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funman300 1fb664710a docs: add FLE bridge direction pivot and squad-injection test tooling

Adds the app-centric FLE bridge direction (direction.md) replacing the
Blaze-backend route as primary plan, plus a corrected foundational test
procedure and snapshot/diff/apply tooling for reverse-engineering FLE's
Freeze Lineup write mechanism. Also picks up prior untracked research docs
(status-review, fut-integration-options, fifa23-startup-flow, track-c) and
existing capture/export tooling that hadn't been committed yet.

2026-06-30 13:19:27 -07:00

5.1 KiB

Raw Blame History

FIFA 23 PC Startup Flow (Offline / Proton)

Observed via FLE log, hook log, and file inspection on 2026-06-26.

Launch chain

umu-run / Steam → FIFA23.exe (via Proton/Wine)
    │
    ├─ DLL load order (before entry point)
    │      ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll, ws2_32.dll …
    │      version.dll         ← our hook DLL slot (loads here)
    │      FIFALiveEditor.DLL  ← injected by FLE launcher after ~100 ms
    │
    ├─ anadius / LSX emulator (anadius64.dll)
    │      Fakes EA App / Origin session
    │      Reads  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Origin\ClientPath
    │      Writes AppData\Local\anadius\LSX emu\achievement-*.xml
    │      Provides fake PersonaId=1144668899 / UserId=1000200030000
    │
    ├─ EA Anti-Cheat (EAAntiCheat.GameServiceLauncher.exe)
    │      Spawns as child; checks EAAntiCheat.cfg
    │      Not active in offline/cracked builds (FakeEAACLauncher present)
    │
    └─ FIFA23.exe entry point
           Frostbite engine init (BuildDate 2023-07-05, changelist 5417699)
           Reads  Data\initfs_Win32        ← Frostbite package manifest
           Reads  Data\layout.toc          ← file-system layout
           Reads  Patch\initfs_Win32       ← patches on top of base
           Reads  Documents\FIFA 23\fifasetup.ini   ← display settings
           Reads  Data\locale.ini          ← language table
           Reads  Data\db_meta.xml (via FLE) ← DB schema for all tables

Phase timing (observed, single machine)

Phase	Time after launch	Trigger
DLL load + FLE injection	0 – 0.3 s	OS loader
Engine + DirectX init	0.3 – 5 s	FIFA23 entry point
"Press any key" splash	~5 s	First rendered frame
Main menu	~25 s	After key press
FUT mode entry (attempted)	user-driven	User selects FUT tile
Network calls to EA services	at FUT entry	DirtySDK / EAWebKit

Files read at startup (observed)

File	Format	Purpose
`Data/initfs_Win32`	Frostbite pkg	Base asset manifest
`Data/layout.toc`	Frostbite TOC	File layout index
`Patch/initfs_Win32`	Frostbite pkg	Patch layer
`Data/locale.ini`	INI	String localisation
`Data/db_meta.xml`	XML	DB schema (loaded by FLE)
`Data/id_map.json`	JSON	Player/team ID→name map
`Data/char_conv.json`	JSON	Character conversion table
`Documents/FIFA 23/fifasetup.ini`	INI	Display/audio settings
`AppData/Local/Temp/FIFA 23/_replay0.bin`	binary	Replay buffer
`anadius.cfg`	VDF	Fake EA persona config
`AppData/Local/anadius/LSX emu/achievement-*.xml`	XML	Achievement state

Files written during a session (observed)

File	When written	Content
`Documents/FIFA 23/settings/Settings*`	Main menu reached	FBCHUNKS — controller/display prefs
`Documents/FIFA 23/settings/ProfileOptions`	Profile load	FBCHUNKS — 1.5 MB profile blob
`Documents/FIFA 23/filesystemcache/survey.state`	Startup	Empty state file
`Documents/FIFA 23/filesystemcache/atlPlayTimeJson/playtime_*.json`	Ongoing	Playtime tracking
`FIFA 23 Live Editor/config.json`	FLE ready	FLE settings (rewritten each session)
`Logs/log_DD-MM-YYYY.txt`	Throughout	FLE debug log

Save file formats

FBCHUNKS (Frostbite chunk container)

Magic: 46 42 43 48 55 4E 4B 53 (FBCHUNKS)
Byte 8: version (01 seen)
Offset 0x12: null-terminated label string (e.g. "Personal Settings 1", "Career - Player Progress 1")
Remainder: compressed/binary chunk data — no public spec; requires Frostbite tooling to fully parse
Tools: Frosty Tool Suite can read/write these

fifasetup.ini

Plain KEY = VALUE ini, fully human-readable
Safe to edit (display resolution, locale, vsync)

Network calls at FUT entry (observed with iptables redirect)

Traffic pattern captured before changing strategy:

Multiple TLS connections to port 443 (destination: EA servers, resolved as various EA IPs)
TLS 1.3, AES-256-GCM (DirtySDK's copy of ProtoSSL, inline in FIFA23.exe)
No SNI sent (DirtySDK does not set server_name extension)
Connections originate from Wine/Proton network stack via Linux kernel TCP

Specific EA hostnames used (from openfut-bridge captures, not decoded from TLS):

fut.ea.com (FUT API)
accounts.ea.com (auth)
gateway.ea.com (entitlements)
pin-river.data.ea.com (telemetry)

Key FLE Lua API hooks

FLE injects FIFALiveEditor.DLL and exposes a Lua engine that can:

Read any in-memory DB table via GetDBTableRows(tableName)
Write any cell via EditDBTableField
Query career mode state via IsInCM()
Get player/team names via GetPlayerName, GetTeamName

This is the primary safe integration path (see fut-integration-options.md).

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