arcattackandClaude Opus 5
1cda880c6d
DOCS (the ask: after a compaction this session lost track of how the console
works and launched the wrong program, twice).
* NEW context/operator-console.md -- the dedicated topic that was missing.
Leads with the thing I got wrong: btoperator.py is the PySide6 GUI the
operator uses; btconsole.py is the headless relay it spawns. Then ports,
the route table, the roster/seat/identity model, the full round lifecycle
with every launch gate, liveness, mode-specific traps, and log locations.
* NEW docs/OPERATOR_GUIDE.md -- sysop-facing: start the console, set up a
mission, watch pods arrive, launch, run back-to-back rounds, what to press
when LAUNCH looks dead, a troubleshooting table keyed on the exact log
lines, and what to save BEFORE restarting a session (Start Session
truncates operator_relay.log, so restarting to clear a problem destroys the
evidence of it).
* CLAUDE.md: two Quick Lookup rows + a DO-NOT entry naming the two programs,
so the distinction survives the next compaction.
* context/multiplayer.md: a pointer out of the scattered console notes to the
new topic (they were buried across ~8 places in a large file, which is
exactly why they evaporated).
FIXES -- both are regressions in my own previous commit, found by the review
pass, and one would have made a games night WORSE:
* THE REAPER WOULD HAVE KILLED HEALTHY PLAYERS. It was gated only on "no
mission running", which a round RESET satisfies -- so it was armed for the
whole BETWEEN-ROUNDS wait, and that is a period when a pod is legitimately
byte-silent: its seat beacon is write-only for the process lifetime
(L4NET.CPP: "the relay ignores its silence") and its console pad has no egg
yet so it cannot ACK. A real night showed 12-minute and 5-minute gaps; the
180s deadline would have dropped healthy pods and forced their clients to
relaunch. It now runs ONLY in the active staging window, skips pads with no
egg and conns that have not HELLO'd, and last_seen is also stamped from
inbound UDP (a pod streaming updates while its TCP idles was being counted
as silent). Half-open detection is keepalive's job; this is just a backstop.
* UnboundLocalError in the operator UI. My end_sent reset was an `elif` in
the chain that assigns `head`, so that branch left `head` unbound -- a crash
on the first status refresh after End Mission, which is exactly the path the
relay's "StopMission sent" line produces. Moved out of the chain.
Plus one pre-existing wedge with the same symptom as the reported bug, live-
proven in operator_relay.log (~5 minutes of a night lost): _abort_round clears
eggs_released BEFORE the survivors' sockets close, so _maybe_reset_round's own
`if not self.eggs_released: return` skips the template restore forever -- the
roster stays trimmed, the release gates can never be met, and walk-ups get
ROSTER FULL. _rearm_for_new_round's restore is therefore now UNCONDITIONAL (it
was gated on eggs_released, which made Re-arm useless in the one state that most
needs it) and it clears round_hold_until so an abort's settle window is not
inherited. Aborts are ordinary: nothing on the wire distinguishes a straggler's
late FIN from a pod dying mid-load.
scratchpad/test_relay_rearm.py now 19 checks, all passing, including the two new
regression guards (a 15-minute-silent waiting pod is NOT reaped; a pad that was
never sent an egg is NOT reaped) and the mid-pair no-re-arm guard.
Still open, recorded in the new topic's frontmatter: the UDP endpoint map trusts
the sender's self-declared fromHost; the egg-ACK is a fixed-offset parse of one
recv with no reassembly; remote-operator mode can never enable LAUNCH.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
BattleTech 4.11 (bt411)
A standalone Windows port of Virtual World Entertainment's arcade BattleTech (Tesla platform, release 4.10, ~1995–96), reconstructed on the shared RP411 Windows engine. The game boots, renders, and runs a single-player drive → animate → target → fire → damage → destroy loop across all 8 maps, with two-instance multiplayer entity replication working.
This repo is a clean, self-contained extraction of the BattleTech-specific work from the larger reverse-engineering workspace — engine + game + content + build, with nothing from Red Planet or the raw archive dumps. It builds and runs out of the box.
License: the game content (
content/) and the original binary are proprietary to Virtual World / the pod owner. This repository is private; do not redistribute.
Versioning
4.10 = the 1995 arcade release. 4.11 = this win32 reconstruction. Dev builds are
4.11.<build> where <build> is the git commit count — monotonic and zero-maintenance —
plus the short commit hash (4.11.311 (980c9cd)); a trailing + on the hash means the exe was
built from an uncommitted working tree. The stamp regenerates every build
(tools/btversion.cmake → build/btversion.h) and shows in the boot banner (btl4.log line 2)
and the window title. To identify any player's build, ask for the title bar or the top of their
btl4.log.
Layout
CMakeLists.txt one build: munga_engine lib + bt410_l4 game lib + btl4.exe
engine/
MUNGA/ shared 2007 sim/render engine (149 .cpp + headers)
MUNGA_L4/ Win32/D3D9 HAL + renderer + asset loaders (44 .cpp), incl.
our BT work: bgfload / L4D3D / L4VIDEO + the image codec
shim/ minimal ATL shim (USES_CONVERSION/W2A)
lib/ OpenAL32 / libsndfile import libs + runtime DLLs
game/
reconstructed/ the reconstructed BT game logic (mech, subsystems, HUD, app; ~47 .cpp)
original/BT,BT_L4 surviving original BT source + all BT headers
fwd/ header shims forwarding <NAME.hpp> -> the engine's NAME.h
btl4main.cpp WinMain launcher / entry point
content/ runtime data: BTL4.RES, VIDEO/, GAUGE/, AUDIO/, *.EGG, BTDPL.INI
context/ progressive knowledge graph — 18 on-demand topic files (routed by CLAUDE.md)
docs/ format specs + reconstruction ledgers + PROGRESS_LOG.md (full history)
reference/
decomp/ raw Ghidra pseudocode — source-of-truth for ongoing recon
ghidra_scripts/ the headless decomp exporter
glossary.yaml term / acronym definitions
phases/ restructuring / investigation logs
tools/ btconsole.py (MP console emulator), map/resource scanners
run/ run.cmd helper
CLAUDE.md knowledge-base ROUTER — identity, protocols, quick-lookup, conventions
Prerequisites
- Visual Studio 2019 BuildTools (MSVC v142, x86). The Community install on the original dev box was broken, hence the explicit BuildTools instance in the configure line below; adjust to your install.
- CMake ≥ 3.20.
- Legacy DirectX SDK (June 2010) — the engine uses
d3dx9/dinput/dxerr, removed from the modern Windows SDK. Default pathC:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010); override with-DDXSDK=<path>. (The installer may throw a harmless S1023 error — dismiss it; the SDK headers/libs install before the failing redist step.)
OpenAL/libsndfile import libs + DLLs are vendored under engine/lib/; the DLLs are copied next to
the exe automatically at build time.
Build (32-bit / Win32)
cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A Win32 ^
-DCMAKE_GENERATOR_INSTANCE="C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/BuildTools"
cmake --build build --config Debug
Must be Win32 — the DirectX SDK link libs are Lib/x86. The link uses /FORCE: the 1995
headers define free functions/globals without inline/extern, so identical symbols appear in
many translation units (~124 LNK2005); /FORCE:MULTIPLE keeps the first. UNRESOLVED tolerates
a dead offline-tool factory in mech3.cpp that is never called at runtime. (Cleanup task: move
those definitions to single TUs + neutralize the dead factory, then drop /FORCE.)
Run
run\run.cmd REM boots DEV.EGG (grass / day)
run\run.cmd DBASE.EGG REM any egg in content/
The working directory must be content/ (the engine resolves BTL4.RES, VIDEO\,
BTDPL.INI, and eggs relative to cwd); run.cmd handles that. Maps available in BTL4.RES:
cavern grass rav polar3 polar4 arena1 arena2 dbase — switch via a copied egg's map= field.
Useful env-var flags (default OFF unless noted)
The authentic stack (gait, collision, real controls) is default-on; set =0 to fall back.
Debug/harness flags: BT_FORCE_THROTTLE=1 (auto-walk), BT_SPAWN_ENEMY=1 (spawn a target dummy),
BT_FORCE_FIRE=1 (auto-fire), BT_HEAPCHECK=1 (whole-heap validation — slow), BT_BSL=0 (legacy
texture decode), BT_DEV_GAUGES=1 (render the cockpit MFDs in a dev window), BT_LOG=<file>.
Interactive: WASD drive, A/D turn, Q/E torso twist, R/F torso pitch aim,
Space / 1-4 fire, X all-stop, V view, M control mode. An Xbox-type controller
works out of the box. All bindings are user-editable in content/CONTROLS.MAP (delete it to
restore the compiled-in WASD default; content/CONTROLS_NUMPAD.MAP is an alternate profile). The
complete env-gate table is in context/decomp-reference.md §6 (routed from CLAUDE.md);
controls/pad details in context/pod-hardware.md.
Multiplayer
Modern path (relay + operator console). Pods make ONE outbound connection to a relay/console, so internet play needs no per-player port forwarding and CGNAT-safe LAN discovery just works. Run the operator station:
python tools/btoperator.py # PySide6 GUI: build the mission egg (validated dropdowns),
# start the relay, watch pods arrive, assign seats, LAUNCH,
# end the timed mission, export player join.bat scripts
Players run one universal join.bat (internet, seat assigned by the relay) or join_lan.bat
(same LAN, auto-discovers the console) or play_solo.bat (offline practice) — see players/.
The pod waits patiently if the session isn't up yet. Full architecture, wire format, and the
D1 relay/UDP design: context/multiplayer.md.
Legacy mesh (two instances, one box), still supported:
instance A: btl4.exe -egg MP.EGG -net 1501 (BT_LOG=mp_a.log)
instance B: btl4.exe -net 1601 (BT_LOG=mp_b.log)
console: python tools/btconsole.py MP.EGG 127.0.0.1:1501 127.0.0.1:1601
-net <port> enables networked mode. Verified end-to-end: full entity/movement replication,
cross-pod combat + kills, per-pilot paint + callsigns, timed missions, 4-pod live sessions, and a
spectator/broadcast camera seat (hostType=1 vehicle=camera) with auto-directed coverage and
a live ranking window.
Status & continuing the work
The engine, renderer, audio, HAL, build, locomotion, collision, damage, render fidelity, the full
cockpit gauge / MFD system (every config binding resolves + every widget builds), and the
projectile / missile weapon families are done. Active fronts: per-subsystem polish (the gyroscope
integrator; the 0xBD3 message manager that gates the valve / status-message control routes) and
cross-pod MP combat. reference/decomp/ holds the raw pseudocode every reconstruction is verified
against.
Start with CLAUDE.md — it is the router into the progressive knowledge base: a quick-lookup
table pointing to the context/*.md topic files (loaded on demand), the evidence-tier and
convention rules, and context/open-questions.md for what's deferred / next. The complete
pre-restructure history is preserved verbatim in docs/PROGRESS_LOG.md; docs/*.md holds the
detailed running ledgers.