The primitive count went three -> four (this lane) -> seven (lane I) while this
measurement was being taken, and not one number in the ledger moved. That is
the argument for reading state instead of counting calls, stated where it is
now demonstrable rather than merely asserted.
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The players=8 flag is withdrawn.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.
The second save's numbers were not in the first draft's table. Correcting my
own correction: on a turn-19 Zuul game the counter moves 16, 21 and 44 times
between ProcessTurn entries, against 12-14 on an early two-colony game. So it
is not a driver-invocation counter and not a constant either.
Lane J landed rule 16 (inlined draws are invisible to call-graph sweeps) while
this run was in flight, and it bears directly on three claims here that rested
on direct-call sweeps. Those claims now rest on the behavioural measurement
instead, which is immune to it: ProcessNodeSpaceTravel moved the generator by
0 words on 16 observations and node-line decay on 8. The instrument does not
ask which function drew, only whether the generator moved.
Lane J's resolver map and this ledger pair up: the resolver has no
unconditional draw, so its prediction -- a plain fleet battle costs the same
18-22 words as a peaceful turn -- is testable with these hooks as soon as
someone builds a save where two hostile fleets meet.
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.
