Entry 311

Two player reports: a member spoken to while running, and the party's battle chatter

2026-09-30battleworld

Filescrates/piney-world/src/combat/mod.rscrates/piney-world/src/combat/town.rscrates/piney-world/src/field_world.rscrates/piney-world/src/party.rscrates/piney-world/src/town_party.rscrates/piney-world/examples/evchar_probe.rscrates/piney-battle/src/party_ai.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/town_return.rscrates/piney-game/src/session/tests/chat.rsBUGS.md

GitHub issues 2 and 7, both from Infection. Addresses are INF gcmn unless marked otherwise.

Issue 2: a member spoken to while running

The screenshot shows Mistral's menu (SpcMenu, 21) open in Mac Anu with her greeting in the message window, and Mistral nowhere in view. That is the bug worklog 277 fixed (6edf655). ccAI::Greeting (0x00583190) clears moveFlag and runFlag in the members' records. Before 6edf655 nothing wrote them to her character before her next frame read it back, so she ran on.

Worklog 277's test sent EntryAffect(14) to Piros directly. The new test goes through the menu, as the report shows it:

• a new game in Mac Anu, with BlackRose and Mistral called by the Party menu;
• Mistral running to a shop (actType 8);
• Kite walking up to her and pressing the action button.

SpcMenu sends EntryAffect 14 on its first pass (0x00541a74), where the port sends it too. Mistral stops where the menu found her. Within 20 frames Brains' talkFlag turn (ccSetDirc(dirc, DEG2RAD(gDeg), 64), 0x0057cad4) faces her to Kite, and she stays stopped through Talk (47, EntryAffect 15). With 6edf655's write taken out, she runs 23 units on the first frame, as in the screenshot. So the report's build predates 6edf655, and nothing else was found wrong (mistral_spoken_to_while_running_stands_facing_kite). The same path runs in all volumes.

Issue 7: the party's battle chatter

The video (3.7 s at 30 fps) shows BlackRose's and Mistral's balloons changing every frame or two. The lines are ChatMessageAttackTarget's (0x0058d7b0): the element line (AttributeFollow) and the dash, bull and timid lines.

The game's pacing. There is no chat timer:

• a line goes into the AI and opens at the member's next ChatMessageSender (0x00586420, the end of Brains);
• ccChatMsg::OpenChat (main 0x001a67c0) replaces the speaker's balloon;
• ChatMessage (0x00586130) checks only manual control.

The pacing lies with the callers. AttackTarget is said each time Reconnoiter (0x00592aa0) takes a member into fighting (mode 3). Attack and Damage speak every third hit (atkMsgCnt, dmgMsgCnt). WalkingTalk and Neutral come on the bus's 0x10014 and 0x10015, sent again in 300 or 500 frames plus 11 x (rand() >> 3) % 3. The bus ticks once a frame (ccThAISystem, 0x0058c850). The chat harness passes, and so do the party AI and fellow harnesses: Brains, ActInField, ActInTown, Reconnoiter, FollowTarget, and ccFellow::Main over 60-300 frames. The town's, the field's idle and the battle's lines all come from harnessed code; only the runtime's wiring is outside it.

The reproduction. A random Δ field (random_areas(0, ..)'s second) with BlackRose and Mistral, Kite walking to the portals and attacking. Mistral says bursts of AttackTarget lines 3-4 frames apart. She is a Wavemaster: spcAIParam rows 9, 10, 16 and 17 have territory 1800 and stopRange 1800. The loop:

1. Fighting, FollowTarget (0x00582090) halts her at 1800 from her foe.
2. The foe drifts away; Reconnoiter finds it beyond her territory and makes her wary (2). FollowTarget then runs her a step in.
3. The next Reconnoiter makes her fight again, and she says a line.

That loop is the game's code, and nothing in it differs.

What did differ: the party's strategy.

• SpcListNum (ccSpcChar +0xe8) is the member's registry slot. ccSPC::Reboot (0x005a00d0) makes each member with it through ccSpcStart[id] (ccFellowNN(n), 0x0041ecc0). ChatCommand (0x00583d60) puts a character of slot 0 (Kite) back to strategy 0. The port never set the slot, so every member went back to strategy 0 each frame: the Operation and the CHAT menu's strategy orders held for one frame at most. Combat::add_member and TownParty::build now take the slot.
• partyStrategy (main 0x00378ce0) is a global. ccSpcSetOperation (0x005a1930) sets it each frame of ccThSpc, and ccAI::ccAI (0x0057c5f0) starts an AI with it. The port kept it per scene, from 0, so a new area's members fought as Wonder Battle until a fight ended (ChatCommand's ChangeStrategyCMD(partyStrategy)). Spcs now carries it from scene to scene: a scene's members get the one before's, and 0 after power-on.

In 20000 frames of the same field, Union Battle (operation 8) now gives 6 battle lines in 3 fights, against 71 in 10 under Wonder Battle. The members go for Kite's target instead of the nearest foes. Mutation and Outbreak have the same check, constructor and global (MUT ChatCommand 0x005aa334, OUT 0x005a6f84; partyStrategy MUT 0x0038bc68, OUT 0x00387020), so there is no gate. a_member_keeps_the_strategy_it_is_told fails without the slot; the_operation_holds_from_a_field_s_start fails without the carry. evchar_probe passes the slot too, and test_evchar_rs.py still passes.