Blocker #4 on lane Y's path to a byte-matching turn.
HOW DESIGNS PERSIST, correcting a published finding. Game::ShipDesign::Write is
0x008325e0 and makes four stream calls. The recorded address 0x008747a0 is in
NO vftable at all (lane V2's inversion), so "ShipDesign::Write makes no stream
call" was a misattribution, not a fact about the class. Game::ShipDesign
derives from Game::ShipDesignDef and inherits IStreamable second, so its writer
is reached through an adjustor thunk -- which is what the slot-indexed
serializer sweep found instead. A design persists as two serializers, base and
derived: ShipDesignDef::Write 0x00827390 emits FAIDes/DHide/DWep/DName then
exactly three DSec frames (+0x4c command, +0x24 mission, +0x74 engine),
ShipDesign::Write appends Dtc, the Dwgv flag and a conditional Dwg frame.
THREE sections, not five. The campaign's "slots 3-4 reserved and always empty"
was save_reader.py's trailing Rest("sections") sweeping Dtc and Dwgv into the
section list, and stock_designs.py decoding them as two empty sections -- rule 8
in its exact form, reader and consumer agreeing with each other and both wrong.
Two independent enumerations say three: the writer's straight-line body, and the
ctor's eh_vector_constructor_iterator(this+0x24, 0x28, 3) closing at
0x9c = sizeof(ShipDesignDef).
DWep and Dwgv are BOOLs, not ints -- byte-indistinguishable from ints at a
four-character tag, the same class of defect as ObservedTech.odet.
THE 0x400 FLAG IS `defence_platform`, read off the .shipsection parser's own bit
setter at 0x005749b7. NOT lane B5's 0x400: that one is a fleet flag, on the wire
as FtFlg. The full role-flag table is in the finding. HULL SIZE is section_class
through a three-name stricmp table (Destroyer/Cruiser/Dreadnought -> 0/1/2),
absent or unrecognised meaning 0 with a log line rather than an error. Both
words are recomputed from the data files by ShipDesign::UpdateDerivedStats
0x0087e7c0 and neither is on the wire. Corroborated by the default hull-health
table the same bit picks: 500/3000/15000 without it, 100/500/1000 with.
MEASURED: the census rebuilt from each save's own state matches the record the
game archived, 480 leaves / 0 mismatched over 11 saves and 503 designs, computed
independently in Python and in C++. COVERAGE REPORTED AS LOUDLY: only 32 of the
480 leaves are nonzero, and three of the six census leaves (both cruiser rows,
dreadnought platforms) are unexercised by every save in the corpus.
Closed 0 / regressed 0 against the standalone's divergence list, reported
separately: the census leaves live in src/app's turn record, which lane A2 holds
this cycle, so this lane evaluated and reported rather than writing.
Oracles fixed openly (rule 12): save_reader.py's Des shape, 49/49 with three
corrected tests and one added that pins "exactly three DSec" against real saves;
stock_designs.json regenerated, whose diff is only raw_slots 5->3 and dWep
int->bool across all 127 designs with every other field identical;
test_design_rules.py still 32/32 with the same ground truth.
19 addresses in ghidra/addresses.d/lane-d2.json, no collision; the generated
header was validated to a scratch path, never written in place.
Part 1 (notes side): findings/objects/svsctob-variants.md records the two maps
that are nowhere on the wire and were read out of the game -- EncID -> class
from a 23-entry dword jump table at 0x0052bf60 indexed by EncID-1 (0x0052bf00),
and xscn -> class from an exhaustive four-way _stricmp chain at 0x005a7050.
Twelve live EncIDs, four scenario names, and "indsys" =
Game::SVSOIndependentSystems whose Read and Write are both the shared `ret 4`
stub at 0x005f8ac0, so its empty frame is correct output rather than a
truncation. Also: SVSOSots::Read accepts NPCPlr and hastraps, which Write never
emits -- read-only backward compatibility, not a hole in the recovery. And a
correction to the recovery itself: SVSOCrowDefenders writes `dsys` INSIDE the
ndsys loop; layouts.json calls it a plain member and no save can settle it
because both counts are 0 everywhere. 13 addresses in ghidra/addresses.d/
lane-w.json; gen_addresses.py merges to 640 with no duplicate name.
Part 2: lane G found four defects in both readers and deliberately did not
patch the oracle mid-campaign. Fixed now, with tests, and byte-neutral.
1. Game::SystemParams field 1 is a string, not an int (empty string == four
zero bytes == int 0, so it round-tripped by luck).
2. ObservedTech/ObservedWeapon odet is a bool, not an int (byte-safe only
because a 4-char tag makes both items 12 bytes; 3 chars would not).
3. SpeciesRatios nv is a count, not a field.
4. ShipRecords srbd is a count, not a field -- and this one is behaviourally
confirmed, not inferred: srbd takes 0, 1, 3 and 4 across the players and
every non-zero count is followed by exactly srbd x 5 scalars.
Note that 3 and 4 were an ABSENCE in save_reader.py, not an error: ShipRecs and
civr were both A(..., "any"), so the fix had to add the shapes rather than
retype a field.
Byte-neutrality: every item's inflated offset is unchanged on all four saves
(38,933 / 39,843 / 40,300 / 35,771 offsets, sequences identical), so no item
boundary moved. state_checksum.py still reports coverage: PROVED on all four
with the same rebuilt byte counts. The /CreateParams and /Sim/players digests do
change, because they hash typed VALUES and two fixes change what a value is --
and the value-byte deltas balance exactly: odet items x 3 plus p1 items x 4.
--strict exit 0 on all four saves; tests 36 -> 48.
findings/objects/wire-schema-closeout.md carries the whole account, including
the proof that CD/TurnCommands_v5 cannot be typed without a save that has
issued orders.
