RustRaptor/docs/campaign-validation.md

Original campaign validation

Local checks on 2026-10-10 reached mission completion for all 27 original waves at each of the four difficulties. These 108 runs are assisted inspection fixtures, not ordinary player victories and not per-wave C++ parity proofs. Original game data, reference recordings, profiles and CSV reports remain under ignored local directories.

The separate, complete DEMO1G1_REC comparison matches the rebuilt C++ engine across all 1,889 available simulation steps. Captured fields are the RNG seed, player coordinates/banking/shields/credits, ordered enemy asset/position/health/ animation/movement coordinates, and ordered projectile asset/position/hostility. The recording starts in sector 1 wave 3 and ends before the boss. Inventory, internal AI counters, terrain damage, effects, audio samples and presentation are outside this gameplay trace; this does not establish full-game parity.

Assisted campaign fixture

tools/campaign_check.rs gives the pilot the original arsenal and five mega bombs, fires continuously, aims horizontally at visible enemies while preferring bosses, cycles specials every 180 simulation steps and presses the bomb control every 480 steps. Before each step it replenishes energy and super-shield values to 100 each. Inputs still use the game input path. Enemy definitions, damage, spawn timing, RNG and mission outcomes are not replaced. A run stops at the reported outcome or its 12,000-step inspection limit.

The final run visited every spawn record, observed every expected boss instance and finished with no remaining enemies. Its local CSV is ../.reference/campaign-validation-final.csv (SHA-256 c4e1fc0ca1199efd2a9e72ceb7ebbe3d71325b517cb9829995138ead99486901).

Difficulty	Completed waves	Steps per wave	Enabled spawns	Boss instances seen	Nonpositive last health	Positive last health
0	27	4,601–4,873	3,751	88	53	35
1	27	4,607–4,873	3,751	88	53	35
2	27	4,651–5,079	6,259	88	37	51
3	27	4,650–5,082	8,668	88	36	52

The 108 runs cover 513,003 simulation steps, 22,429 enabled spawns and 352 boss appearances. Boss retirement counts classify the health observed immediately before removal: 179 nonpositive and 173 positive. Positive health commonly indicates a boss leaving the screen; damage and removal within the same step can also affect this classification. These counts are not an exact death-event audit. The harness deliberately allows the original wave completion condition after all spawned ships have died or left, rather than requiring every boss to be killed.

Additional opt-in tests exercised all 15 original player weapon definitions with live mission targets and observed emitted projectiles. This verifies availability and basic firing paths, not exact weapon effects. Progression checks exercise training's four-wave route, each normal 27-wave route, difficulty promotion, campaign resets and the training reward. They call the progression API directly and bypass combat; end cinematics and menu transitions need separate checks.

Run the four original-data integration tests from the RustRaptor/ directory:

RAPTOR_CAMPAIGN_REPORT=../.reference/campaign-validation-final.csv \
  cargo test --release --no-default-features --test campaigns -- --ignored --nocapture

Set RAPTOR_TEST_DATA if the original catalog is elsewhere. Set RAPTOR_REFERENCE_DEMO1 to use a different full C++ reference trace. Without --ignored, these tests do not require or distribute original assets.

The reporting helper is also a standalone Rust CLI. Build the library, supply its resulting libraptor_replica-*.rlib path to rustc --extern, and retain the dependency directory:

cargo build --release --no-default-features --lib
rustc --edition=2024 tools/campaign_check.rs \
  --extern raptor_replica=target/release/deps/libraptor_replica-HASH.rlib \
  --extern anyhow=target/release/deps/libanyhow-HASH.rlib \
  -L dependency=target/release/deps -o ../.reference/campaign-check
../.reference/campaign-check ../data

Its optional second argument selects one difficulty, for example ../.reference/campaign-check ../data 3.

Reproduce the complete demo comparison

Rebuild the retained C++ source before capturing a reference. The local debug build used ../.reference/cpp-rng-build; use the available CMake executable if it is outside PATH. Prepare an isolated legacy profile with raptorsetup, or copy an existing SETUP.INI into ../.reference/full-demo-profile/Raptor/ before running the following commands. The original executable requires data/ as its working directory. A complete reference takes about 81 seconds at 70/3 Hz.

cmake --build ../.reference/cpp-rng-build --parallel 4
(
  cd ../data
  XDG_DATA_HOME="$PWD/../.reference/full-demo-profile" \
  SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy \
  RAPTOR_REFERENCE_TRACE="$PWD/../.reference/cpp-demo1-full.jsonl" \
  RAPTOR_REFERENCE_TICKS=1889 \
  ../.reference/cpp-rng-build/bin/raptor PLAY demos/DEMO1G1_REC
)
cargo run --no-default-features -- \
  --replay DEMO1G1_REC --ticks 1889 --trace ../.reference/rust-demo1-full.jsonl
python3 tools/compare_replays.py \
  ../.reference/cpp-demo1-full.jsonl ../.reference/rust-demo1-full.jsonl

The comparator reports Identical gameplay snapshots across 1889 simulation steps. and rejects unequal lengths, repeated tick numbers or the first differing field. The local C++ trace SHA-256 is 6f0378dbe4d819b44de86dc22822d2e70cb65546e6aed89dd45a44a8eb3d02fe.

This comparison found and repaired beam damage before player-follow artwork, raw recorded positions beyond ordinary input bounds, low-shield equipment loss and automatic selection cycling, and the last authored kamikaze leg's transition into the player chase. Portable synthetic regressions in tests/gameplay.rs cover those rules without original pixels or recordings.

Remaining gameplay validation

The catalog inspection found no wave completion blocker under the assisted fixture. Source inspection also found and repaired three original weapon rules, with four additional portable regressions:

• Energy Grab damages only airborne ships by one point, drains the original resistance counter and disables susceptible enemies' firing. Immunity and continued suppression after animation updates have separate coverage.
• Ground Bomb damages terrain before checking a ground enemy and applies the original left/up/right neighbor effects, including the preceding-row pass. One test verifies simultaneous terrain and ground-enemy damage.
• Mega Bomb applies its original 50 enemy damage, clears hostile shots and subtracts 20 health only from visible destructible terrain. A test covers distant tiles, inert terrain, destroyed tiles and the final visible tile.

A longer record set, C++ traces through bosses and departure/death sequences, ordinary pilot playthroughs, all weapon effects, shield recharging and complete save/menu/cinematic routes are still needed for full acceptance. The complete demo match and assisted campaign coverage should be retained as regression evidence while those gaps are resolved.