Entry 204

"The later volumes' New Game to the desktop: the carry's pointers, each volume's mail, the streams' archives, the bound constants"

2026-09-26volumes

Filestools/main_data.pytools/sinit_tables.pytools/desktop_tables.pycrates/piney-data/src/sinit.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/content.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/mail.rscrates/piney-desktop/src/tables.rscrates/piney-stream/src/table.rscrates/piney-stream/src/load.rscrates/piney-stream/src/subtitle.rscrates/piney-game/src/main.rscrates/piney-fieldui/srccrates/piney-world/srccrates/piney-battle/srcplans/volumes.md

After 0203 Mutation had sound, but its New Game stopped in the desktop's setup:

• an empty message window;
• name entry reading address 0;
• the desktop failing to build.

Outbreak and Quarantine got no further, and their streams did not open. All three now reach their desktops, each with its own mail. The window's title names the disc's game.

The name entry's strings

STR_INFO_MSG_0 is a static const char * from a header that every desktop translation unit repeats (ten copies on Infection). Only the unnamed __sinit_NameEntry.cpp builds its address, so no vote reached it.

The carry has a new pass, by_pointers, for an uncarried global made of data pointers (Infection's word relocations, none into a function) and zeros. It carries the global to where the volume holds words that point into the same section at the same bytes. If several places match, or Infection repeats the content, it takes the place as far from the carried global below as on Infection. A place two globals claim is dropped.

On Mutation this carried 343 globals: every STR_* run, the book's strings and the pcMsg tables. The runs land at Infection's layout plus 0x12fbc and 0x12fc0, matching what the code's votes say for STR_STR_MODE, STR_NORES and STR_CLEAR.

The misses the source still names fall from 8 to 7 on Mutation, 44 to 29 on Outbreak and 43 to 28 on Quarantine.

The mail

ReMail's only user is also a static initializer: __sinit_mailtbl.cpp, which links each mail's two replies. Every volume's desktop.prg lists the same 15 initializers in the same order. So the later volumes' unnamed ones sit where Infection's do in the overlay's constructor list.

tools/sinit_tables.py now runs each volume's __sinit_mailtbl.cpp and __sinit_mailtblp.cpp in eemu over a ReMail of marker words.

• MailTbl comes from the carry.
• ReMail is the run of addresses the initializer builds right below MailTbl.
• MailTbl runs up to ReMailp.

Infection's generated links equal the table tools/desktop_tables.py had made, which is dropped. piney_data::sinit::mail_links gives each volume's ReMail address, its rows and the links, and content::mail_count the mails.

Mutation's carried name MailTbl (0x0042dfd0) is wrong. AddMailList builds 0x00431660, and the code-over-names rule already carries that.

The streams

• The archive types. The later ccCdInits store each archive's name at +0x54 + 36 × type. The order is CMN, STR1, STR2, STR3, STR4, then STRSUB as type 5, on all three discs. Types 3 and 4 are volumes 3 and 4's streams (50-74, 75-111) and 5 the shared ones (126-133). The port had STRSUB at 3, so Outbreak's title stream read STRSUBE instead of STR3E.
• The member names. Outbreak's and Quarantine's archives name every gzip member tmp.ccs. Such a member is renamed to the table's name, so the scene archive finds it by stem. The CRC covers only the inflated data.
• The subtitles. read_table picked EV_STR_MSG_TBL or its parody twin with an if and read it without at. On Quarantine the address is overlay space: its overlays load at 0x00301b00, not 0x00400000. On the other two it read garbage.

Constants bound before a read

The first sweeps wrapped direct reads (image.read(CONST, ...)). A scan of every use of an Infection-address constant found the other shapes.

• let at = NPC_TBL + ROW * row; img.u32(at), at these sites:
  • NPC_TBL (twice), SKILL_TBL, CHAR_TBL, ENEMY_LIST_INFO (twice);
  • EVENT_AREA_INFO, MENU_ELEMENT_DATA, GIMMICK_TBL (twice);
  • FELLOW_ANIM_TBL, THREAD_TBL;
  • the trade and friendship rate tables, TPC_TRADE_LIST;
  • the breeder's and the presents' message tables, FOOD_TBL;
  • ERROR_DATA (three places);
  • CHECK_VOICE_GRP, the special names' list.
• Constants handed to helpers that did not carry:
  • the item box lists, the shop stock;
  • the map's icon tables, the Grunties' camera;
  • the option menu's texts, the announcements' pieces;
  • the load screen's server names, the town PCs' names.
• The breath params, read at the address the enemy's motion passes.
• The equipment tables, read as one span, now take each table's own carried base. The Twin Blades' and the Heavy Axes' tables grew by a row from Mutation on.

On Infection at is the identity, and every test passes unchanged.