Encounter record format Confirmed

The field-VM dispatcher installs the pointer with one 5-instruction pattern: sw s0,0x94(s5), sh zero,0x54(s5), then ori bit 0x400 into actor[+0x10]. s0 is the current opcode pointer (bytecode + pc); s5 is the resolved target actor, often the player context _DAT_8007C364. Bit 7 of the opcode byte routes byte +1 through the system-channel resolver FUN_8003C83C.

Every install shares one gate: the actor already has a record or is the player context, and the armed flag is clear or the scene allows re-arm (*_DAT_801C6EA4[+8] != 0). Case 0x34 also writes actor[+0x94] but does not raise 0x400 and pairs with +0x9c/+0x9e zero-writes - a callback pattern, not an encounter arm.

The MAN header is byte-exact across all 80 retail scene bundles. +0x22/+0x24/+0x26 are record counts and +0x28 is a u24.

Section 0 lives at records_end + u24_28; sections 1..=5 chain by a 3-byte length prefix ([u24 length][payload]). Section 5 is always a zero-length terminator. Resizing anything here is covered by MAN relocation.

The MAN walker writes section 0's pointer into a 100-byte encounter control block at _DAT_801C6EA4: formation / condition / region table bases at +0x20/+0x24/+0x28 and their strides at +0x5D/+0x5E/+0x5F. Record i is at base + 1 + i * stride (the +1 skips the count byte).

Example - 0086_map01: N0=12, N1=9, N2=42; section 0 holds 37 formations, 4 conditions, 64 regions. The four conditions own 16 regions each - four story-state variants of one overworld layout differing only in rate and backdrop byte, each ending in its own rate 0 catch-all.

[u8 count] then count × 18-byte records; the per-tile query walks it first-match-wins, and the loader splits bytes[5..17] into the camera parameter block at 0x8007B607..0x8007B627, which the camera composer FUN_801DAB90 turns into the same staging slots the script-VM Camera Configure op 0x45 writes. A zone record is a per-region camera preset in the op-0x45 parameter space. The query is script-driven (FUN_801DE3E0 from the field-VM arms [4C 38], [4C 39], [4C C4 x z], plus op 0x45 LOAD's inline record); the arrival actor FUN_801DBE9C queries only on its dev-mode leg and in retail just re-pins the focus and snaps. Two more sites, neither of them a tile crossing: the player seat / warp path at 0x801D1FE8 runs the [4C 39] sequence in code, and the field per-frame update has a query at 0x801D17FC gated on scratchpad flag bit 22 (_DAT_1F800394 & 0x400000), which a script raises with op 0x2E operand 0x16 in eight of the disc's scenes. With the bit clear the frame only eases and clamps the focus, so the block holds while the player walks. The composed pose then reaches the live camera globals through the per-frame ease FUN_801DB510 (only on frames the player moved; step delta >> s + sign(delta), s from a 16-entry table indexed by B60B >> 4) or the snap FUN_801DB8EC.

Header bytes[0..5]: +0 kind (0 = anchor + player tile inside the scratch box, 1 = inclusive tile-bbox match, 2..=0x1F = region-type mask bit vs _DAT_8007B8F4); +1..+4 = tile bbox [minX, minZ, maxX, maxZ] (kind 1) or anchor (kind 0).

Payload bytes[5..17]: byte[5] is the mode byte; its high nibble selects the split (low nibble = strength). Mode 6 = keep the current camera.

B6xx = 0x8007B6xx; angles are in the 4096 = 360° space, one tile = 0x80 world units. Query-miss defaults: B607 = 0x10, B608 = 0x10, B609 = 0x30, B60A = 0x51, B60B = 0x20, B610 = 0, B60C = 0x1B8, B614 = 0x4000, B618 = 0x300. The per-mode sweep formulas for each global are in the source doc. The byte splits and routing are Confirmed, and so is the mask-kind scratchpad side-write: the four signed bytes at 0x1F8003E8..EB are the camera's visible tile window in tile offsets from the camera tile, read by the slot-B decoration pass FUN_801F7088, the camera-focus clamp FUN_801DAA50, the ambient particle emitter FUN_801D6058 and the dev-menu Coord0..Coord3 rows. The mirror words 0x801F2778/7C/80/84 have no reader at all. The window is set per region, not per scene, and it is not cleared at a door: across a scene change it keeps the previous scene's values for 78 more vsyncs before the incoming scene re-stamps it, so a frame drawn in between uses the window of the scene the player has left.

• Tetsu (0x4F, town01) - cell [0x4F,0,0,0], MAN formation row 4 (see the worked example).
• Zeto (0x4B, garmel) - a live capture over three runs shows the entity tick storing [0x4B,0,0,0] at the launch tick while a write-watch on the battle-id global stays silent. "Boss id in the bespoke band ⇒ battle-id path" does not hold. The engine enters via the beat record's 3E FF <row> op.
• Caruban (0x49, Mt. Rikuroa) - the rikuroa P1[3] boss-stager placement (gated on first-visit flag 0x142, 3E FF 11 → row 17), run on approach by World::run_boss_stager_record.

Store order in the expander: slot 3 cleared at 0x80055690, then slots 0/1/2 written at 0x80055698/A0/A8; battle id 0 writes four explicit stores at 0x80055788..A4. Ghidra's C reorders these and synthesises a DAT_8007bd0d = DAT_8007bd0e - read the disassembly.

History: earlier mid-cast Zeto states pinned the id but placed the fight in scene jou; the live forward-play settled the scene (garmel) and the mechanism. See do-not-re-walk.

The opening battle in town01 is a scripted single-monster fight against archive id 0x4F (Tetsu). The cell reads 00 00 00 00 before the fight and 4F 00 00 00 from battle-load onward. The id is not an inline script literal - it is MAN formation index 4. An opcode-aware walk of town01's field-VM scripts finds no [1][0x4F] operand; every window a naive byte-scan "decodes" is a count=0 artifact of stepping into embedded dialog text (survey CLI legaia-engine man-scripts). The live "Come at me!" state holds the seven formation rows byte-identical to the engine's MAN parse, row 4 = [count 1][0x4F]. Installing that row gives the fight its retail stats (Tetsu's HP 999).

The carrier entity. town01 partition 1 holds exactly one placement at tile (76, 65) with model byte 0x6A whose interaction record carries a long multi-page dialog block - the sparring talk-menu and its battle branch. It is identified by its dialog block, not by opcode decoding: message text aliases field-VM opcodes, so linear disassembly desyncs inside it; the text is recovered structurally as 0x1F-lead / 0x00-terminated segments. Engagement follows the dialogue-accept (talking to the placement opens it - a button press, not an opcode; the dismiss 0x4C n5 sub-4 engages).

• Per-opcode header encoding. Each inline install opcode packs its first 3 bytes differently; a per-case decode is needed to read a window as "encounter from script X at PC Y".
• MAN section 4. Its offset and length are pinned in all 80 bundles, but the interior layout behind DAT_80073ED8 is open. (Section 1 is the motion-VM script table, decoder legaia_scene_formats::man_motion; section 2 is the scene display name.)
• Region bytes. Region byte +5, and the region bytes past +8.
• Mid-armed capture. No save state catches an entity with +0x94 armed in the one-frame window between roll and copy.