Entry 181

"One core for the four volumes: detection, the first generated tables, and a mail from Helba"

2026-09-26volumes

Filescrates/piney-data/src/volume.rscrates/piney-data/src/area/mod.rscrates/piney-data/src/events/mod.rscrates/piney-data/src/dungeon/mod.rscrates/piney-data/src/statics/mod.rscrates/piney-event/examples/gen_events.rscrates/piney-event/src/extras.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/extras.rstools/xfer.pytools/area_tables.pytools/rustgen.pytools/dungeon_tables.pyplans/volumes.md

The aim, now in plans/volumes.md: one build boots any of the four discs. At run time the port reads only the disc's data files (DATA.BIN, the PRG overlays, the streams and the voices), never the boot executable. What it takes from the executable is generated into piney-data, per volume. The repository now also keeps the game's text (the scripts and messages), which it did not before; it stays private.

Which disc. piney_data::volume::Volume, found from DATA/GCMN.PRG: its length picks the volume and an FNV-1a hash confirms it. Iso::volume reads it once. The game names a later volume's disc and stops, since only Infection plays yet.

Generated so far, all four volumes:

• The area words (area/{inf,mut_,out,qua}.rs, tools/area_tables.py): the twelve word tables, dungeonData, eventAreaInfo, volumeNum, and from Mutation on the substitute records for areas 71 and 47. Quarantine renames slot b's word 100 from Vengeful to Vindictive. AreaTables::of(volume); the check against the executable reads it at Infection's addresses independently of the generator.
• The event scripts and messages (events/*.evs, the IR's text form, by examples/gen_events.rs; 192 to 206 events a volume, 0.7 MB each). official::events parses them. generated_scripts_are_the_executables checks every event of every volume. Every disc carries every volume's events.
• The dungeons and the towns' statics (dungeon, statics, the existing generators). The statics are the same on every disc apart from their addresses; the dungeons differ as the Rust types already allowed (Mutation's plain fixed types, its random-path save flag, area 125's 15 floors). Outbreak's hacked-dungeon fog values differ too.

Finding the tables in the stripped executables. Infection's names reach the others through tools/xfer.py. It could not see four kinds of table, so it gained these passes:

• Order of the addresses built: a body edited around a table.
• Pointer: a table only another table points at, e.g. sqDataField → typeA. A unanimous vote also corrected data names, 7 in Mutation and 55 in Outbreak (typeAplayType sat 0x20 off).
• Content: a table in recompiled code, its numbers equal and its pointers to the same strings (Outbreak's EA_MODELTABLEs).
• Ref: functions named by the tables and strings they build, with the names already known on both sides left out. This finds Outbreak's EVENTAREA and ROOTTOWN constructors, which give the statics' scene sets.

Other generator fixes:

• SetClutList's count register is $s2 in Outbreak and Quarantine.
• A local global's relocation names its section.
• The pointer pass keys names by section; overlays share one address window.

Not done. The field tables: Mutation's DrawBG adds BgMatName2 for hacked and crisis fields, which the port's field::Tables has no place for yet. The sound tables: each volume has its own event voice tables (Infection's evVoiceDataVol1* have no counterpart in Mutation). About 25 other readers still open the executable (the inventory is in the plan's terms: the battle's, the desktop's, the field UI's, the world's).

Helba's mail. The port's own content, asked for: on a new game, after CC Corporation's "Version Update", Helba writes "Old Worlds", a cold note on the old emulated way of playing (plugins, speedhacks, black screens at the Chaos Gate) and a press-F for the GS plugin. piney_event::extras patches event 1 after the scripts load, so official::events stays the game's. The text is in piney_desktop::extras, in mail slot 511, the save's last. Shot in the mailer: her photo, the yellow highlights, every line within 34 characters. The desktop test now reads four mails.