Fallout2 RP Marcus turned undead

L

leposima

First time out of the vault
Hello

I had Marcus in my party, and after few encounters I noticed he is not fighting or moving anymore. Then there was this hand Icon when trying to talk to him. Ok I thought that I just start a combat, press space. But no.

Examining him tells that he looks: Dead.
Cannot heal him, although he thanks me for giving a stim.
He is following me on every map, but staying put.
He is drawn behind other items, like usual dead critters.
On a first city map he dropped all his items.
He also talks smalltalk when entering city etc.
And I can get him laid at Cat's Paw :D
If there is a burst shot hitting me and he is in between there will be a dead animation. Although on next map he is still there.

Then I remembered, before this happened, he was passed out in combat and leveled up before got conscious again. Perhaps this triggered some bug?

Unfortunately, I don't have a save before this happened.
I tried to examine Marcus critter file with F2 editor, All the stats where 0, except barter and gambling had some insany values, like 1231313313 or -514345453

I tried to change all values to "sane" ones, but no luck.
Is there a way to edit the current hitpoints of a NPC?
I guess it's now 0 and this is happening.
A video of trying to heal him


Anyone had this kind of glitch? I've played Fallout 2 from '98 and I don't remember this ever happpened to me :D
 
Hmm, tricky one.
We have seen it with the player character before, and to a varying degree with the NPCs.
When it happen to the player it is now easy to fix, and with the NPCs it's sometimes possible.
Not sure about your issue though.

Your reasoning for the bug happening sounds plausible, though I don't know why Marcus would be dead and not just in a permanent unconscious state (I believe the timer for him waking up again gets removed when he levels up).

There's a few things I can think of you could try, but not sure to what degree it will work.

1. Knock him out yourself to set a wake up timer, and wait for him to wake up. Can get unresponsive NPCs to work again.But since your Marcus seem to be flagged as dead, I'm not sure what it would do. Maybe it would even make him realize he is dead and kill him for real.

2. Try to fix him with the official mapper. Read this first.
When you get to the "Push the edit button and then "Flags". Set "Flat" and "NoBlock" to "NO"" step, push "K" on your keyboard instead, and then click on Marcus. If he is alive it should kill him, and if he is dead it should make him alive again. If he dies the first time you click, click again so he is alive, then save the map and follow the rest of the instructions. Note that you need to turn off hide extensions for known file types in windows while extracting the gzip file.

3. To get his HPs up you can swap his proto file with on from another save. Go to \proto\critters folder in your saveslot and replace 00000161.pro with the same file from a working save. It will be created when you start a new game, in case you don't have a working save (Marcus will get reset to his very first level values, but should get the correct ones when he levels up next time).

4. If none of that works the only option left is to hex edit the sav.dat file. There is a Vault wiki page on that, but unfortunately no one has documented the section on NPCs yet, and I really don't feel like doing it. So I guess this isn't really an option.

Don't be afraid to play around with it as long as you have the time, and back up your stuff. Hope some of this will work and that the dead flag is not in the sav.dat file.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately, I cannot hit Marcus as a gray 'X' is shown instead the normal percentage.

I swapped his proto file from another save(totally different game, but Marcus was in my party) but no luck. Though it seems he is no longer drawn behind all other objects?

I'll try the map editor, but it complains for the fallout2.exe having never version than the usual 1.02 as I'm playing RP, so need to solve that first.

Some other oddities are:

Vault city officials tells me to shoo for having a mutant in party, so they don't like even dead mutants :D
Also, when ever I enter a city map, Marcus drops his inventory to ground and there is a permanent pile of blood on ground. Even if a change to different side of city the pile of blood follows :D So I can use him as mule to bring weapons from random encounters to city :P

If the map editor doesn't work I guess I'll try to progress couple of levels to see if Marcus would gain a level and fix the problem. Or the game will crash :D

Or is there a scripted event which would head all of Chosen one's companions? One Doctor I tried didn't allow me to select Marcus for healing.

Once rogues used burst to me and Marcus was in line and got hit but didn't die like before. So I'm a bit optimistic he has hit points but is flagged as dead.
 


I made the mapper to work. Seems that the flags were ok? I noticed Marcus had extra "hit points" I tried lowering/adding hit points, but he seem still have more than maximum.. Hmmm.
 
@leposima

His current Hit points are stored in the map save file (only the map he is currently on), and not in his proto file.

"obj_pud.curr_hp: 130" would be the base value, but since you have leveled up, that value is obviously higher.
When you swapped the proto file in his savegame slot, it changed the value of his Maximum Hit points.
If he takes damage and gets below the maximum hit point value, he will not go over it again.

His flags are also OK because you swapped his proto file, I would assume.


I found where the dead part is stored. It's also in the map save file.
There is a place that stores combat results (crippled body parts or dead), which is "obj_pud.combat_data.results: 0"
That value is a combat flag and if it's zero it means he is OK. If it is 128, it means he is dead, as can be seen from the list below.

Combat Flags:

#define DAM_KNOCKED_OUT 1
#define DAM_KNOCKED_DOWN 2
#define DAM_CRIP_LEG_LEFT 4
#define DAM_CRIP_LEG_RIGHT 8
#define DAM_CRIP_ARM_LEFT 16
#define DAM_CRIP_ARM_RIGHT 32
#define DAM_BLIND 64
#define DAM_DEAD 128
#define DAM_HIT 256
#define DAM_CRITICAL 512 // could be a critical hit or critical miss
#define DAM_ON_FIRE 1024
#define DAM_BYPASS 2048
#define DAM_EXPLODE 4096
#define DAM_DESTROY 8192
#define DAM_DROP 16384
#define DAM_LOSE_TURN 32768
#define DAM_HIT_SELF 65536
#define DAM_LOSE_AMMO 131072
#define DAM_DUD 262144
#define DAM_HURT_SELF 524288
#define DAM_RANDOM_HIT 1048576
#define DAM_CRIP_RANDOM 2097152
#define DAM_BACKWASH 4194304


I would suggest you take the map where you first noticed the problem, (or at least a map where you haven't swapped proto files), put it in the Mapper and press the 'K' button on your keyboard and then click Marcus (like I mentioned before). Based on the info you've given and my tests with the Mapper, it should work.
If it doesn't you can upload your save and I will probably be able to fix it for you by hex editing the map.
 
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Thank you Darek! The K button made Marcus un-undead again:)

Or at least Marcus is not full zombie anymore. I cannot talk to him (Yet there is dialogue(head) icon instead of loot (hand) icon. But I can use steal to access his inventory.
He stays still, but in event of a combat, he will start defending me. Perfect soldier.

Vault City and NCR(cannot holster his weapon) can be little problematic with him but that's ok for this game.

Thank you!
 
You are welcome @leposima. It sounds like Marcus has lost his script. In the Mapper, load your map save again. Select him, push the edit button. If his script isn't listed, push new script and scroll down and select hcmarcus.
Hope that helps.

Oh, and you may need to use the save editor to give him his armor working again.
 
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