The MadCat torso twists, the view turns with it, and targeting follows.
Three reconstruction fronts closed:
THE ELECTRICAL WATCHDOG CHAIN (why the torso never powered up):
- PowerWatcher::UpdateWatch reconstructed (@004b181c, the REAL registered
Performance -- PTR @0050f5fc; Ghidra missed the fn start): the watchdog
MIRRORS the watched subsystem's electrical level (+0x278), brownout
downgrade when gen output <= minVoltage% x rated. @004b1804 relabeled
ResetToInitialState (slot 10) -- the old "Simulation" tag was wrong.
- The factory watcher-CONNECT pass reconstructed (vtable slot +0x38,
@004aee2c/@004b1a40 byte-identical, recovered from raw exe bytes):
watchedLink.Add(roster[watchedSubsystem]) on the master node. Was the
SubProxy::Start() no-op -- every watchdog sat at 0 forever.
- MinVoltageScale = 0.01 (a 10-byte x87 literal @0x4b1924; was 1.0f =
permanent brownout) and PowerWatcher's Derivation chains its REAL base
HeatWatcher (the HeatableSubsystem stand-in broke IsDerivedFrom for the
whole Torso/Searchlight/ThermalSight family).
- KB correction swept: derivation tag 0x50e604 = HEATWATCHER (not
"HeatSink"); the btl4gaug heat-widget gate now tests it via the
BTIsHeatWatcher bridge.
THE CROSSHAIR (task #58 forensics, 6-agent workflow + live probes):
- The VIEW is TORSO-MOUNTED: jointtorso -> jointeye -> siteeyepoint in
every twist-capable .SKL; the camera + canopy ride the same hinge
subtree through HingeRenderable's live matrix-stack compose -- ALREADY
WORKING in the port. The crosshair stays screen-centered (center IS
the boresight); the twist reads on the tape carets/compass/radar.
- The real bug was the port's gBTAimX = tan(twist) slew (the falsified
"body-mounted view" model): the camera already carried the twist, so
the crosshair counter-slid to hull-forward and the fire ray with it.
Deleted; the pick ray inherits the twist from the yawing eye basis.
- Two instrumentation traps documented (chase-eye-as-default-camera,
BT_FORCE_TORSO clobbering real joints -> the hook now only fills
unresolved ones); an over-correcting explicit eye compose was added on
those false readings and retired the same day.
CONTROLS + REPLICATION:
- Q/E spring-center on release (the axis is a twist-RATE demand; the old
hold-deflection model drifted forever); X also zeroes the axis and
pulses the authentic torso Recenter (@004b6918). M cycles control
mode via the real CycleControlMode body.
- Torso update-record DIRECTION fixed: engine truth is Write=serialize /
Read=apply; @004b6a78 is the READ (was mislabeled Write) and the
missing WRITE @004b6a1c recovered from raw disasm (recordLength 0x1C,
twist/vel/rate at +0x10/14/18) -- kills the replicant's 0xCDCDCDCD
-140-degree ghost twist.
- Marching-ghost desync: 4 Standing-case guards zero stale reverse
cycleSpeed (negative cadence passed the <= ZeroSpeed stop gate).
- Kill credit rerouted to the OBSERVED killer (lastInflictingID ->
killer's player link) -- kills count, target K/D populates.
KB: subsystems.md (watcher chain), multiplayer.md (record direction),
combat-damage.md + gauges-hud.md + cockpit-view.md (torso-mounted view
re-correction), decomp-reference.md (new addresses + tag fix),
open-questions.md (dead capability-roster loops 2-4, snapshot CD read).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
25-hit MP autofire trace: kick -> damped oscillation -> settle, peaks well
inside clamps, no NaN/drift; measured Y:X frequency ratio 7.75x matches
sqrt(springK.y/springK.x) exactly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Community reports said the camera looked too far back and the cockpit frames
were never this revealed; the user's hypothesis (our projection widens the
view) was exactly right. The original Tesla projection call, preserved in a
comment at DPLRenderer::SetView, is
dpl_SetViewProjection(view, -1, -aspect, +1, +aspect, 1/tan(viewangle/2))
i.e. BTDPL.INI's viewangle=60.0 is the HORIZONTAL field of view with the
vertical derived by aspect: the pod's frustum was 60 x 46.8 deg at 4:3. The
port fed the 60 to D3DXMatrixPerspectiveFovRH as the VERTICAL fov -> 75 x 60
at 4:3 (worse on widescreen): the world rendered ~25% farther away and far
more canopy was visible than the pod ever showed.
Fix: BTFovYFromHorizontal(viewangle, aspect) at all five projection sites
(main, per-frame resize, sky pass, WM_SIZE rebuild, fallback) -- the
horizontal field stays the authentic 60 deg at any window shape. The aim
boresight reads the live projection (gBTAimP22) and adapts; combat
re-verified (kill chain, no NaN). Cockpits now show the frames at the
pod's framing: viewports dominant, frames at the periphery.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The user caught the inversion (blocked viewports, see-through frames); the
answer came from the rasterizer board itself: an i860 disassembly of the
VREND.MNG firmware decoded the damageize handler (@0xf040f6f8) -- cmd 0x20
(vr_damage_action) writes the dpl_Punchize token triple onto the punch
geogroup's first three geometry chunks IN FILE ORDER:
chunk1 = the detailed window-aperture shapes -> an invisible per-pixel MASK
chunk2 = the coarse hull -> the ONLY colour-drawn geometry (where not masked)
chunk3 = byte-identical hull twin -> the damage-reset record, never visible
Visible canopy = hull-minus-apertures. Both earlier readings were wrong ways
around the same three chunks: dropping all punch left floating fragments (no
hull); hiding the duplicate pair hid the HULL and drew the MASK -- the exact
inversion observed.
Port: bgfload tags per punch patch {non-paired pmesh = mask (role 1),
first twin = hull (role 2), second twin = skip}; L4D3D DrawMesh runs
mask->stencil-1 (no colour/z-write, z-tested), hull->stencil-NOTEQUAL,
mask->stencil-0; device D24X8 -> D24S8 + stencil clear. The cut never
touches z, so later-drawn entities show through the apertures.
BT_COP_PLATES=1 disables (diag).
In-game, all 8 mechs on pure defaults: connected dark frames with clear
viewports -- thor (the footage mech) shows the central viewport + surrounding
frame exactly as filmed. Combat regression clean (kill + no NaN).
Arena textured punch uses the same firmware kit; the black-texel alpha path
there is a working approximation, flagged in the KB.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Resolved the non-Madcat blocked views. Rendering every *_COP shell offline
from its mech's AUTHORED eye (SKL [jointeye] translation -- incl. the Thor's
+1.13 offset cockpit) with faces coloured by punch flag showed the answer
plainly: the PUNCH-tagged patches sit exactly over the window apertures in
all 8 mechs. On these texture-less black-diffuse shells dpl_Punchize renders
the tagged geogroup as holes -- the punch patches are the transparent
WINDSHIELDS, and the visible frame is only the non-punch geometry.
The loader now drops the punch batches of _cop meshes (bgfload finish();
BT_COP_KEEPPUNCH=1 keeps them for diagnosis). In-game sweep on pure defaults:
- madcat: the dark dome frame (matches gameplay footage)
- thor / owens / sunder: authentic brace/dash/pillar remnants
- bhk1 / loki / vulture / avatar: authentically FRAMELESS (all-punch
canopies -- the pod showed no frame for those mechs)
(An early-session test that "disproved" drop-punch ran with the broken
pre-inverse eye; its conclusion was wrong and is corrected in the KB.)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Re-disassembled the unexported gap 0x4b2980-0x4b2d8b byte-exact (capstone over
section_dump.txt) and reconstructed Gyroscope::ApplyDamageResponse:
- zero-damage + Collision(type 0) no-op; hit direction = Damage::damageForce
or a RANDOM horizontal fallback when ~zero (per-component sign roll then
value roll -- binary-legal until senders fill damageForce)
- direction rotated by the yaw-only torso-twist frame (placeRot=(0,twist,0)
-> euler->matrix, the FUN_00408744 raw row-dot reproduced verbatim)
- per-type scaling amount / damageMultiplier[type] * damageResponse[type]
.{trans,pitchRoll,yaw,vibration}; Explosive alone multiplies burstCount;
each clamped at 1.3f
- four kicks: impulse(trans, dir), torque(pitchRoll, dir), impulse(vibration,
vibrationDirection@0x390) and verticalImpulse(yaw, dir)
Layout corrections (byte-verified): gyro+0x390 is ONE Vector3D vibration axis
init (0,1,0) -- was mis-split as scalars animationOffset/Scale/Phase; mech
+0x5c4 is a FLOAT rumble-period countdown (gyroRumbleTimer) -- was mis-typed
int clipLoadGuard.
Call sites wired (binary-gated):
- take-damage hub: mech.cpp TakeDamageMessageHandler, FIRST action (@0x4a0264
in hub FUN_004a0230) -- an invalid-zone hit still bounces
- crushable-icon crunch: mech4.cpp, torque 0.4 along the bounce delta-v + up
impulse 0.2 (@4aa81e/@4aa86c)
- firing recoil: projweap.cpp FireWeapon, damage>3 -> impulse (0,0.6,-1.5)
x damage/16 (@4bc136-4bc19c) via the new Mech::GetGyroSubsystem accessor
DEFERRED (recorded in KB with the byte recipe): the alternate-gait engage
jolt + 0.4s rumble (@4aa158-4aa365) -- its gates are [T3]-flagged and it
mutates the #49/#50-stabilized gait machine.
Verified live: [gyro-dmg] fires per hit with correct type scaling; eyePosition
shows the damped bounce (ramp to ~0.015u, oscillating Y, decay to zero); kill
chain un-regressed; no NaN.
Also recorded in KB: the OFFSET-COCKPIT verification -- Thor's authored
jointeye tranx=+1.13 matches its canopy X-center exactly AND our in-game eye
reproduces it to the hundredth (the placement model is correct per-mech); and
the playable roster is 8 models (strider/raptor/firstrtr/blkjack have assets
but no model resource -- BT_FORCE_MODEL with those names = NULL-resource AV,
cdb-verified, not a code bug).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The first-person cockpit now shows by default and matches gameplay footage
(verified on the Madcat). Two decomp-verified reconstructions:
EYEPOINT (FUN_004579a8 + caller part_014.c:5525, FUN_004c22c4):
- eye offset = siteeyepoint GetBaseOffset (not GetSegmentToEntity, not the
upright hack), parented on the PARENT segment DCS (btl4vid.cpp)
- live view = affine INVERSE of the eye world matrix (L4VIDRND Execute) --
replaces the hand-rolled LookAtRH whose +Z-forward/+Y-up row guess aimed
some mechs into the canopy; combine order fixed to baseOffset * R
- chase camera basis + aim boresight re-expressed for the inverse convention
(row2 = back); boresight now derives from the view matrix (the stale rows
aimed the pick ray at the sky = no target, no discharge)
CANOPY (*_COP.BGF, dpl_Punchize geogroups):
- every shell is an open strut lattice (38-59% boundary edges, all 12 mechs);
rendered single-sided with per-face INWARD winding (l/r torso patches are
mirrored, so no global winding works) the struts are the dark frame and the
openings show the world
- frame colour = the 'softer' ramp near its dark end (texture-less unlit ramp;
BLXSKIN.BMF has no texture -- the old "punch texels" theory was wrong)
- scoped by filename (meshIsCop); wrong drop-punch + view-cut paths removed
- BT_FORCE_MODEL=<name> forces the player mech for per-mech bring-up
KB: new context/cockpit-view.md topic; punch split corrected in bgf-format;
gotchas 14 (LookAt axis guess) + 15 (per-patch edge namespaces); env gates +
eye/punch addresses in decomp-reference.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
