A 2026-04-30 cdb live trace of retail acclient.exe attached during
sky observation revealed the missing infrastructure behind acdream's
three open sky bugs (#2 lightning, #28 aurora, #29 cloud density).
Live trace over 24,576 GameSky::Draw frames:
GameSky::Draw = 24,576 (60 Hz render rate)
GameSky::UseTime = 12,288 (30 Hz — half rate)
GameSky::CreateDeletePhysicsObjects = 12,288 (30 Hz, MinQuantum gate)
CPhysicsObj::CallPES = 372 (~150/min average)
CallPESHook::Execute = 372 (1:1 with CallPES)
CreateParticleHook::Execute = 62 (15 initial + 47 burst)
CPhysicsObj::create_particle_emitter = 62 (matches CreateParticleHook)
Three concrete findings:
1. Retail HAS persistent particle emitters on celestial / sky objects.
15 created at cell load; dynamically spawned on region/weather/time
transitions (the trace caught a +47 burst on one such transition).
2. The PES script-hook system drives existing emitters periodically.
`CallPESHook::Execute` fires script-scheduled actions which call
`CPhysicsObj::CallPES` 1:1, ~150 times per minute.
3. Earlier research saying "GameSky doesn't read pes_id" was correct
in scope but missed that the dispatch chain runs through the
script-hook system (not from inside GameSky directly).
`CelestialPosition.pes_id` is consumed downstream.
Files a new issue #36 that consolidates implementation work for
all three sky bugs into one porting effort. Adds cross-references
in #2, #28, #29 pointing at #36.
Decomp anchors for next session:
CallPESHook::Execute @ 0x00526e20
CreateParticleHook::Execute @ 0x00526ec0
CPhysicsObj::CallPES @ 0x00511af0
CPhysicsObj::create_particle_emitter @ 0x0050f360
GameSky::CreateDeletePhysicsObjects @ 0x005073c0
CelestialPosition.pes_id @ struct offset +0x004
Memory file `project_retail_debugger.md` updated separately with the
sky-PES breakthrough so future sessions inherit the context.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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