Tooling built to recover editable source for six 'Mech chassis that exist
in the parallel FS_Build_V4H build but not in this repo. Reverse-engineers
every compiled record type in the .mw4 package format back to the .data /
.instance / .subsystems / .damage / .contents / .torso / .engine /
.armature sources the content pipeline consumes.
Nothing here is wired into the game build. It is a standalone analysis
harness run from Linux.
Package format
--------------
"#VBD" container. Directory records are [len][name][FILETIME][origSize]
[storedSize][offset], payload base at dword 0x0C. A record is stored raw
when storedSize == origSize, otherwise LZW (9->12-bit LSB-first codes,
256=clear, 257=EOF, dict from 258), per Database.cpp:451.
GameModel records are flat /Zp4 structs following the C++ inheritance
chain Entity(0) -> Mover(28) -> MWObject(80) -> Vehicle(664) -> Mech(756),
1636 bytes total. CreateMessage records follow Replicator -> Entity ->
Mover -> MWMover -> MWObject -> Vehicle -> Mech from start=16 (the
undeclared Connection__Message header), ending at 341 and padded to 344.
tools/decompile/
----------------
datamap.py header-driven layout engine; CHAIN + ANCHORS
{Vehicle:664, Mech:756} assert the struct offsets
mw4msg.py CreateMessage reader/walker
data.py .data constants.py define/table symbol resolution
damage.py .damage contents.py .contents
smallmodel.py .torso + .engine instance.py .instance
armature.py / armature_parts.py .armature + armaturedata/armaturevideo
assembly.py joint hierarchy renderer
make_generic_doll.py builds generic MFD/Radar damage dolls
verify_*.py per-type round-trip verifiers
Verified round-trip across all 64 shared chassis:
.armature 2938/2976 pages .subsystems 7579/7585 keys
.data map 6071/6071 values .data trip 8291/8306 keys
.damage 6605/6605 keys .contents 7480/7480 keys
.torso+.engine 1280/1280 keys .instance 896/896 keys, 64/64 pages
armature_parts 1202/1202 .data, 1149/1202 .video
Layout-discovery lessons (documented in DECOMPILING.md)
-------------------------------------------------------
- Never let a field map be discovered by the values that verify it. A
value-matching pass reported 4288/4288 while mis-assigning 34 keys. The
map was rebuilt from header declaration order, anchored on uniquely
resolved fields.
- Read the factory, not the data. 12 .data fields and 5 Torso fields are
declared plain Stuff::Scalar but multiplied by Radians_Per_Degree in
Mech_Tool.cpp:889 / Torso_Tool.cpp.
- Strip typedefs before walking a header. A stray `typedef int AttributeID;`
masked a missing ClassID - two 4-byte errors cancelling out, caught only
by the ANCHORS assertion.
- A verifier that silently narrows its own input reports success. Braced
blocks must be hidden before splitting pages, replacing both CR and LF,
because a `Shadow={...}` block contains a line reading `[shadow]` and
splitlines() also splits on bare CR.
- NSWIZZLE is undefined, so the #else branch is live and orders members
differently. bool is 1 byte; char x[MaxStringLength] is 256.
- V4H carries stale Mech IDs (their Atlas is 5, ours 6), so 64 of 65 shared
chassis are off by one; --retarget-ids emits $(M_<Chassis>)/$(IDS_<Chassis>).
reports/ holds generated diffs. The two ~5 MB manifest-*.tsv intermediates
are gitignored; regenerate everything with run-comparison.sh.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: GitHub Copilot <copilot@github.com>
94 lines
3.4 KiB
Python
Executable File
94 lines
3.4 KiB
Python
Executable File
#!/usr/bin/env python3
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"""
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variants-report.py - inventory of resource/Variants/*.mw4 (saved mechlab loadouts).
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python3 variants-report.py <variantsDir> <v4hManifest.tsv> <oursManifest.tsv>
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A variant package holds 4 records:
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[0] 'Resource\\Variants\\<name>' 4 B (raw id)
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[1] '{Mech}' ~350 B
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[2] '<chassis>{Subsystem}' ~4 KB <- names the chassis it needs
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[3] '<8-char token>' 16 B
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So the chassis a variant depends on is readable straight from the manifest,
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with no decompression: the record whose name ends in '{Subsystem}'.
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The report groups variants by chassis and flags any whose chassis is absent
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from the target build's core.mw4 (those will not load).
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"""
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import sys, os, collections
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def chassis_in_core(manifest):
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"""Set of chassis names that core.mw4 defines (one *.subsystems per chassis)."""
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out = set()
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with open(manifest, encoding="latin-1") as fh:
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for line in fh:
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pkg, _rid, name, *_ = line.rstrip("\n").split("\t")
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if pkg.lower() != "core.mw4":
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continue
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n = name.lower().replace("\\", "/")
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if n.endswith(".subsystems"):
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out.add(n.rsplit("/", 1)[-1][:-len(".subsystems")])
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return out
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def variant_chassis(manifest):
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"""variantPkgRelPath -> chassis name it requires."""
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out = {}
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with open(manifest, encoding="latin-1") as fh:
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for line in fh:
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pkg, _rid, name, *_ = line.rstrip("\n").split("\t")
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if not pkg.lower().startswith("variants/"):
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continue
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if name.endswith("{Subsystem}"):
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out[pkg] = name[:-len("{Subsystem}")].lower()
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return out
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def main():
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if len(sys.argv) != 4:
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sys.exit(__doc__)
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vdir, v4h_manifest, ours_manifest = sys.argv[1:4]
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have_v4h = chassis_in_core(v4h_manifest)
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have_ours = chassis_in_core(ours_manifest)
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vc = variant_chassis(v4h_manifest)
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print(f"# variant packages: {len(vc)} (files on disk: "
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f"{len([f for f in os.listdir(vdir) if f.lower().endswith('.mw4')])})")
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print(f"# chassis defined in V4H core.mw4 : {len(have_v4h)}")
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print(f"# chassis defined in OUR core.mw4 : {len(have_ours)}")
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print(f"# chassis only V4H defines : {sorted(have_v4h - have_ours)}")
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print()
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by = collections.defaultdict(list)
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for pkg, ch in vc.items():
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by[ch].append(pkg)
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loadable_now = broken = needs_new_mech = 0
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print(f"{'chassis':22s} {'count':>5s} status")
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for ch in sorted(by, key=lambda c: (-len(by[c]), c)):
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n = len(by[ch])
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if ch in have_ours:
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status = "loadable in OUR build today"
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loadable_now += n
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elif ch in have_v4h:
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status = "needs the new chassis ported"
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needs_new_mech += n
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else:
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status = "BROKEN - chassis missing from V4H too"
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broken += n
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print(f"{ch:22s} {n:5d} {status}")
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print()
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print(f"loadable in our build today : {loadable_now}")
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print(f"blocked on new chassis : {needs_new_mech}")
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print(f"broken / orphaned : {broken}")
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for ch in sorted(by):
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if ch not in have_v4h:
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print(f" orphan chassis '{ch}': " + ", ".join(sorted(by[ch])))
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if __name__ == "__main__":
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main()
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