The crouch symbol animation is fully present and we were starving it.
content/GAUGE/BDUCK.PCC the 3-frame strip
OneOfSeveralPixInt @004c5204/@004c52d8 the element, reconstructed
btl4grnd.cpp:144 registered in the factory
L4GAUGE.CFG:5001 oneOfSeveralPixInt(
E,ModeAlwaysActive,
bduck.pcc,3,1,DuckState)
ATTRIBUTE_ENTRY(Mech, DuckState, duckState) attribute 0x37
A 3-frame mech symbol beside the CROUCH button, indexed by duckState -- the
standing<->crouching animation Lynx and Draco describe. It never played
because the consumer zeroed duckState the frame after the press, in BOTH
directions, so the strip sat on frame 0 with a one-frame blip to frame 1.
That is the field report verbatim: "button flickers sometimes on press ...
state does not change. Remains in stand mode."
THE ZEROING WAS OURS. Every writer of +0x398 in the export is the
DuckRequest handler (=1) and Mech::Reset (=0). FUN_004a9b5c -- the master
perf, which contains the address the old comment cited as "the DuckRequest
consumer (@0x4aa011)" -- does not reference 0x398 at all. mech.hpp's own note
already said "duckState has NO code reader anywhere in the decomp ... whatever
consumes it consumes it through DATABINDING". The databinding consumer is
this gauge strip, and we were clearing it behind the gauge's back.
Restructure: drive on DESIRED vs ACTUAL. duckState is the desired posture;
the parked leg alarm is the actual. Act only on a mismatch -- no re-fire, and
nothing clears the attribute. A frame where mapPosture is not ready now
RETRIES (throttled [duck] WAITING) instead of silently dropping the request,
which retires the old "request consumed, posture=N" miss as well.
ONE DOCUMENTED DIVERGENCE: the handler now TOGGLES. The binary writes a bare
1 and clears the cell only in Mech::Reset, with no per-frame reader, so a
second press could never rise -- and a pod pilot's second press must un-crouch
(Lynx: "Mech is immobilized until crouch is pushed again, and mech rises").
One cell, same meaning, noted at the site.
Benched (crouch142.sh, madcat):
duckState -> 1 (crouch) -> SQUAT -> [holds 1 while crouched] ->
duckState -> 0 (rise) -> RISE
Value now persists across the crouched period instead of blipping, so frames
0/1 of the strip are reachable and stable. Also removed the interim REQUEST
DROPPED receipt: after the restructure nothing is dropped, and a receipt that
says otherwise is a trap for the next session.
STILL OPEN on #142: no immobilization while crouched (Lynx) -- nothing gates
movement on duckState or the parked leg alarm. A driven mech with a parked
leg channel is the [skate] signature (#52), so it may not be cosmetic.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NCJQkvq6G2JNrpVbA75tVZ
