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Sword of the Stars (2006) reverse-engineering worklog. Infra docs live in trikilli services/re-lab.md.
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alex 92ad44efb0 lane W2: multiplayer Tier 0 played end to end with no server; ModCount/Frame/Status watchpoints; rcex explained 
Multiplayer: two clients on one guest, joined by typed IP and by LAN browse, launched a
2-player game and played two turns in lockstep. 44,319 packets captured outside the guest,
ZERO to any GameSpy port. Availability check fails open exactly as lane G2 read it; Join
Manually is enabled with every gamespy.com name dead, falsifying G2's own caveat (a). The
shipped MOTD is fetched live from kerberos-productions.com and tells players to host in LAN
mode -- the developer's own statement of the same finding.

Watchpoints: a new shim module arms DR0-DR3 from StrategyServer::ApplyAllTurnCommands.
ModCount takes exactly 12 writes per End Turn (lane A2's prediction, confirmed twice, both
predicted addresses exact); Frame takes exactly one, from BeginProcessTurn+0x2a, settling the
ModCount-vs-Frame naming in A2's favour. The Player.Status writer between tail phase 31 and
the autosave EXISTS and is StrategyNetworkClient::OnMessage+0xa15 -- correcting lane T2.
Rule 19 control: the armed run reproduced the determinism oracle byte for byte.

rcex: closed from the corpus alone. It is sixteen 4-bit per-player counters; nibble p is set
to 1 on the turn the system enters player p's AFlags and ticked to 0 the next turn. 7/7
across two different games.
2026-09-08 15:23:52 -04:00
campaign standalone report from merged main: 209 -> 131 leaves, closed 78 regressed 0 2026-09-08 15:10:17 -04:00
findings lane W2: multiplayer Tier 0 played end to end with no server; ModCount/Frame/Status watchpoints; rcex explained 2026-09-08 15:23:52 -04:00
ghidra lane W2: multiplayer Tier 0 played end to end with no server; ModCount/Frame/Status watchpoints; rcex explained 2026-09-08 15:23:52 -04:00
guides rules 19-20: the instrument can perturb the measurement; a count cannot separate did-not-fire from fired-and-found-nothing 2026-09-08 13:56:06 -04:00
notes init commit 2026-09-07 12:31:56 -04:00
objects regenerate both headers (669 addresses); track objects/generated so the shared clone stops sitting dirty 2026-09-08 07:36:16 -04:00
scripts lane V2: vtable inversion — resolve indirect call edges image-wide 2026-09-08 12:05:05 -04:00
tools lane H: five live probes, the oracle restored, and a harness perturbation bisected to one hook 2026-09-08 13:53:36 -04:00
verify lane W2: multiplayer Tier 0 played end to end with no server; ModCount/Frame/Status watchpoints; rcex explained 2026-09-08 15:23:52 -04:00
.gitignore lane D: automated struct recovery from the IStreamable serializers 2026-09-08 05:51:37 -04:00
README.md guides: RE how-to for 2000s MSVC/DX9 games (98 sources); queue replay-checksum, class recovery, apitrace/TTD 2026-09-07 18:05:58 -04:00

README.md

sots-re

Reverse-engineering worklog for Sword of the Stars (2006, SOTS1) — the 32-bit DX9 original + expansions. The nitty-gritty: static/dynamic analysis notes, Ghidra & ReVa scripts, function/struct maps, D3D9 call traces, decomp progress, findings.

Where this runs

Analysis lab on spicy (PVE, 192.168.3.201):

  • CT111 sots-re — Linux workspace: Ghidra + headless ReVa server, radare2/rizin/cutter, binwalk. Hosts the Samba share and this repo's working tree at /srv/re-lab/notes.
  • VM140 sots-re-win10 — Win10 runtime + dynamic analysis (x64dbg, Cheat Engine, RenderDoc/apitrace, DXVK→CPU-Vulkan for GPU-less rendering).

Infra (guests, storage, network, share, ReVa endpoint) is documented from the system-maintainer POV in trikilli → services/re-lab.md. This repo is everything else.

Layout

  • findings/ — the running findings log (append-only), one file per subsystem.
  • ghidra/ — exported scripts, data-type archives, struct definitions.
  • traces/ — D3D9 / Win32 API call captures + analysis.
  • scripts/ — helper tooling (loaders, extractors, parsers).
  • notes/ — session notes, scratch, hypotheses.

Ownership / legality

Game binaries come from the owner's own GOG/Steam copy. RE is for personal interoperability, bug-fixing, and preservation. Binaries themselves are not committed here (see .gitignore) — they live on the lab's Samba share /srv/re-lab/samples.

Campaign (how this repo is run)

A 4-agent crew (defined in ~/.claude/agents/re-*.md) runs the exploration: re-quartermaster (backlog + board) → re-analyst (maps via ReVa) → re-verifier (proves vs real data; old-vs-new differential once reimpl starts) → re-scribe (files the note, links it, commits).

  • campaign/board.md — live status board (start here).
  • Live tracking = Forgejo issues on alex/sots-re (labels status/* are the kanban columns; type/*, conf/*). campaign/board.md is the editable mirror — publish with scripts/forgejo_campaign.py bootstrap (needs FORGEJO_TOKEN).
  • campaign/backlog.md — prioritized target queue.
  • campaign/open-questions.md — unresolved threads.
  • findings/_template.md — the record format every finding follows.
  • findings/{objects,control-flow,subsystems}/ — the growing engine map.
  • verify/{parsers,traces,harness,results}/ — validation: struct parsers now, golden-trace replay + shim compare-mode for reimplementation.
  • ghidra/ — exported scripts + datatype archives.

Approach & north star: findings/00-strategy.md. Binary facts: findings/01-fingerprint.md.

Sibling repo

alex/sots-engine — the from-scratch engine source (clean-room, public-capable). This repo keeps the evidence + planning for both; binary facts cross over only via ghidra/addresses.json → tools/gen_addresses.py.

  • guides/re-windows-2000s-howto.md — annotated bibliography + how-to for RE of mid-2000s MSVC/DX9 Windows games, with our-experience call-outs.