
un-normalized), fallScalar = -(fallDirection . localVelocity.linearMotion),
and a self-dispatched TakeDamageMessage{0x64, zone=-1, the engine-computed
collision Damage verbatim}.  A wall crash COSTS ARMOR, so the grind degrades
the mech instead of looping forever.  That dispatch was the long-standing
'DEFERRED' note in the response policy; now reconstructed.

Falsified en route (comments + KB corrected, do not revive): the stagger's
FUN_004a4c54(1)/(0x20) 'action-request flags' feed NO drive suppressor --
image-wide sweep + full gap disasm show word[this+0x18] is read only by the
net record emitter; the bmp clip applies NO root motion (adv=0 measured); the
'gimp cap 5.8' figure was the BACK-cycle stride printed under a misleading
label (now ggCapL/R; @0x52c has no binary consumer).

Verified (mp_gimpAB rigs): arena1 wall-grind now 4 bounded strikes, limper
dies of its crashes and respawns cleanly twice (START->RESET, no strand);
grass circling unchanged-clean (198 replicant gimp states, 0 knocks).
Rig: pid capture race fixed (a missed winpid left a stale node holding the
-net port -> null runs), per-config sweep added.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-30 16:18:28 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 4e89baeff3 bench parity: local nodes now launch exactly like a player's shortcut
Local benches had drifted from the shipped launchers and every divergence
cost a debugging session:

  * no BT_START_INSIDE -> benches opened in the EXTERNAL CHASE camera while
    every player starts in the COCKPIT.  The first first-person look at a
    bench window was misread as a broken HUD.
  * novice bench eggs  -> every SHIPPED egg is expert; novice gates off the
    entire heat model, crits and jams, so bench combat was not field combat.
    (Verified: the aligned node now boots experience=3 simLive=1
    heatModelOn=1, where it used to boot 0/0/0.)
  * 1-LP affinity pins -> starved the gauge executive and produced a false
    "the comms panel never counts deaths" reading.  Two LPs per node keeps
    the documented single-box jitter fix without the starvation.

scratchpad/night6/bench_common.sh now owns the contract (bt_player_env,
bt_launch, bt_expert_egg, bt_novice_egg) copied verbatim from play_solo.bat,
with bt_assert_player_env warning if the shipped bat ever drifts.  All three
4-node benches source it.  The limp bench keeps a novice egg -- expert crits
the aimed leg and the mech turns-but-never-moves -- and now says so loudly.

Also: BT_SHOT_EVERY=<n> headless backbuffer capture (btl4vid.cpp), the tool
this was diagnosed with.  It must sit above the warp phase-0 early-out since
that fn is the per-frame alpha-pass hook.  OS screen-capture is off-limits:
a foreground-lock failure photographed the user's browser instead of the game.

KB: build-and-run.md gains the bench-parity rule + the capture diag;
cockpit-view.md gains the measured aspect/FOV finding (the surround's 2.05:1
view collapses vertical FOV to 31.5 deg vs the pod's 46.8, so fixed canopy
geometry covers 68.6% of the lower half -- NOT a regression: the shipped 643
binary reports identical geometry).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-30 13:30:30 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 a357dc4265 #81 GHOST MECH FIXED: release the death latch + stop the duplicate VehicleDead
Two defects that were masking each other, both now fixed and benched.

1) THE LATCH NEVER RELEASED ON FAILURE.  The binary's FUN_004c012c tail is
   Post(...) ; *(this+0x290)=0 ; *(this+0x258)=0   (part_013.c:10519-10523).
   We had the Post and the suppressConsole and were missing the middle
   instruction, so deathPending cleared only on SUCCESS paths.  One failed
   respawn latched the pilot for the whole mission: every later death hit the
   dedup and was SWALLOWED, so the cycle could never restart -- a transient
   hiccup became a PERMANENT ghost (dead, un-Reset, still driveable, a burning
   wreck on every peer that sinks after ~18s and can never be drawn again).
   Binary evidence: +0x290 is written in exactly THREE places in all of
   BTL4OPT.EXE (0x0b75fb, 0x0bffe3, 0x0c0a05) and all three store a ZEROED
   register; there is no write of 1 -- or any non-zero, in any instruction form
   -- anywhere.  The dedup gate itself IS authentic (@004c05c4 does
   mov edx,[ebx+0x290]; test edx,edx; jne ret), so it is kept.

2) VehicleDeadMessage WAS DISPATCHED TWICE PER DEATH.  BTPostKillScore
   (btplayer.cpp:2263) sent a second one "to credit a death", but that message
   is the RESPAWN-CYCLE TRIGGER, not a scoreboard increment, and the tally is
   already credited by the handler's ++deathTally (:538).  Both fire inside the
   same death transition (BTPostKillScore at mech4.cpp:2006, the hardened
   authentic notify at :2110), so they were always paired.  Removed; the kill
   credit above it is untouched (it correctly uses a ScoreMessage).

THEY HID EACH OTHER: the duplicate made the latch look necessary, and the latch
made the duplicate invisible.  Every "death ... SWALLOWED" warning in the field
logs was just the latch deduping our own duplicate -- 8 of 8 deaths, a 100% base
rate, which is exactly why it correlated with nothing when tested.  Fixing
either alone makes things visibly worse (the first bench of fix 1 alone produced
a DOUBLE cycle: deathCount double-incremented, cycle 1's re-post gone stale and
tripping the drop-zone MISMATCH).  That is why earlier passes at #57/#55 kept
adding clear-sites instead of finding the root; the binary broke the tie.

VERIFIED
  solo: 17 consecutive death/respawn cycles, every one START->RESET,
        0 swallowed / 0 mismatch / 0 crash.  Pre-fix this strands permanently
        after cycle 1.
  MP  : two nodes over a real network path with cross-machine drop-zone replies
        (each node's request is answered by the OTHER machine) -- A 11 cycles,
        B 12, 0 swallowed / 0 mismatch / 0 discarded / 0 crash.
  harness: BT_SELF_DAMAGE_REPEAT=1 re-arms the self-damage bench after respawn
        so multiple cycles can be driven (a one-death harness can never
        exercise this fix).  scratchpad/night6/mp_ghost.sh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-30 08:49:27 -05:00
Joe DiPrimaandClaude Fable 5 bf0555ccf1 #81: every MP respawn is a cross-machine round trip -- one degraded peer ghosts everyone
Two-node bench with the fixed host:local labels shows each player's drop-zone
request is answered by the OTHER machine's DropZone: A asks, B grants; B asks, A
grants.  FindGroup("DropZones") iterates replicants of remotely-mastered zones
too and takes the geometrically closest, so a respawn is
  my request -> an arbitrary peer's DropZone -> that peer's reply -> back to me.
With 5 players that is 5 round trips through arbitrary peers, and ONE degraded
peer can strand everybody else's respawn.  That finally explains the otherwise
unexplained field datum that one machine stopped processing the death-transition
stream 57% into a match and never recovered (0 explosions/wreck swaps/burials
while four other machines logged 4/4/4) -- a node in that state cannot answer
anyone's respawn.  It also explains why solo is 100% reliable (in-process) and
why a healthy 2-node bench passes.

Also fixes the instrumentation before it costs a night: every [dz] line printed
"entity 1" because a player's LOCAL entity id is 1 on every machine -- with five
players the log would have said a respawn stalled but not WHOSE.  All [dz] lines
now print host:local (including the usedBy= owner of each busy slot).

Doc: two candidate fixes recorded (prefer a locally-mastered DropZone / make the
reply path tolerant of a deathCount that is ahead of ours), neither to be guessed
at -- the [ghost] DISCARDED line's mismatch direction decides it in one line.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-30 01:20:13 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 7afbda900e the terminal that never closes: every launcher waited for ANY btl4.exe on the machine
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>
2026-07-27 16:06:39 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 afbbb7c59c road handoff: the state of every live investigation, checked against the machine and the tracker
Written for picking the work back up on a laptop. Facts verified rather than
recalled: the parked relay is NOT running (no listener on 1500/1501/1507), RDP
is up, Tailscale is not installed, and the tracker splits 24 genuinely-open /
26 awaiting-verification.

Also commits the tracker snapshot script so the issue split can be re-derived
from the road instead of trusting the numbers frozen in the doc.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 15:39:04 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 26e678e570 #67 part 2, ROOT-CAUSED AND FIXED: 1995 latent uninitialized fields, exposed by the port's allocator
THE HUNT (the deterministic rig repro made it a two-hour arc):
  1. cdb write-watch armed from the Torso ctor (bp plants `ba w4 this+0x21c`
     per torso -- ASLR-proof).  The poison reproduced (atUpd=-1250 this run;
     -3750 and int-15-as-float before)... and the watch stayed SILENT.  Nobody
     writes the garbage.  The field is never INITIALIZED.
  2. Confirmed in our ctor reconstruction: it inits every neighbour but skips
     targetTwist @0x218 and twistAtUpdate @0x21C (the function that zeroes
     them is a death-reset handler, not the ctor).
  3. Confirmed in the BINARY: the real ctor @004b6b0c contains no store to
     either offset -- a genuine 1995 latent bug (uninitialized read on the
     copy path).
  4. Why the pod never showed it: MemoryBlock arenas carve fresh OS-zeroed
     pages, one pool per type, low churn -- first allocations read as zero.
     The engine's own DEBUG_NEW_ON NaN-fill proves the developers knew the
     hazard class.  Why WE show it: mechrecon.hpp's Memory::Allocate shim
     ("a plain heap allocation is behaviour-equivalent" -- false) recycles
     dirty heap.  Replicant torsos spawned with garbage twist targets; the
     limit clamp turned any garbage into FULL TWIST -- rendered "twisted full
     right while not using TT" to every peer (playtest night 4, 3 reporters).

THE FIX -- environmental, class-wide, byte-faithful to the binary's code:
Memory::Allocate / AllocateArray / Alloc now ZERO-FILL, reproducing the pod's
EFFECTIVE allocation semantics for every never-stored field in every
reconstructed factory at once (Torso, Reservoir, all of them).  No ctor gains
stores the binary lacks.

PROVEN on the rig: the replicant thor now spawns cur=0 target=0 atUpd=0
(was cur=-3.31613 = hard against the limit).  Teardown clean.

Ships with part 1 (the dead-reckoning clock fix) in the next zip.  Remaining
on #67 for the next games night: live confirmation that twist TRACKING looks
right in play, and whether the fire-from-centre facet (very plausibly the same
never-stored-field class, now zeroed) is cured with it.

Tools kept: scratchpad/torso_watch.cdb + rig_watch.ps1 (the ctor-armed
write-watch pattern -- reusable for any "who wrote this field" hunt).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 07:42:37 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 184121c597 kill-storm repro rig for #35 (owens laser crash): parameterized damage hook + honest NEGATIVE
BT_MP_FORCE_DMG=<n> now sets the per-tick probe damage (plain =1 keeps the
original amount) -- kill-storm rigs need lethal ticks.  rig_killstorm.ps1:
offset-port relay + owens shooter under BT_AUTOFIRE vs a respawning victim.

Result: NEGATIVE, twice.  The respawn cycle (death anim + warp + handshake)
caps the harvest at 1-2 kill-teardown windows per 4-minute round, and none
crashed.  With July's 254-volley negative the conclusion firms up: the window
needs the reporter's slow-machine timing, not more attempts here.  The field
net (crash self-report + join.old.log rotation + the sweep guards) means the
next real occurrence names its own site.  Refined theory recorded in the
ledger: six-beam volley vs a target dying mid-volley, 515-class teardown race.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 00:57:23 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 33487ab846 night ledger: post-night fix session status (guards verified, dup-pilot repro NEGATIVE, five fixes landed)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 00:23:08 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 ef0ec48f9a map dropdown = the AUTHENTIC console catalog; the relay names a phantom-map stall instead of holding silently
THE 40-MINUTE OUTAGE'S REAL FIX.  The GUI's map dropdown offered every RES
name passing the type-14+26 existence check -- which includes INTERNAL
FRAGMENTS: artrucks is an include-node of arena1 (PROGRESS_LOG map anatomy:
arena1 -> {arenall -> cavern, artrucks}), not a mission.  Picking it stalled
every pod's mission load forever with no error anywhere, and End/Re-arm kept
restoring the poisoned egg -- 22:02..22:49, three "different" failures, one
cause.

  * eggmodel.CONSOLE_MAPS: the Mac 4.10 operator console's own adventure-tree
    catalog (Console.ini; the same 8 the solo menu ships in btl4fe.cpp kMaps):
    cavern grass rav polar3 polar4 arena1 arena2 dbase.  ValueSets.maps now
    offers exactly that, catalog order, filtered to what the RES carries
    (permissive fallback only if the intersection is empty -- a foreign RES
    must not present zero maps).  artrucks is the one fragment the old filter
    let through; now hidden.
  * The relay WARNS at egg load/reload when the mission names a non-catalog
    map (the camo-color-warning precedent: hand-edited eggs still work, the
    operator just cannot miss it).
  * The launch hold gains the PHANTOM-MISSION SIGNATURE diagnostic: 0/N ready
    for 60s means every pod is stalled in shared mission content -- one line
    naming the egg's map and the recovery (End Mission -> fix map -> Re-arm),
    instead of the silent 10s HELD drumbeat the operator stared at for 40
    minutes.  Hint re-arms per launch.

VERIFIED: new suite scratchpad/test_map_guard.py (5 checks: catalog exact +
ordered, artrucks hidden, warning fires on a doctored egg, silent on a real
one, the 60s hint names the map); all five console suites pass.  Python-only.

(While placing the hint, a blind text-insert broke the launch-received block's
indentation -- caught by py_compile before anything ran, repaired, and the
whole area re-verified by the rearm suite.)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 00:19:20 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 b7e4837738 seat identity swap (SAURON played as 'Draco'): the LEFT handler ate the pref of a re-seating player
THE CHAIN (reconstructed from the night's logs, then REPRODUCED offline in
scratchpad/test_seat_identity.py before fixing):

  1. At round end every pod relaunches and seat-requests again.  SAURON's
     request was walk-up-assigned the departed Draco's old seat, and his pref
     (callsign/mech) was correctly written -- the assign line even printed
     callsign='SAURON'.
  2. His request conn then closed BY DESIGN (the pod re-dials to HELLO) --
     and the beacon-death branch of _drop_game, added 2026-07-26 for the
     departed-player roster fix, treated any beacon death on an unclaimed
     seat as a LEAVE: it printed a false 'PLAYER n LEFT' and POPPED the pref
     written milliseconds earlier.
  3. The next egg release _reload_egg_file()'d the DISK egg -- where the GUI's
     Start Session had saved the ADOPTED roster names, including 'Draco' on
     that row -- and with no pref left to override it, Draco's callsign
     shipped on SAURON's seat.  His plasma (and that round's score
     attribution) wore the wrong name.  Per-seat HELLO-vs-close ordering
     roulette explains why only one seat swapped.

THE FIX: a LEFT-grace window (SEAT_LEFT_GRACE_SECONDS=15).  A beacon that
dies younger than the grace is the pod's designed post-assign re-dial: keep
the pref and the reservation, print nothing.  A real join-menu leaver has
held the seat far longer, so the departed-player roster fix keeps working
(pop + LEFT exactly as before); claimed seats were already exempt.

REGRESSION SUITE (new, offline, drives the real Relay class -- no ports):
  A. designed instant close: pref survives, seat stays protected  [was FAIL]
  B. real leave (aged beacon): pref popped + seat freed           [unchanged]
  C. claimed seat: pref survives an unrelated conn death          [unchanged]
  D. a different identity assigned onto a held seat overwrites
     the held pref (the operator's original suspicion, locked in) [unchanged]
All four console suites pass (rearm 25, net 17, roster 22, identity 7).

Python-only: no client update needed; the running console picks it up on its
next Start Session.  Awaiting live verification next games night.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-27 00:11:59 -05:00
arcattackandClaude Opus 5 c7dcdf26eb games night 2026-07-26: full incident ledger (artrucks phantom map, reservoir load crash, seat ghost, owens laser suspect)
The night's evidence file, preserved against the log truncation that ate the
primary sources twice.  Highlights: map=artrucks (an art sub-node the dropdown
offers as a mission) stalled every load for 40 minutes; the post-freeze reload
crash resolved to CreateReservoirSubsystem+0x13d (null->0x1d0) with a
duplicate-pilot egg as prime suspect; a held seat walk-up-assigned to a
different player kept the old callsign (SAURON played as 'Draco'); and the
23:14 first domino was Conn Man in OWENS firing lasers -- matching an older
verbal report never filed.  Fix list + evidence-collection asks recorded.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-26 23:45:20 -05:00