Enemy targeting of remote players (VUH-1515)

Ordinary mirrored waves (VUH-2193)

KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_ALL=1 requires KH2COOP_ENEMY_MIRROR=1 and uses the mirror families (D14: every mob family except the denylist in EnemyMirrorPose.hpp) for the common target_search path. It is default off and can coexist with KH2COOP_PARTY_NATIVE=1; leave the legacy KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_REMOTE flag unset. Native-party room and private status qualification are unchanged. A clone still needs its own status and a fresh, living owner pose to become a target.

Headless Ghidra confirms selector 0x3BE2B0 mode 2 always chooses canonical Sora; mode 0 uses the attention list and falls back to Sora. Changing party or team flags alone cannot change those player-only searches. The existing byte-checked syscall replacement runs the native search, then chooses among the host and both eligible remote players and writes the chosen handle to enemy +0xBF8. It preserves the existing nearest-player policy, hold, hysteresis and per-clone cap. A valid host-side remote candidate keeps its native team and collision before the first assignment.

This route does not advertise cancellation authority, register a forwarded-hit callback, forward damage or veto the owner's local hits. The host-side puppet remains protected by DamagePolicy RemoteVictim; a mirrored attack against the friend's real Sora stays native through LocalVictim.

Attacks that bypass +0xBF8, scripted player-only targets, projectiles and bosses are parked: the common search override does not change their separate targeting paths. Family-specific targeting qualification remains a live check. No party/status room expansion or package/profile change is included.

Dusks hit the friend natively (VUH-2466)

In the prologue's Basement Hall (both Roxases bound at site tt19-134), host targeting sends Dusks at the friend's clone (79 rewrites in run 20261019-171742). The friend's mirrored Dusks then hit the friend's own Roxas natively. Run 20261019-192627 had both seats fighting with no stand-in protection: [enemy-mirror] hit ... driven=1 on the friend for attacks 18, 17 and 18 (6, 3 and 3 damage), with its own reaction and i-frames.

An earlier reading said the opposite. In runs 171742–192214 the friend's mirrored Dusks built no hits, but every one of those fixtures carried the runner's "protect": [1] stand-in aid, which keeps the friend on team 0. A forwarding change was designed, reviewed (D14.4, r1–r4) and tested on that reading. It would have forwarded the host's zeroed clone hits for Dusks to the friend as RemoteHits, with a one-kind-per-swing guard and a flinch rule. It was dropped unlanded once the unprotected run showed native hits. The reviewed diff is kept at build/rig/vuh2466/forward-dropped-r4.diff. Its measurements still hold if a family is ever found that truly builds no client hits:

• A pose-driven clone never flinches, so it takes a whole combo. Dusk 309's attack 73 landed 4+4+4+2 on the clone, where a native Roxas takes the first hit or two.
• HP-only forwarded damage has no reaction or i-frames.

BC Soldier loopback, 2026-10-12

Run 201627 passed using the qualified BC clone leaf and mirror mode. The friend clip shows Soldiers attacking the friend's real Sora. Host search assignments name owner 1 and object 301. Client native hit records have driven=1, with attack motions 201/202 entered during the mirror run. Friend HP went 24 to 12 to 0; the host puppet stayed at 24 despite incoming host-side hit records. No forward, veto or remote-hit records occurred. Four protected files, tracked files and installed game files were unchanged; owned cleanup completed.

Focused CTest passed 2/2 (targeting and DamagePolicy); the existing production adapter harness passed 75/75, including all-mode refusal of owner veto/apply and all-mode coexistence with native party configuration. The first live attempt stopped during friend bootstrap; the scenario now waits for both actors and their matching full location before placement.

Limits: this run qualifies Soldier's common search path. Other mirror families remain unqualified live; attacks that bypass the common slot stay parked. The initial run separated the players; close contact is covered below. Native-party coexistence was checked offline; BC is outside that mode's qualified room scope.

Close contact, 2026-10-12

Run 202545 passed with ALL and MIRROR enabled. The host hit a nearby Soldier for 4 native damage (39 to 35 HP), then was placed 30 units from the friend's puppet and walked in both directions. The host clip shows no reaction worth fixing or stuck/push loop. Host movement covered about 706 units on the first leg and 648 on the return. Puppet HP stayed 24 after the swing and contact; no forward, veto or remote-hit records occurred. All four protected files and installed game files were unchanged; owned cleanup passed. KeepNative was left unchanged. This is a short Soldier smoke check, not broad collision qualification. A preceding attempt stopped before the contact actions on an unnecessary owner-target assignment wait; that wait was removed from the bounded contact fixture.

Proposed play flags are KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_ALL=1 and KH2COOP_ENEMY_MIRROR=1, with legacy KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_REMOTE unset. Existing party/private-status qualification still applies. The lead decides promotion and where these flags belong; no play profile was created.

KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_REMOTE=1 (exactly 1; default off). Set it on every machine of the session. With the flag off nothing is hooked, swapped, written or sent. This flag and KH2COOP_PARTY_NATIVE=1 refuse each other (no joint fixture yet): enemy-target's Configure and PartyNative::Install each stay off when the other flag is set.

One damage path per mode

The host's KH2COOP_ENEMY_MIRROR decides the mode. The host carries the mode in every TargetAuthority advertisement, so both sides agree.

Host

• The seam. The bdscript syscall target_search (bank 1 index 121, 0x4303A0) is replaced through its .data entry exe+0x755B00. The swap happens only after an exact 75-byte match and lasts for the host session.
• What the replacement does. It always runs the native selector first. Then it applies the policy only when the searching actor is a live, allowlisted enemy (type mob, team 2, HP > 0) and the native result is the canonical player form (mode 0 or 2, aux 0, naming the canonical player).
• The write. When a clone wins, the replacement writes {clone handle, part 0} into that enemy's +0xBF8. It saves the native handle and part, and puts both back on release.
• Why the Shadow follows it. Its mode_battle measures its attack distances to that slot in the same brain step: under 300 btl_attack, under 600 btl_short, otherwise btl_long.
• Native team and collision. A clone keeps its native team and collision only while at least one tracked enemy holds our write naming it. Otherwise it stays team 0 with no-collide, as on main, so non-allowlisted AI and bosses cannot hit it. While it is kept, any enemy can hit it, but those hits are zeroed (RemoteVictim), and only allowlisted ones are forwarded.
• Forward mode. A hit on a candidate clone from an allowlisted enemy is still zeroed by the existing DamagePolicy (NonLocalPlayer -> ZeroHp/RemoteVictim). After the zero succeeds it is forwarded once to the clone's owner as RemoteHit.
• TargetAuthority (reliable). It is sent on every change and at least every 60 frames.
  • It carries {room tuple, seq, hostConnectionId, slotMask, familyMask, mode}.
  • slotMask bit s is set only while the host is active, the syscall is swapped and slot s's clone is a valid candidate.
  • On stop an empty mask is attempted, best effort only: in most stop cases the send is refused (the role is no longer Host, there is no session, or the generation is new). The guarantee is the owner's 1.5 s age-out. Per-slot changes while the host is active are sent at once.
  • The relay holds advertisements during an event hold (S8), as it drops RemoteHit there, so the owner stops cancelling within 1.5 s of an event.

Owner (client)

• Applying an admitted RemoteHit. It goes to the canonical local player through the hooked native stat funnel: ApplyStatDelta 0x3D2EB0, with delta -damage, idx 0, no reaction.

• Refusals. A RemoteHit is refused when:

  • the player is not canonical;
  • a transition is pending;
  • an event or cutscene is running;
  • the player is dead or downed, or HP is 0;
  • the damage is outside [1, 9999];
  • the ignore-hit timer +0xD70 is above 0. The one exception is the i-frame episode our own cancel started: the timer was 0 before the cancelled hit, rose within 2 frames, and has only counted down since. That episode never applies during DownedSpike's revive grace. A guard, another hit or the revive grace raising the timer again ends the episode (S3/N2);
  • Stale: we have not been covered continuously for the last 1.5 s. This covers a delayed burst of RemoteHits after a downlink stall, whose local copies already landed (S7).

• Local cancel (DamagePolicy Reason::HostEnemyAuthority) requires all of:

  • role Client;
  • an allowlisted source family;
  • an advertisement from the current host connection, for our admitted epoch and room, at most 1.5 s old, in Forward mode, with our slot bit and the family bit set. Its age is checked again at the cancel itself, and a pending transition clears the held view (N1);
  • continuous coverage of at least 1.5 s (S9), the same clock that gates applying a RemoteHit. During a warm-up, or after any lapse, local hits stay native and RemoteHits are dropped as Stale. Neither path then applies the attack twice, and the owner is not left immune.

  Anything else, including a missing, stale or refused advertisement, the host flag off, a refused swap, missing private status, a stale or ineligible clone, or Mirror mode, leaves the local hit native. Apart from the in-flight edge cases under Known limits, the owner is never immune.

Policy (pure, EnemyTargetRemote.hpp)

Candidates.

• The local player, if canonical and live:

  • listed (+0x120 & 0x10080000 clear);
  • not dead (+0x9B8 bit 2 clear);
  • HP > 0.

  A downed local player is skipped.

• Remote clones 1 and 2. Each one needs all of:

  • an active, player-class puppet;
  • a native status distinct from the local player's;
  • a live actor;
  • a fresh pose (within 30 frames, and not an AvatarHeld pose from a stalled stream, VUH-1787) from the same world and room;
  • an owner that is neither downed nor in a cutscene, in slot 1 or 2;
  • a list handle that resolves back to the clone.

Choice. Deterministic, at each native search:

• nearest by horizontal distance;
• a 180-frame minimum hold;
• 150 u hysteresis;
• at most 3 enemies per remote clone (the local player is uncapped);
• 64 tracked enemies (when full, the native result stands);
• ties go to the lower index.

Families

Legacy KH2COOP_ENEMY_TARGET_REMOTE allowlist by object id: Shadow 302 (M_EX020) only. ENEMY_TARGET_ALL uses the mirror families instead (see the top section). The Shadow is verified two ways:

• Statically, from its BDX: m_ex020 PC 2275/2290/2078.
• Live, in VUH-1515 attempt07, run 20261007-033207.

Other ids keep the native behaviour. get player stays native, because the Shadow uses it only in its leave check. No pre-update write is needed: nothing else rewrites the slot between searches.

Private status

A clone must have its own native status. With the flag on, privatestatus::EnableEnemyTargetScope() adds verified rooms only. Each room has its exact leaf row (SAVE+0x3534+4*world): today only BC courtyard 05/06, with row 00/00/02/12. KH2COOP_NATIVE_SORA_PRIVATE_STATUS=1 is still required on the host.

The VUH-1513 Roxas-kit row 00/03/02 is not covered. With that kit, a clone outside GoA is never a candidate. Since the advertisement then never names the slot, the friend's local hits stay native.

Teardown

Known limits (Forward mode)

Deliberate choices:

• The host hits a neutral-input, latency-delayed clone. The friend's own guard, dodge, i-frames, Second Chance and Once More are not consulted. Mirror mode keeps all of these.
• Damage is computed against the clone's stats, not the friend's. This is accepted for now.
• No flinch on the owner (reactFlag 0).
• A lethal RemoteHit in a drive form or summon takes the native, non-gated death branch, the same branches DownedSpike's Kill refuses. That matches a native lethal hit, but it is not "downed".
• Local replica Shadows on the owner are cosmetic for the family while the advertisement names the owner.

Known windows:

• Double-damage window (S5). When the owner's damage context cannot be captured, DamagePolicy returns Native before the cancel is consulted, while the host may still forward. This is rare: it happens only while the session or roster is changing.
• Small immunity window. When a clone stops being a candidate on the host, the owner keeps cancelling until the new mask arrives, about one RTT. It cancels at most until the advertisement ages out, 1.5 s.
• Coverage cutover (S7/S9). Cancel and apply share one 1.5 s coverage clock. Before it is ready, local family hits land natively and RemoteHits are dropped as Stale. After that, local hits are cancelled and RemoteHits apply. The remaining edges are the in-flight pairs that straddle a cutover. A host swing whose local copy landed just before readiness, and whose RemoteHit is processed just after, can apply twice. One whose local copy was cancelled just before a lapse, and whose RemoteHit arrives just after, is lost. Both are bounded by one RTT per cutover.
• Host advertisement period. It is time-based (500 ms), so a low frame rate on the host does not cause lapses.

Fixture

build/rig/vuh1515-enemy-target-remote-20261007-01/live-fixture-01/: runner, judge, controls and an offline dry run. Mode A is Forward and mode B is Mirror.