From-scratch reimplementation of the Sword of the Stars (2006) engine. Clean-room; engine code only — bring your own game copy. Planning/RE evidence live in sots-re.
Find a file
Alex 4e729212ba U: live verification - 0 divergences on 35 calls, three workloads
First End Turn 3/3/0, five-turn continuation 15/15/0, Zuul 20/20/0, tracecmp
exit 0 on all three. The End-Turn oracle hashes are unchanged, so the cascade
does not perturb the game.

All 22 divergent fields lane V recorded are gone. The prediction in section 4
held field for field on the deterministic half; call 9 turned out to be a
different completion from lane V's (the AI picked another target from turn 5),
which the model reproduced anyway - three unlock costs that appear in no earlier
report.

Honest limit: roll_draws was 0 on all 35 calls. ResearchRollPending is normally
consumed by ProcessTurn before ProcessResearch runs, so the RollResearchEvent
draw is modelled and inside the compare but has never been seen to fire.
2026-09-08 06:57:15 -04:00
cmake m0: binkw32 proxy shim, minhook, trace hook on Application::Initialize; build/deploy tooling 2026-09-07 17:22:15 -04:00
docs U: live verification - 0 divergences on 35 calls, three workloads 2026-09-08 06:57:15 -04:00
include/generated U: live verification - 0 divergences on 35 calls, three workloads 2026-09-08 06:57:15 -04:00
src U: the SetResearched unlock cascade, and the prediction for the run that checks it 2026-09-08 06:26:00 -04:00
tests U: the SetResearched unlock cascade, and the prediction for the run that checks it 2026-09-08 06:26:00 -04:00
third_party mars/vfs: gob ZIP reader + native override, miniz 3.1.2; oracle-verified 8352+2035 entries 2026-09-07 17:40:51 -04:00
tools b4: colony + movement hooks; 22 formula corrections (growth curve has no capacity term, range margin +0.05f, ties-to-even rounding); 3 verified signatures 2026-09-08 00:57:55 -04:00
.gitignore init commit 2026-09-07 17:07:54 -04:00
CMakeLists.txt merge lane F: x87 control-word sensitivity - 53-bit and 64-bit identical; 24-bit and round-up each move 2 named leaves 2026-09-08 05:10:21 -04:00
CMakePresets.json m0: binkw32 proxy shim, minhook, trace hook on Application::Initialize; build/deploy tooling 2026-09-07 17:22:15 -04:00
CONTRIBUTING.md CONTRIBUTING: cmake >=3.25 requirement and the uv workaround 2026-09-08 05:13:31 -04:00
LICENSE init commit 2026-09-07 17:07:54 -04:00
README.md b3: research hook + RNG-snapshot compare design; fix draw mapping to y/(2^32-1), NextInt inclusive, float32 odds, spend floor, decay constants 2026-09-07 23:14:08 -04:00

sots-engine

A from-scratch, functional reimplementation of the engine behind Sword of the Stars (2006). Not a byte-for-byte decompilation: behavior-equivalent code, built up one verified piece at a time (OpenRCT2-style) until the tree can build the whole application on its own.

Bring your own game. This repository contains engine code only. Game data, assets, saves, and the original binaries are never included; tests and tools read an owner-supplied copy via $SOTS_DATA_DIR. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the clean-room rules.

Status

Phase 2. M0 done — the shim frontend (src/shim/, a proxy binkw32.dll the original game loads) builds, deploys, hooks, and logs from a real game launch. Engine code accrues under src/mars/ and src/game/; each module is oracle-verified against the owner's game data before merge:

  • mars/parse — brace-block + .effect readers (1,531/1,531 files agree with the reference)
  • mars/text — flat key/value tables, id manifests, CSV (64/64 files agree)
  • game/sim — strategic formulas (economy, research, colonies, movement) as pure functions; 356 hand-computed checks
  • mars/vfs — .gob (ZIP) archive reader + loose-file override; entry counts and bytes verified against unzip
  • mars/stream — the game's self-describing save/serialization format (reader, writer, typed shapes) + gzip; three real saves round-trip byte-identical
  • mars/rng — MT19937 with save-state load/store; layout confirmed against real saves, draw mappings read off the binary (docs/mars-rng.md)
  • game/data — typed catalogs (weapons, ship sections, turrets, id registries, tech tree, strings) with cross-reference checks; 229k values agree with the reference
  • game/design — ship-design assembly/fit/tech-gating rules and derived stats; validates all 127 stock designs from real saves

Build: cmake --preset host && cmake --build --preset host && ctest --preset host (Linux); tools/sync-build.sh cross-builds the shim on the lab box and stages it for deployment.

Layout (grows with the work)

  • src/shim/ — binkw32 proxy + hooks + old-vs-new compare harness (frontend #1)
  • src/mars/, src/game/ — the engine and game reimplementation (accruing)
  • include/generated/sots_addresses.h — binary facts (RVAs/prototypes), generated from the RE repo
  • tests/ — host tests; real-data tests skip unless $SOTS_DATA_DIR is set
  • tools/ — build (MinGW i686 cross) and deploy scripts

Planning, findings, and verification evidence are tracked in the private RE repo (sots-re).