FO2 unexplained radiation death (possible bug?)

[Kerghan]

Hello,

I strated playing the Steam distributed version of Fallout 2 + Killap's Unofficial patch. Currently I'm pretty much right at the near-end stage of the game where I'm managing the activation of San Fran tanker and made a visit to Navarro. But first before I went to Navarro, I started today by continuing my save in the Military Base: I killed enemies in the first level but left the area prematurely because the super mutants were too tough for me to deal with (I had only a combat armor mk2).

Since this is not the first time I'm playing the game, I decided to play with max difficulty settings + jinxed + no combat skills at start. Also I have very poor ST and EN stats (3 and 1 respectively) and I became a Jet addict early on in the game. So when I made my way into the Military base I needed to push the dynamite cart to get in but my base stats were lacking to make the push, so I think I took one or two buffouts and may have become addicted in the process (there is no easy way to tell which simultaneous chem addictions you have since the ADDICTED flag is on all the time because of the permanent Jet state). After I left the base I headed towards Navarro where I did all the quests that could be done there.

After few days upon leaving Navarro my character dies from radiation and I seemingly have no way to salvage myself from this. The most strange thing is that I'm barely even radiated to begin with; the geiger counter indicates a radiaction value of 8. Right before I die (which happens at the same specific date & time), it reads "You feel nauseous" and "You have died from radiation poisoning.", or something very similar rght before the screen fades to white. Also I think approx two days before the death I get the msg "You get the shakes" and a warning about the toxic waste mutation growing on both feet. Since I have the car, I tried going to the Vault City outer city doctor's treatment but I don't get the dialogue option to remove the mutated toe (if that even is possible yet at this current state?). Obviously I've tried curing any possible readiation with RadAways and Rad-X but I die always.

Is this a known bug or is there some game mechanic regarding the simultaneous addictions, toe mutation and basic radiation causing me to die? I read that the if radiation levels cause any stat to fall below zero, the player will die but my radiation level is nowhere near for such effects to take place.

Resuming to my previous save which is all the way before even entering the Military Base won't lead to my death on the specific date and time.

 

[Kerghan]

Oddly enough seems like taking another buffout seemed to do the trick whether I take it few days or right before death. I also verified that I will survive beyond the addiction phase (a week). While I'm satisfied for not having to resume a much earlier save to circumvent the problem, the cause of dying without taking a buffout is still a mystery to me, since the message box clearly states radiation as the cause of death.

As for the mutated toe, I just had to wait one day beyond the normal date of death for it to become operable.

 

[Per]

A wild guess is that the Buffout withdrawal would have dropped some stat below 1, a minimum of 1 was applied, but the radiation code looks at the modified stat before that minimum is applied. There are some other weird goings-on in the game (notably pariah dog Luck modifications) that have to do with confusion between modified and non-modified stats.

 

[Kerghan]

Hmmm... well with the same logic my Jet use should have killed me ages ago since the immediate withdrawl effects after 5 minutes reduces ST by -4, and my base ST is 3.

 

[zegh8578]

Very very similar thing happens to me, twice. I salvaged one character by reloading to a much earlyer point, and skipping the exploration I did that (supposedly) led to my untimely death. The save I have now, I am screwed, as all my slots lead to the same sudden death. No detectable radiation, no poisoning, but an almost "timed" death...

 

[Per]

Hmmm... well with the same logic my Jet use should have killed me ages ago since the immediate withdrawl effects after 5 minutes reduces ST by -4, and my base ST is 3.

Not really, since there is no "death check" except when radiation is involved.

Very very similar thing happens to me, twice. I salvaged one character by reloading to a much earlyer point, and skipping the exploration I did that (supposedly) led to my untimely death. The save I have now, I am screwed, as all my slots lead to the same sudden death. No detectable radiation, no poisoning, but an almost "timed" death...

You can try either taking drugs to boost the stat in danger of dropping to 0 or use a character editor to boost stats temporarily.

 

[zegh8578]

Very very similar thing happens to me, twice. I salvaged one character by reloading to a much earlyer point, and skipping the exploration I did that (supposedly) led to my untimely death. The save I have now, I am screwed, as all my slots lead to the same sudden death. No detectable radiation, no poisoning, but an almost "timed" death...

You can try either taking drugs to boost the stat in danger of dropping to 0 or use a character editor to boost stats temporarily.

Ah, that worked! I might have overdosed on mentats, and my charisma falling below 0.
Is there any way to prepare against such a glitch? Because they shouldn't drop below 0, instead landing on 1, no?
Would it help to for example combine such drugs with rad-away, or something?

 

[Per]

Withdrawal stops at 1, yes, but the problem is that the radiation code might be looking at the wrong numbers. Radaway lowers the rem count which determines (at least partially) the severity of radiation sickness, so it might help that way, but it can't prevent it entirely once it's triggered. So if the root of this thing is improper interaction between radiation stat checks and drug stat modifications, it wouldn't help in many cases.