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.

Engine port. The bare arm op asks the host is_scripted_encounter_armed() and, only when armed, hands install_scripted_encounter() the bounded window [opcode][op1][op2][count][≤4 ids]. A successful install disarms (fire-once, matching the retail +0x94 clear).

region_encounter keeps each region's tile box, rate and formation slice plus the condition partition. RegionEncounterTracker::select_group re-runs the walk each step from the live flag bank; on_step reduces the position to a 128-unit tile, subtracts the scaled rate, and rolls uniformly with the one-step anti-repeat and the 0x3CE counter reset. The no-trigger path consumes zero RNG (replay-safe). Overworld and field scenes both route through it; a MAN with no region section (towns) falls back to the mean-rate session.

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 globals at 0x8007B607..0x8007B627, which the camera builder folds 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.

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; the consumer of the mask-kind scratchpad side-write is Unknown.

• 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 (disc-gated test town01_p1_arm_sites.rs; 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]. The engine installs the same row (World::install_man_formation(RIM_ELM_TRAINING_FORMATION_ID = 4)), so the scene's stats stand (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. The engine derives its carriers from the MAN (man_field_scripts::derive_field_carriers): the sparring partner becomes a ScriptedEncounter for formation 4, every other talk NPC a plain Npc. Engagement follows the dialogue-accept (interact op 0x3E opens it; 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 sections 1, 2, 4. Offsets and lengths are pinned in all 80 bundles; interior layouts beyond what is noted above are open.
• Mid-armed capture. No save state catches an entity with +0x94 armed in the one-frame window between roll and copy.
• Sparring dialogue Yes/No. The engine treats the accept as the dismiss; the fight is forced, so there is no decline path to gate.

Summary tables once restated the MAN header as "four s16 section offsets" and four sections; the traced walker gives three s16 counts, one u24, six sections. An earlier reading held that every record is inline in bytecode; the Rim Elm survey showed scripted fights select MAN rows by index. Catalogued on do-not-re-walk.