Entry 293

Outbreak's story under the autopilot: its starts, going alone, a story map's door, the Data Bugs

2026-09-28scripttestvolumes

Filescrates/piney-game/src/start.rscrates/piney-game/src/session.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/survey.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/shrine.rscrates/piney-world/src/field_world.rs

After Mutation's whole story (276), Outbreak's. Its main story is M301-M319, events 201-219 (tools/evscript.py list); 219 is the ending. Each opens on the one before (event_done).

The starts

start::OUT_STORY lists them. The start places come from each event's first located block, read as for Mutation (checked against Mutation's known places 104, 105 and 115):

• the desktop: 201 (the new game's), 202-209, 212, 216, 218, 219;
• the board (game_status 3): 214, 215, 217;
• a town from Log in (game_status 5, in_town 3): 210, 211, 213.

outbreak_story_starts_open_their_event holds all 19. The start test now counts the starts it checks and fails at none: Infection 24, Mutation 16, Outbreak 19. outbreak_story_survey drives each start; whole_story serves mutation_whole_story and outbreak_whole_story alike.

What the pilot learnt

The first survey (30,000 frames each, god mode) ended 10 of the 19. Four pilot changes and longer runs took it to 15 (plans/outbreak-story.md):

• Going alone. In the VM in_party -1 is someone else in the party (num >= 2) and not_in_party -1 is Kite alone. Event 204 bars area 15 at the gate with company (add_area_code 15) and unbars it alone (del_area_code 15); with company, the lines tell Kite to go alone. The pilot read Balmung's line block as a want and called him in. A block that unbars a wanted area only with not_in_party -1 now makes Want::Alone, and the pilot disbands (PERSONAL, Party, Disband: menu 70) and calls no one. 206's area 72 is the same.
• A story map's door. 204 goes on in area 15's church, block 1 of EVENTAREA02 (scene ... field=15 block=1). Want::FieldBlock comes from such a scene, and the pilot walks to the map's door: the middle of the floor polygons whose attribute has the Enter bit (0x8_0000), FieldWorld::door.
• A Data Bug. 203's goal room holds enemy row 164, a Data Bug: type 0x40 (the common foes are 0x20), 20,624 HP, maxPP 7,250 (Infection's 115, 201, 224 and 235 have 1,250-2,750). The walker gave it up as hopeless once its HP stopped falling; now no foe of the goal room is, and a Data Bug's broken protect is drained as a boss's is.
• A far dungeon. In 209's field 74 the pilot ran straight at the dungeon's entrance into a wall. Far off and found stopped, it plans the way on a grid wide enough to hold Kite (81 cells, the step the distance asks).
• A fight that holds the walk. 206's lone Kite meets Napylons that heal each other faster than he hurts them. Raising the party through the console (to level 85) did not change it, so that aid was dropped. After three times the walk's give-up time the pilot drains any foe whose protect breaks. The room then clears, slowly: floor 1 by 150,000 frames.

Where it stops

207, 211 and 218 end in bosses the port does not have: field 4's bossTbl row 3 (Fidchell), field 10's row 13 (Cubia, the second Kyvia fight) and field 5's row 4 (Gorre). 206 is the slow walk above.