Found while auditing today's vtable change before release. The binary's
HeatSink::GetStatusFlags @004add30 OPENS with `call 0x4ac144` --
MechSubsystem::GetStatusFlags, the damage tier (damageLevel >= 1.0 -> bit 0
Destroyed; > 0 -> bit 1 Damaged). There is no zero-returning
HeatableSubsystem override anywhere in the image.
Our port routed that call through `HeatableSubsystem::GetStatusFlags()
{ return 0; }` -- a "neutral default" that silently dropped bits 0 and 1 for
the ENTIRE heat branch (every weapon, sensor, emitter, PPC, generator,
powered subsystem). Two live consequences:
* Destroyed / Damaged could never reach MechTech's annunciator scan --
gutting half the shipped mechalrm table (Destroyed -> gotoEngineering +
engCooling + engBusMode) hours after #47 shipped the flash;
* PoweredSubsystem's AutoConnect gate (`GetStatusFlags() == 0`,
powersub.cpp:358) read a DAMAGED subsystem as pristine.
One-line fix: chain the real tier, reproducing @004add30 exactly. The call
site's own comment already said `// FUN_004ac144` -- the implementation had
simply never matched it.
Also corrected a stale comment on MechSubsystem::GetStatusFlags that read the
field as a STRUCTURE level ("1.0 = intact, 0 = dead") -- backwards. The
engine member is damageLevel and ACCUMULATES to 1.0 = destroyed (mechdmg's
crit cascade tests `level >= StructureMax` for exactly that), which is what
makes bits 0/1 line up with TechStatusType Destroyed/Damaged. Behaviour was
always right; the comment was a leftover of the same structureLevel misreading
#46 retired.
VERIFIED (3-pod combat sim, BT_LAMP_LOG): the annunciator is genuinely live --
Jammed x7, AmmoBurning x5, BadPower x20, Overheating x207 (Overheating
correctly maps to NO lamp: the shipped table has no entry for it). The lamp
resolution is per-subsystem as designed -- different weapons flash their own
panel buttons (lamps 0xf/0x5/0xb/0x3 under distinct mode masks), 32 flash
writes across a whole battle, no thrash. Zero crashes, zero plane/OOB
tripwire hits across all three pods.
FILED, deliberately NOT fixed tonight (open-questions.md): vtable slot +0x40
is misattributed. The binary calls it `(this, 0)` in AutoConnect's outer gate
and `(this, candidateGenerator)` in the roster walk -- a one-arg voltage query
(HasVoltage(source)), not GetStatusFlags(). Modelling both as the no-arg
GetStatusFlags makes the outer gate demand "no flags" and the inner "some
flag" with nothing between them, so AutoConnect's loop body can never execute.
Pre-existing before and after this change; it is a live power-bus behaviour
change and deserves its own playtest cycle, not a release-eve patch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
