Cheating in Singleplayer - Mercenaries DOS

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Sir MMPD Radick
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Cheating in Singleplayer - Mercenaries DOS

Post by Sir MMPD Radick »

Author: David Sellick
Date: 1997-09-24

I've never played MercNet, so I haven't geared my files to do so. BUT some enterprising evil cheater COULD use my ideas to build an illegal mech that was missing vital components like leg actuators, cockpit, and engine -- so you would pretty much have to destroy the entire mech to kill it. I only describe how to do it in single-player games by getting your mechs partially destroyed in combat, but since mech damage isn't remembered after MercNet combats - that same trick wouldn't work for MercNet games! PLUS, Mercnet mechs are stored MUCH differently than single-player mechs. (What works on one would NOT work on the other!) This would be VERY hard to do even with a good Hex editor, and MercNet would reject the mech anyway. But other than that, this is not a cheater for MercNet in any way.
Cheat Codes - Hold Ctrl, Alt and Shift while typing in these codes
antijolt - more time
beholdmyglory - free eye mode
bubbleboy - enables bounding spheres
crazysexycool - unlimited jumpjets
flashyflashy - auto-grouping
inmybeautifulballoon - jumpjets
iseenfireandiseenrain - infinite ammo
itsdabooomb - nuke the living ********** out of the targeted mech
likethecomstarbaby - ends your mission successfully
ontimeeverytime - time compression
ooohhhlllaaalllaaa - heat tracking
redjackandtikrules - destroy targeted mech
superfunkicalifragisexy - God mode
walkthisway - leading reticle
Wireframe
ADD this to your GAMEKEY.MAP file:

ENHANCED_VISION w
to get image enhancement mode. Inner Sphere mechs aren't supposed to have it, so it is cheating! And it's only HALFWAY implemented, laser fire does NOT show up on it! Missiles sure do though... As does PPC blasts! Debris from Mech explosions does not. Nor do fireballs/explosions (which you may have wanted to avoid.)
DON'T fully repair badly damaged mechs.
Just repair the heat sinks, internal structure, the ammo destroyed, and (ussually) the armor BEFORE customizing a mech or the mech will gain weight from "GHOST" items (a BAD BUG in the game)! If "vital" non-removeable components are destroyed, you don't need to replace them! The game could care less if you have no actuators in your legs -- you walk just fine on the next mission! Get your arms blown off -- free up even MORE critical slots for weapons and those HUGE 3-slot double heat sinks! PLUS, since having VITAL components destroyed is about the only real way to die, once they're gone you become a little more invulnerable -- especially in a 100 ton ATLAS! It's even benifical to shoot your starmates' arms off and one leg (shoot the other leg off the NEXT mission!) -- Repairs are expensive and time-consuming (Using REPAIR instead of REPAIR ALL), but they will prove worth it!
Lancemates
My conclusion is that anything below B+ piloting makes a mate a standing target, and the same occurs with gunnery...

I have finally tested the first lance mate of Mercs: Christian Fulton. He is described as a B pilot and a C+ gunner, and it really shows...

He was tested on four fights against light mechs... and here are the results:

Fulton ----+- Enemy ---+- Damage------+- Result ----------+
Commando 2x+- Urbanmech+- lost 1 arm. urbanmech was destroyed.
Panther ---+- Assasin -+- Minor damage.Enemy Destroyed
Panther ---+- Javelin -+- Minor damage.Enemy destroyed.Fulton missed MANY shots.
Panther ---+- Javelin -+- Minor damage.Enemy Fled when his lance was destroyed.
I ripped off one leg to let the Panther catch it, and Fulton FAILED many shots with the target lying on the ground.

I was observing all the action from about 300 meters on my fully equiped WArHawk. Of course, I still have to test this guy on heavier mechs, but a preliminary view makes me think he is better with an PPC than with SRM.

Arnold "Psycho" is a B/B Pilot. On his first fight he got beat up by a commando using a standar panther. Although he won the match he lost his PPC, rendering the mech almost useless. His second sortie was against a Panther, and suffered medium to heavy damage, losing almost all his left torso armor. The third time he fought a Javelin and emerged unscatched, but i think it was because the Jav is a poor design in the hands of a standard AI mech. The fourth time was again against a Jav, but this time he suffered medium damage at the hands of the AI.

Jake "KIller" Ives is an A / B+ Pilot. On the first time out he managed to destroy an Urbanmech and a Jenner, each one on single combat. The damage was medium to heavy but lost none of his weapons or speed. Let me get the downside, afterall, we were fighthing a Random mission, and the AI mechs over here are not very bright. In fact, their reaction time is very sloppy, and i saw how my boy shot a jenner three times before he got any response. I doubt he will make it when the Clans arrive on my game, and i believe he is 50% ok. (And he's cheap too! Being a mercenary: crazy is GOOD!)

There's a A+ gunner / A+ pilot Mechwarrior, Kobayashi Maru, up for hire immediately after you sucessfully complete MAS1CAM1. The mission is to destroy a damaged pirate Atlas. The Mechwarrior is of Japanese origin and is an ex-Draconis Combine soldier that was fired for "insubordination". He's really good, but that doesn't make him invicible so don't go sending him into 3 vs 1 odds and expect him to win!

The ultimate test of a lancemate's ability: 2 lancemates in 100ton mechs duking it out with just 1 weapon each (the same weapon). Even do MULTIPLE tests to see if they did any better with different weapon types. You'd need a few savegames for this... Would take a while, but the pilot with the CLEAR advantage would eventually win. I've had an enemy AWESOME hit me with its PPCs while I was flying at 300+kph at an ANGLE to it, yet for them most part, I can't find a lancemate that can hit crap. Kobayashi Maru, Daniel Wilks, and Jennifer Brodrick are about as good as they get. And they're only so-so when push comes to shove.

Here are the preliminary results on the PPC only test: (In 100-ton mechs, lancemate vs. lancemate fighting in identical mechs.)

Jake "Killer" Ives, won one out of three: One he lost badly, one lost but crippled the opposition, and one he barely won.

Kobayashi Yabu, Won three out of three. One badly damaged, and the other two, well, it was not that bad... ;)

Arnold "Psycho", B/B, Lost three out of three. He lost Bad, very Bad...
Last Pirate mission (don't know name)
"says salvage catapult. Really a trebuchet, and a hatimoto-chi (sp?) comes up for sale. I'll have to figure out which one." Thanks for finding it! I imagine you're talking about the time where the NEWS tells you that a captured Hatamoto-Chi is for sale, instead of a Hatamoto-Chi being up for sale unannounced. (At another time, there's a FIREMOTH up for sale and the News tells about it! I like to buy it, strip it, and sell it back.)
(Some research later...)
The ONLY mission I found that has a Hatamoto-Chi for sale afterwards is MASGCAM1 - raid deep inside clan territory to destroy/capture a clan dropship. But that doesn't make any sense... that's 1 mission after Battle for WOLCOTT campaign. And the mission is either a random mission (RANSCAM1) or a 1-mission campaign (MAS7CAM1) to Assist Damaged Mechs trapped behind enemy (clan) lines. Hardly "Pirate" missions in any case. I've since found out that the "Pirate mission" is MAS5CAM1.

ALL the ammo-using projectile weapons are weak. An AC/20 does about 5 damage on the hard setting. The AI mechs are very easily "angered" into TRYING to attack you while your starmates/lancemates pound them to pieces. Also, at least on the random missions, AI mechs won't stray far (1k) from the nav point they start at. This is useful if you happen to be using an Arrow IV. ;) The AI has no concept of how to navigate quickly around scenery or use it for cover. The AI only occassionally uses jump-jets without being provoked into doing so with a PPC or LRMs. It does however use jumpjets to "break" a fall, but only if the fall is short. On the Space campaign SPA1CAM1, the mechs throw themselves off the edge of the ship and their JJs overheat long before they hit the bottom.

I don't know why some people even use pulse lasers. I've discovered an error in the game that leads me to believe regular lasers are better. If you ever notice little circles where your lasers hit, that means you hit. But if you're rapid-firing (like with pulse lasers), the little circles only appear about every 2nd or 3rd shot. Plus, pulse lasers produce the rated heat for each shot (which is 2 times every time you fire). So even though they say they make less heat, they actually make much more heat and do less damage. If you want to take a mech's armor off in a hurry, go with the Clan small laser instead.

Only the Flamer, Inferno missiles, and the ARROW IV do as much damage as they say they do. All the others do only tiny amounts of damage. A Clan er Large Laser does around 3 damage per hit, not 10 like it says.

If you're jump-jetting - you can SHUT DOWN and continue jetting! Your jump-jets won't overheat and you'll be nice and cooled down when you power back up. AND you can even STILL be jetting while you power back up! And when you're shut down and hauling ass, you're invisible on radar!

Damaged salvaged weapons can be REPAIRED by equipping them on a mech then removing them - resulting in a net customization cost of 0 C-bills.
HOW TO >REALLY< cheat to get multiple starmates:
If you have Ed Wong's SINGLE-Player Launcher, you can start a mission with 3 starmates (after choosing your favorite mech of course) and then exit the mission directly to DOS/WIN 95. Now you should have a USERSTAR.BWD in your Mercs directory. This controls what mechs you use for yourself and your lancemates. If you make the file READ-ONLY so Mercs cannot overwrite it, you'll use that mech star/lance in EVERY mission you play! With some hex editing, you can change what mechs your lancemates are using and even INCREASE the number of lancemates up to 7! (For 8 total mechs.) Unfortunately if you do this, you'll only have control over the first 3 - using the standard starmate controls. AND control over the LAST mech as an "AEROTECH" using the aerotech controls. The others make good walls though. And since they're not really your mechs or your real starmates, you can kill them every mission and they'll be back - good as new - for the next.

In MercAdds.Zip, there is a USERSTAR.BWD file that give the player 4 Direwolfs (DRW01USR) to play with. Remember to make it READ-ONLY (with ATTRIB USERSTAR.BWD +R) and also remember to have a DRW01USR mech to use.
Lostech
Almost everyone who has played the Mechwarrior 2 series knows that not everything in one game is in the next. And when Mercenaries came out, it seemed to be missing quite a lot. Some of this was just buried in the program and has since been rediscovered. Like Image Enhancement, Nukes, even referances to mechs not in the game - the Tarantula. But there's another unknown weapon in the game as well... Perhaps deadlier than nukes. It was available in Ghost Bear, but only in one mission.
James 3:5-10: My Reminder
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
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