StrategyServer::Write tags both words itself: S+0x8 is ModCount and S+0xc is
Frame. addresses.json has the name on the wrong word and lane T's
PhaseCounter is the one the wire calls ModCount. The saves confirm it
independently -- ModCount 0/12/24 across turn1/2/3-state, 241/412 across Zuul
16/23 -- and those deltas are exactly the 12-44 per turn measured live. So the
'writer nobody has identified' question dissolves: it is a modification
counter, it scales with the empire, and there is no single writer to find.
The players=8 flag is withdrawn. The offset is right, pinned by the ctor's
four-vector enumeration at 0x0085b120 with no frame arithmetic needed, and the
count is right: the vector is empires + one rebel-AI per empire species + four
NPC pseudo-players, so 8 on the Human saves and 7 on the Zuul ones against a
lobby that says 2 in both. My draft claimed the hook read 8 on both saves. It
read 7 on the Zuul one. I generalised from one run without re-reading the
other, and a check aimed at something else caught it.
We consume 18-22 generator words per turn and model none of them as a count.
All of it is inside StrategyServer::ProcessTurn; OnAllCombatDone_Tail costs 0
on every turn observed; the residual outside the two drivers is exactly 0. The
generator does not move between turns at all, so the interval a standalone has
to reproduce is closed at both ends.
The instrument reads generator STATE, not calls, and that choice paid: the
image has four draw entry points, not three (NextUInt 0x004f7670 is in no
lane's primitive set) plus inlined draws in twelve functions, two reachable
from the turn roots. A primitive-counting hook would have undercounted
silently.
Checked against the save files independently: the turn-6 autosave pair gives
18 words read from the two Sim.RNG blobs, and with twists == 0 that number
never passes through a twist implementation -- so the two instruments do not
share the hidden assumption they could have.
Corrections to combat-done-tail.md, in place:
* the node-line 0x20000-fleet check runs AFTER the Chance(0.5f) call and
cannot gate the draw; the expiry test is NodePath::RemainingLife 0x006e2130
and is now a formula rather than a description
* StrategyHost::Autosave is ret 8 and returns the std::string* in EAX
* SNMAllCombatDone IS delivered every End Turn (8 of 8) -- lane K's inference
was right; the stronger no-encounter reading is narrowed, not closed
* S+0x8 advances 12-14 times per turn, not twice
Node-line decay still has not fired. The hook reports the distance instead of
the absence: 51 of 53 lines are permanent, the mortal ones are dug ~1/turn by
the Zuul, each ~40 turns from expiry. It stays a labelled hypothesis.
