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.
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alex dc43f93910 mars::rng: the seven draw entry points, with their word costs
A per-turn RNG budget is only as good as the entry-point table, and ours had
three of the seven. Adds the two that are modellable and documents the rest.

  float_range(lo, hi)     exactly one word.  Narrows TWICE -- the scaled product
                          is stored to a 4-byte float before lo is added, and the
                          sum is stored again.  Evaluating in double and narrowing
                          once disagrees on a measurable fraction of words, and the
                          test asserts the two models are distinguishable so the
                          shortcut cannot creep back.
  int_range_bell(lo, hi)  AT LEAST TWO words.  Triangular, not uniform: the span is
                          split into h/2 and h - h/2 (truncating toward zero) and
                          each half drawn inclusively, first half first.  The bounds
                          reach the draw as unsigned, so an inverted range yields a
                          huge first bound rather than an empty one; reproduced, not
                          corrected.

Documented but deliberately not modelled: a truncated-normal integer range built
on rejection sampling around a Box-Muller pair.  It costs TWO WORDS PER ATTEMPT
and the attempt count is unbounded, and predicting its stream position needs log,
sqrt and cos to agree bit for bit with the original CRT.  Nothing in the strategic
turn reaches it.  It is recorded so a ledger that meets it does not score its two
words as one draw.

Also recorded in docs/mars-rng.md, because each is a way a word budget goes wrong:

  * two calling conventions for one generator -- three entry points take the state
    block (the object plus four bytes) and four take the object itself, and one
    caller uses both within forty bytes of itself;
  * two different divisors in the same image, 1/(2^32 - 1) for the unit draw and
    2^-32 (with a +0.5 offset on the word) for the normal path;
  * the unit draw is inlined at twenty-eight sites across eleven functions, so any
    budget assembled by counting calls is a LOWER BOUND.  Exactly one of those
    eleven is reachable from the strategic turn driver.

Host ctest 36/36 and tools/clean_room_check.sh run as separate commands, both
clean.  No src/shim change, so no cross-build is implicated.
2026-09-08 09:59:05 -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 mars::rng: the seven draw entry points, with their word costs 2026-09-08 09:59:05 -04:00
include/generated sync generated header (756 addresses) after turncommands merge 2026-09-08 09:07:14 -04:00
src mars::rng: the seven draw entry points, with their word costs 2026-09-08 09:59:05 -04:00
tests mars::rng: the seven draw entry points, with their word costs 2026-09-08 09:59:05 -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 T: hook for Game::ServerPlayer::ProcessTurn, with the prediction committed first 2026-09-08 08:08:47 -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: note uv tool install cmake as the local workaround 2026-09-08 09:07:47 -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).