Even after the 1.06 patch to Mercernaries, SEROIUS bugs still exist!
By: David Sellick
Date: 1997-06-19
I haven't written these bugs/errors/annoyances to slam the game Mercenaries. This file is a SURVIVAL guide to the current bugs and how to avoid them. HOPEFULLY, this file reaches the designers of the game so they can make a patch to fix as many bugs as possible.
Most of the bugs are due to mech design and mech handling problem. Only a few are due to missions, and they're hard to find missions...
- General Bugs 1.If a heat sink is destroyed in combat, and that mech is then CUSTOMIZED without the heat sink being "REPAIR/REARM" in menu of same name, the mech's weight goes up PERMANENTLY by 1 ton!
Can be avoided by checking REPAIR/REARM after each mission and repairing the mech.
2.If single heat sinks WERE removed when upgrading from single to double, AND the mech is then REPAIR/REARMED, the single heat sinks are ADDED back to the mech! If the mech is then CUSTOMIZED, and the single heat sinks are removed, (manually, because the game thinks it already HAS double heat sinks!) every single heat sink removed reduces the number of DOUBLE heat sinks carried by the mech by 1 PERMANETLY, despite what STATS say. The bug is every 3 single heat sinks on the mech act as only 1 double heat sink for STATS display purposes, but the REMOVAL of each single heat sink removes 1 ton of weight and 1 double heat sink for calculation purposes. The WEIGHT of the mech goes down, but so does the absolute number of heat sinks on the mech! I've had an ATLAS with "16 DOUBLE HEAT SINKS" that only weighed 21 tons! It overheated and self-destructed before power-up was even completed because it had NEGATIVE heat sinks.
Can be avoided by first REMOVING all single heat sinks before upgrading to double heat sinks.
3.If an Inner-Sphere mech has any 3-slot double heat sinks destroyed, then you try to customize it -- the number of heat sinks on the mech will be misreported, since ONLY the first slot of a 3-slot double heat sink is actually destroyed.
Can be avoided by REPAIR or REPAIR ALL such a mech to fix it -- IF you have the double heat sinks to spare!
4.When ammo is destoyed on a mech, typically the mech is destroyed (CASE or no.) But, if a mech survives such damage, weight is PERMANENTLY increased by a ton by the "missing" ton of ammo.
Unless you have automatic ejection turned OFF, when your mech suffers a critical ammo hit: you are ejected, the mission is considered a failure, and your mech is considered destroyed/lost.
5.If ammo of the same type is added to a mech section (torso,leg,arm) in reverse order (where the LAST ton is actually higher on the screen than the first), the first and last ton of ammo "stick" together when they are removed -- and only reduce the current weight of the mech by 1 ton instead of 2! Even if you ARE careful enough to NOT add ammo in reverse order, sometimes it is REPLACED that way by REPAIR/REARM -- giving the same results. The "sticky" ammo also reduces the tons of ammo CLAIMED to be carried by the mech under STATS -- even worse, the number of shots/reloads are reduced by 1 ton (or MORE) worth of ammo! If the "sticky" ammo is removed in CUSTOMIZE, ammo in inventory is often only increased by 1 ton -- but I've had it actually DECREASE my inventory ammo! Were the ammo to be added totally in reverse order (say for instance you were removing heat sinks from the bottom up, and replacing them with ammo), the ENTIRE bunch of ammo will be stuck together -- giving only 1 ton of ammo as far as useage is concerned, but increasing the weight of the mech by however many tons of ammo were added!
Avoid this bug by only having 1 ton of any given ammo type on each part of a mech, having NO ammo at all, or REPAIR missing ammo individualy in proper order: FIRST, SECOND, THIRD tons...
6.In INSTANT ACTION a similar bug exist. If an existing mech design had lots of ammo on it, and you removed the ammo to replace with MORE ammo (say for a different weapon), the editor WON'T let you save the new design because it says you have "TOO MUCH AMMO ON MECH!"
The only way to avoid that error is to edit a mech that doesn't have much or any ammo on it, then the "TOO MUCH AMMO" message isn't given.
7.If VITAL COMPONENTS have been destroyed, and are NOT repaired, the mech is STILL usable! Even if the mech is missing most/all of its engine, ALL ARM ACTUATORS (because arms were shot off), ALL LEG actuators (because legs were shot off), and even if parts of the head were destroyed -- the mech can be used in the NEXT mission like there's nothing wrong with it! In MECH 2, you COULD remove ARM ACTUATORS, but what about LEG actuators? (Shouldn't that turn a mech into a turret w/ jump jets?) And what if you HAVE no engine...? (It's the "BLACK KNIGHT" mech from Monty Pyton!)
Can be avoided by REPAIRING badly-damaged mechs, but why bother? The lost components free up more slots for other things, like heat sinks... This also makes your mech harder to destroy by critical hits!
To avoid MOST of these bugs, REPAIR damaged mechs before customizing them. If there is 1 double heat sink in your inventory (or more), single heat sinks are converted to double when placed on a mech.
- MISSION ERRORS/SNAFUS/BUGS: 1.On the space campaign, Protect the Ice Ship (SPA1CAM1), lancemates act like lemmings -- throwing themselves off the side of the ship -- only to have their legs smashed (or entire mech destroyed!) on the "ground" about 3,000 meters below.
A possible "solution" for this is to tell your lancemates to guard the control tower of the ship, then they'll circle it and stay near it. When something actually attacks the tower however, you may still have to order them to attack.
2.In the DESTROY the DREAD LEGION Campaign (GRA1), I won the 1st mission but LOST the 2nd (Thug got me...), SO I was presented with a different FINAL mission -- capture and secure some LOST STAR LEAGUE weaponry! In that mission, I killed all the enemies (leaving the boxes untouched), targeted the boxes and Identified them. My F12 (MISSION BRIEFING) says I've completed all the mission goals but the mission doesn't end! So, I went to NAV ALPHA (My dropship) to end the mission, NOTHING happened! I THEN went back to the boxes and destroyed them -- mission INSTANTLY ended! I got no salvage, because the game says I destroyed the salvage. I RELOADED my game, did exactly the same -- EXCEPT ABORTED the mission instead of destroying the boxes -- and got the SAME result. THEN I RELOADED the game, did exactly the same, CHEATED by typing CTRL+ALT+SHIFT "LIKETHECOMSTARBABY" and now I have some nice new weaponry. (I was very upset the game wouldn't let me have it legally!)
3.In the SOLARIS VII Gladiator Games (SOL1), I won the 1st battle and salvaged a Bombadier (BMB50STD) but when I checked later, I didn't HAVE a BOMBADIER. I actually had an Awesome (AWE50STD).
In the 2nd mission of SOLARIS VII, I won and salvaged a Stalker (STK50STD), but was actually given a Thug (THG50STD).
Later, in the LAST (3rd) mission, the game said I salvaged no mechs. But now I have 2 mechs I didn't have earlier: a Stalker (STK50STD) and a Zeus (ZEU50STD). That's funny because I didn't FIGHT a ZEUS...
4.On the BATTLE for WOLCOTT Campaign (WOL1), I LOST both missions 1 and 2 but (AMAZINGLY) won the last (turned the difficulty to EASY
I was given NICE salvage for my one success -- some CLAN LASERS and a NOVA CLAN MECH!!! But when I went to customize my new NOVA I didn't HAVE one! 
(I had a WARHAWK CLAN MECH instead!)Apparently, what the game SAYS you get for salvage (such as a nva50std) isn't actually what you get (whk50std).
5.If a Random mission or 1-mission campaigns are saved right before hitting LAUNCH, they MAY be corrupted and refuse to run when reloaded. Or it may have a mech totem polem and otherwise work fine.
6.t's disappointing to complete the LAST campaign (LUT1), only to have your game forcibly ended. Wouldn't even a SIMPLE restart with same player (and stuff!) be nice?
- Pet Peeves/Minor Errors in the Game 1.Salvage mechs don't make much sense. They don't even have "sensible" damage on them. The Jenner, for instance, has MORE armor on its rear side torsos than it started with, and has INTERNAL damage BUT still has armor on the same location. For once, I'd like to salvage a mech with damage that makes more sense -- like badly damaged all over, missing a leg, both arms, and ALL armor on the head. That's typically how I leave enemies.
At least this makes repairs cheap...
2.The mission where you capture the KODIAK, you can use up ALL its ammo -- get BOTH the arms blown off -- even get your engine shot to pieces. So long as you finish the mission (and escape to YOUR dropship, not the Draconis one) you will get a brand-new KODIAK with NO combat damage.
This is actually a rather nice bug.
3.Battlefield salvage is NOT random, everytime you play a mission and succeed -- the salvage is the SAME! This is just an annoyance, not a bug.
4.Damages isn't handled ANYTHING like the paper-based game. An Ultra-Autocannon/20 doesn't kill a Firemoth with even 2 or 3 shots! A laser hit might only do 1 point of armor damage! AND THIS IS ON THE HARD SETTING!
5.HEAT levels don't make much sense either. On paper, I could fire a single CLAN LARGE PULSE LASER all day long and not generate any excess heat, with only the 10 double heat sinks built into the mech. In the game, a single IS LARGE LASER will quickly overheat a mech with 15 double heat sinks on a ice world (<-10 cel.) Worse still, in outer space, my mechs cool off very slowly (the iceberg campaign, SPA1) -- unlike in Ghost Bear where I could bang away with MULTIPLE Large lasers without a worry.
6.The game "lurches" whenever the CD reaches the end of a song and tries to "rewind" it. This often causes me to run into things, because the game won't accept outside input at the time.
This problem can be eliminated by turning the CD audio music volume down to zero, which disables CD music.
7.Armor factor and allocated armor are misreported when first entering ARMOR ALLOCATION in CUSTOMIZATION. Adding a half-ton of armor seems to clear up this problem.
8.There is no consistent layout of the weapons on a mech from 1 mission to the next. A flamer might be weapon 1, 14, or somewhere in between. Is this random? Or does it have something to do with which order the weapons were put on a mech or replaced (first at top), where the weapons were put on a mech (left=left), or somehow related to which Group the weapons are in. It would be VERY nice if there was a weapons layout menu, just like the weapons grouping menu.
It seems that the first weapon put on the mech is the first weapon on the firing list while in a mission, but grouping the weapons sometimes changes this.
9.Case is destroyed when removed in CUSTOMIZE. Should it be?
10.When you rename a mech, it's renamed in ALLCAPS -- the game won't accept lowercase letters. NOR will the game accept lowercase letter for the commander name or the mercenary unit! It's a minor bug, but it SUCKS!
If you use a hex editor, you can rename the mech in lower case.
11.Lancemates are often "invisible" to enemy mechs UNLESS the lancemates have shot the enemy mechs. This is not technically a bug, just a weakness of the AI. I often use that to my advantage.
12.Lancemates set to "ENGAGE AT WILL" will often follow you around, even if 4 or more enemy mechs are shooting you to pieces! And when lancemates DO ENGAGE AT WILL, often only 1 lancemate attacks an offending enemy.
Can be avoided by ORDERING lancemates to attack individual mechs.
13.Scenery, particularly mountains, seriously confuses lancemate. I've had a lancemate (on Destroy Dread Legion, mission 2 - GAR1CAM1) get stuck trying to walk through the mountain to return to formation.
Take the LONG way around obstructions to avoid leaving lancemates behind.
14.Why don't lancemates ever use jump-jets to keep up with me when they are in formation?
15.If an A+ gunner lancemate is lucky to hit a slow-moving target half the time even at very short range (<50 meters), why is it enemies can nail me even when I'm using jump-jets to move (briefly) at over 200 kph? What's the enemy's gunnery skill?
16.The FLAMER works in outer space. But should it? Do Inferno missiles ALSO work in outer space? The Ghost Bear Manual says they shouldn't!
17.The "bumperstickers" on mechs that tell what side they belong to are often WRONG. CLAN mechs typically belong with DRACONIS COMBINE. (Can NO markings be on a mech?)