CydandClaude Opus 5
61563c9efe
Replicates the RP412 cockpit line into BT411's own architecture -- porting the geometry and keeping our renderers, so BT_SHOT single-frame verification stays intact. MODE RESOLVER. Where the secondary displays go was decided in TWO places with duplicated precedence, and the boot banner read NEITHER -- it announced "per-display cockpit windows" for every glass boot, surround included. The split had also broken BT_COCKPIT=0: documented as the dock-bottom opt-out, the profile block converted it to BT_GLASS_PANELS=1, so the docked strip was UNREACHABLE under the glass profile. One resolver now, consumed by the banner, the pad-panel decision and the window sizing; BT_GLASS_PANELS is explicit-only; dock/window modes auto-raise BT_PAD_PANEL so the button field always has a home. L4RIOBANK -- one button geometry. Both renderers carried their own copy and had drifted: an MFD button was 156x138 reaching under the glass in the exploded window and a 76x24 sliver entirely OUTSIDE the glass in the surround. One module owns it now, both are consumers, placement stays per-renderer. The pod's under-glass rule (RP412 L4MFDVIEW): reach half the glass in behind the display, leave a lamp strip clearing the edge, paint buttons first and imagery over -- so the lamp reads as a bar and practically the whole display is the press target. The strip scales off the display's SHORT axis (the map is portrait) with a readable floor. Retired L4GLASSWIN's three local placers and seven layout constants. LAMP FLASH DECODE was wrong [T1]. BTLampBrightnessOf returned max(state1, state2) and blanked on the alternate phase; RIO::LampState (L4RIO.h [T0]) says solid shows state 1 and flashing ALTERNATES the two. Agrees only when one state is Off -- true for the Panic lamp, which is why it survived -- but L4LAMP.cpp:252 commands flashFast + state1Dim + state2Bright, a dim->bright pulse that rendered as a hard bright->off blink. Three copies existed (l4vb16.h, L4GLASSWIN, L4PADPANEL), all three wrong; the two locals now forward to the one fixed inline. THE COCKPIT SCALES. The fixed canvas was stretched into whatever the client area was, so a window dragged to a different shape squashed the instruments (the projection was aspect-corrected in task #20; the panels never were). Now one uniform scale, centred, leftover black. D3D9 applies it as a Present destination rect, which DISCARD forbids -- so the WINDOWED swap effect becomes COPY when the surround is up and multisampling is off. The click mapping had to follow (mapping against the full client drifts the hit test off every button by the bar width), as did the world aspect (under a uniform scale it is the view rect's own). -fit / -windowed-fullscreen: borderless over the monitor. - ordering trap: the first WM_SIZE beats the device, so a -fit boot logged aspect=3.14 and applied it on frame 1. The letterbox INTENT is decided in btl4main; L4VIDEO only confirms or withdraws it. PLAYER-TUNABLE DISPLAYS. BT_MFD_SCALE (+ _UL/_UC/_UR/_LL/_LR), BT_RADAR_SCALE, BT_RADAR_POS (CENTER/LEFT/RIGHT/MIDLEFT/MIDRIGHT). The surround BANDS derive from the resolved sizes -- that is why the sizes could not stay constants: the band a display hangs in has to grow with it or the canvas clips it. 100% reproduces the historical L276 R276 T223 B336 exactly. A corner map goes flush to the CANVAS edge and the lower MFD slides beside it (measuring off the view edge overlapped them by 232px). MAP LEGEND GRID -- measured, not inherited. scratchpad/measurelegend.py over a native capture: top 3, cell 102, pitch 107 of 640. RP412's map is 13 + 6x102 @ 105 -- same cell height, different top and pitch, so its numbers do NOT transfer. Our old even division had the pitch right by luck and sat 3px high of the labels. environ.ini. It was read ~300 lines into WinMain, AFTER the platform-profile block had run its getenv()s -- so every setting the profile reads was silently ignored FROM THE FILE and only worked as a real env var. It also putenv()'d comments verbatim. Now loaded immediately after the first-breath line, comments skipped, the real environment WINS over the file, and a fully documented default is written on first run (the bindings.txt convention: untracked, so extract-over-top never clobbers a player's settings). VERIFICATION HARNESS (new, reusable): BT_RIOBANK_LOG=1 dumps every bank; checkbank.py proves no address is SHADOWED (an address whose rect is covered by earlier buttons is dead however big it looks -- the overlapping under-glass banks make that a live hazard); clickbank.py posts a real click at every button centre. Verified: 72/72 placed, 0 shadowed, 72/72 dispatched in BOTH modes, after a resize, at 150%/135%, and at 75%+BOTTOMRIGHT; wide/tall drags and -fit undistorted on a 3440x1440; exploded/dock/pod/dev un-regressed. 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.