List of miscellaneous glitches Options

[Shockwavelover84]

Hi, I've played through Shockwave 1.1 and below is a list of bugs which I've noticed as still being present. If some of these bugs have been previously reported I apologize, but I'll list them below for you, hope this helps out:

---Miscellaneous glitches---

*USA battle drones and Hellfire drones (deployed by vehicles) will auto-fire on enemy buildings without the player giving attack orders. This can be inconvenient, because the drones may destroy a building that the player is trying to capture (such as an enemy oil derrick) - another example is during Dr. Thrax's General's challenge mission - Thrax possesses several toxin bunkers which can be destroyed, and doing so releases toxins which can harm the player's units - if the player stations vehicles with battle drones near the bunkers, the drones may destroy the bunkers unintentionally, causing the toxins to severely damage or destroy any units the player has nearby. I believe this glitch has been present since the original Zero Hour release.

*USA pilots may be loaded into a Commanche (the Commanche will land to pick them up), however the Commanche does not receive the pilot's veterancy. I believe this glitch has been present since the original Zero Hour release. I am unaware if this glitch also affects other USA helicopters (ex. Laser Commanche, Little Bird, etc).

*In some Skirmish games, the computer AI will build a huge amout of units (ex. 50+ Tiger Gunships) but not attack with them, which causes the game to lag on lower-end PCs. I noted this occuring when I played against the Vanilla China AI on the hardest difficulty as General Alexander (I do not remember the Skirmish map) - the AI built a huge number of Tiger Gunships and huddled them in its base, to the point that the match slowed down dramatically on my PC.

*When playing as the GLA, if a game is saved, exited, and loaded - then all of the player's Workers will be considered "idle", even those which are moving or gathering supplies. This means that clicking the Idle Worker button will select any of the player's Workers, even those that are not idle, which causes great inconvenience. (The only way to fix this is to have all moving workers stop moving, then return to moving/gathering supplies - at this point they will be counted as non-idle again). I believe this glitch has been present since the official Zero Hour release.

*General Alexander's Skirmish AI (based on the hardest AI difficulty, unsure about lower difficulties) will build 4-5 Particle Cannons early in the game, (seemingly even without the funds to do so) while other AI's (except General Tao) will only build 1 Super Weapon, regardless of their funds available - this leads to a significant imbalance between the difficulty of Alexander's AI and other faction AI's. It can be offset by limiting Super Weapons to 1 per player.

*UPDATE - General Tao's Skirmish AI will also build multiple Nuke Silos on Hard Difficulty, similar to General Alexander AI mentioned above. This gives these AI's an unfair advantage in difficulty over the others because the others will only build a maximum of 1 Super Weapon.

*Missile Avengers (Vanilla USA and General Granger's Avengers) uses voice lines like "initiating laser strike" or "commencing light array" when ordered to attack air units. These lines are left over from the laser avenger (the default Avenger model in the original Zero Hour) but aren't appropriate for a unit using Missiles.

Note: General's Challenge-specific glitches moved to post 2 below

This post has been edited by Shockwavelover84: 16 Jan 2012, 16:07

[Shockwavelover84]

---Generals' Challenge glitches---

Note: I have played through all missions Hard Difficulty, and have played them as General Townes at very least (minus the Townes mission of course) when I encountered these glitches - I do not remember which other Generals I have played these missions as, and I have not played on any other difficulties.

I am NOT saying that these bugs are exclusive to General Townes, or to Hard Difficulty - this is just the difficulty and general which I encountered them on. They may exist on other difficulties/generals as well.

-

*In General Grangers' mission, Granger starts out with low power and will never bring his power back online (unless the player destroys enough of his buildings to reduce his power usage). This means that his Particle Cannon and Patriot base defenses will never fire. This glitch was not present in the original Zero Hour release, and it seems to be related to General Granger now building a Particle Cannon in the Shockwave mod (which he did not in the original Zero Hour release).

*In General Kwai's mission, Kwai runs out of money very early in the mission and will stop attacking and building new units completely after just a few attacks (within the first 10-15 minutes of the match), making the mission incredibly easy. His only source of income after his lone resource pile is used up are 3-4 Hackers. This glitch was not present in the original Zero Hour release.

*In General Kwai's mission, Kwai will build multiple Nuclear Missile silos on top of each other. This may have been present in the original Zero Hour release, but I am not sure.

*In General Leang's mission, Leang never uses any of her taunts throughout the whole mission, except during the player's victory or defeat (as well as the opening cinematic). This glitch was not present in the original Zero Hour release.

In General Leang's mission, Leang will fire her Temple of Gaia Super Weapon only once, and it will never fire again.

*In Prince Kassad's mission, Kassad's Scud Storm will fire at a location completely off of the game map, and will never hit any units or buildings - if the player watches the top right corner of the map, it is possible to see the Scud Storm firing into the "black" at the edge of the screen. This glitch was not present in the original Zero Hour release.

--Generals' Challenge AI flaws--

Note: While I'm not completely aware if these are glitches in the programming or just poor game design, they harm the AI and make several missions easy to exploit, so I will list them for reference:

*In General Alexander's Mission, Alexander will never send ground forces (ex. Enforcer tanks) to attack the player, despite a bridge having been added since the ZH release between her island and the player's island, seemingly for that purpose.

*In General Townes' Mission, Townes will never rebuild his Particle Cannons or base defenses if they are destroyed.

*In General Leang's Mission, Leang will only attack the player's base with Black Shark helicopters if the player builds a base south of the cliff, near where their default command center starts (minus a few brief attacks with Dragon tanks and Red Guards at the very start of the mission), this makes it very easy to prevent defeat by simply building tons of anti-air weapons because Leang will never attack that area of the map with ground forces for the remainder of the mission.

*In Prince Kassad's Mission, Kassad will never attack with tanks (only technicals, which are helpless against the player's tanks) and rarely (if ever) attacks with anti-air units. He also attacks infrequently and in very small numbers, making his attacks not much of a threat. Also, his taunts constantly mentions "his snipers", but never builds any snipers (assassins) other than Jarmen Kell.

*In General Juhziz's Mission, Juhziz will never build or attack the player with any anti-air vehicles. This leads to it being very easy to exploit the mission by simply building Laser Commanches or other air units - Juhziz has no counter for them.

*EDIT (another minor glitch) - In Dr. Thrax's mission if you are playing as Prince Kassad (or possibly other GLA factions), Thrax will randomly taunt regarding the player "building a Scud Storm" even if the player has not built one. This taunt happens at random intervals just like regular taunts.

This post has been edited by Shockwavelover84: 27 Dec 2011, 3:57

[Papaya Master Ra...]

Finally someone also has the same problem as me, since I thought I didn't clean my Zero Hour folder enough and yet I experience all of the things you mentioned, except some which I will clarify later on. Anyways, about the USA drones (also the Hell fire Drone does it also) auto - firing problem, I think it's a good idea that they stay that way since it has some benefits like auto - engaging enemy infantry easier and to help remove the grinder mines in Leang's challenge for example.

Also about the Glitches in the General's Challenge:
I would like to add that:

Both General Juhziz and Dr. Thrax (Played in Hard Difficulty) would send in rouge General power's by plane somewhere entirely far away from your base, and drops it at the corner of their maps. Like the Anthrax Bomb from Dr. Thrax, but uses it at the part where two oil derricks are situated in and General Juhziz would use his Demo Trap dropping plane near mountain sides or on the very corner of his other base.

About Leang's Challenge (Played in Hard Difficulty) she doesn't send just only Black shark helicopter attacks, but often it is followed by Migs and Phoenix Bombers alike to strike down the most exposed and closest unit in it's vicinity (A good "Bait and Switch Maneuver" would be a great tactic against these strikes). Also she sends in large groups of mixed infantry, MBTs, Gatling tanks, Stealth detecting units, and most importantly the hard - shelled Anvils to attack your base or units near them. But I never see her attack with Artillery, except the Grinder. Then I will see the other Hammer Cannons and TOS-1 Buratino artillery stock - piled on top of each other in the War Factory never to be used in the whole game, except for promotion raking. But the other problems mentioned with her, yes they also exist in mine.

[Shockwavelover84]

Finally someone also has the same problem as me, since I thought I didn't clean my Zero Hour folder enough and yet I experience all of the things you mentioned, except some which I will clarify later on. Anyways, about the USA drones (also the Hell fire Drone does it also) auto - firing problem, I think it's a good idea that they stay that way since it has some benefits like auto - engaging enemy infantry easier and to help remove the grinder mines in Leang's challenge for example.

Thanks. Interesting point - though I'll just mention the difference regarding battle/hellfire drones. By default, your units (of any type) will always auto-engage nearby enemy units, but will not attack buildings unless specifically commanded to. Whereas battle/hellfire drones will auto attack both enemy units and buildings.

Also about the Glitches in the General's Challenge:
I would like to add that:

Both General Juhziz and Dr. Thrax (Played in Hard Difficulty) would send in rouge General power's by plane somewhere entirely far away from your base, and drops it at the corner of their maps. Like the Anthrax Bomb from Dr. Thrax, but uses it at the part where two oil derricks are situated in and General Juhziz would use his Demo Trap dropping plane near mountain sides or on the very corner of his other base.

This may depend on which General or difficulty the player is using too. I when I played as Townes on Hard, I never had that problem with Thrax's Anthrax Bomb, but I did have this problem with Kassad's Scud Storm. I also watched a video on Youtube of someone playing Kassad's mission as General Fai (not sure of the difficulty), and in this match Kassad's Scud Storm did hit the player's base.

About Leang's Challenge (Played in Hard Difficulty) she doesn't send just only Black shark helicopter attacks, but often it is followed by Migs and Phoenix Bombers alike to strike down the most exposed and closest unit in it's vicinity (A good "Bait and Switch Maneuver" would be a great tactic against these strikes). Also she sends in large groups of mixed infantry, MBTs, Gatling tanks, Stealth detecting units, and most importantly the hard - shelled Anvils to attack your base or units near them. But I never see her attack with Artillery, except the Grinder. Then I will see the other Hammer Cannons and TOS-1 Buratino artillery stock - piled on top of each other in the War Factory never to be used in the whole game, except for promotion raking. But the other problems mentioned with her, yes they also exist in mine.

Yes she does use a variety of units when you progress closer to her base. Though my point is that if the player builds a base near their default command center at the start of the match (in the bottom left region of the map), she will never send any units into this area other than her Black Sharks (and possibly a few Phoenix Bombers). If the player advances further up the map, then they will get attacked with ground forces, but if they just turtle in the area where their command center starts at, then (after a brief initial attack by a few Dragon tanks), they will only be attacked by Air units - and Leang will never have any real chance of destroying their base as long as they crank out tons of anti-air.

[Shockwavelover84]

Another couple misc glitches I forgot:

*USA Ambulances (and Alexander's Biohazard Tech)'s ability to clear an area of toxins does not appear to work. In regular ZH, the Ambulance would fire a purple spray when commanded to clear toxins, but in SW 1.1, neither of these two units will fire the purple decontaminate spray when commanded to "clear toxins".

*Gen. Townes' RailGun Artillery will sometimes fire through hills or mountains to attack a unit/structure which on a higher level of terrain. EX. if a unit/structure is at the top of a cliff which the railgun is just below, instead of moving to a position where the terrain is even enough to fire (as with a tank, etc), the railgun shell will fire straight up through the wall of the cliff and hit the unit/structure. (Personally I think this could be a cool feature, but the online instruction manual for SW says that the Railgun's disadvantage vs other artillery is that it cannot fire at units/structures which aren't on an even level of terrain, so this seems to be unintended).

This post has been edited by Shockwavelover84: 23 Dec 2011, 0:32

[Papaya Master Ra...]

Thanks. Interesting point - though I'll just mention the difference regarding battle/hellfire drones. By default, your units (of any type) will always auto-engage nearby enemy units, but will not attack buildings unless specifically commanded to. Whereas battle/hellfire drones will auto attack both enemy units and buildings.

I guess. But I think both of our issues are issued upon the reason of the drones (on their own) straying to far from their parents vehicle and engage enemy units and buildings more than the range of the parent vehicle I suppose?

This may depend on which General or difficulty the player is using too. I when I played as Townes on Hard, I never had that problem with Thrax's Anthrax Bomb, but I did have this problem with Kassad's Scud Storm. I also watched a video on Youtube of someone playing Kassad's mission as General Fai (not sure of the difficulty), and in this match Kassad's Scud Storm did hit the player's base.

Never thought about that, good insight. It's just like the time I was battling Townes in Hard mode in the challenge. I played a certain General and his reaction was like sending in a steady stream of units against me from Stealth fighters to Commanches and tanks. But when I played another General also against him, his ground units are stock - piled within his base (although his air assaults prove to be fine). I thought they were stuck or something, but then I was amazed when his ground units grouped so large and so diverse and was sent to my base that I almost lost the campaign (good thing I have a few artillery units somewhere to defend my base).

Also regarding Kassad, he does send tanks and strangely one fundamentalist at a time, but were kinda no match since the base was defended well.

Yes she does use a variety of units when you progress closer to her base. Though my point is that if the player builds a base near their default command center at the start of the match (in the bottom left region of the map), she will never send any units into this area other than her Black Sharks (and possibly a few Phoenix Bombers). If the player advances further up the map, then they will get attacked with ground forces, but if they just turtle in the area where their command center starts at, then (after a brief initial attack by a few Dragon tanks), they will only be attacked by Air units - and Leang will never have any real chance of destroying their base as long as they crank out tons of anti-air.

Hmm... strange. When I played against her for the first time in months in hard mode (and made a very BAD decision to use anti - air base defenses than the anti - air vehicles...) she did send in some ground forces at mid game consisting of large groups of mixed infantry and she also sends in large group of ground vehicles, but unfortunately these ground vehicles engage my base from the top of the cliff (the only successful ones in damaging or destroying some units or structure is when I build or train them to close to the cliff or when she uses the Grinder Artillery units).

Also one more thing if I may. I think you should just add a P.S. note or just a note and then add in extra bits of things you would like to add in the same post, rather than double posting?

This post has been edited by Papaya Master Rai: 23 Dec 2011, 5:35

[nubler]

from my experience:
kassads scud storm will target your command center if it wasn't moved

on granger: he sends attach chinooks without having helipad or war factory

because is base is offline from the start, chinese generals need to to get a powerplant for speeded production and the capture upgrade from the barracks.
sending in a large pile of bullfrogs allows you, when fast enough and order carefully picked, to capture the entire base without providing or getting a single hit

vs thrax: when he has some units in his tunnel network and i reduce a tunnel to the hole and he then it rebuilds from the hole. however, he seems to be capable to evacuate from that tunnel, even when still rebuilding, which can lead to nasty surprises when attacking a half-finished rebuild

aircraft sometimes is hittable by ground units/structures, like firebases, when flying over a ridge, for example.

while in this state, my moabplane was once hit by an emp-patriot, resulting the plane being powered down (like a tank hit by the emp) and just sparkling on the mountaintop while slowly torn apart.

laser is very eager on taking apart his own base with is own pcs
speaking of laser: he has no stealth detection online ( since the only laserturrets online are somewhere in the n-e) making him insanely vulnerable to kassads saboteurs (set your barracks to building saboteurs, gps scrample a technical as quick transport and you are free to steal all the money you need to set up a final big bang with lotsa demo-trucks) and stealth in general

on nuke: he really needs to get a second arifield and his second tech building

when vs nuke: the nuke of infantry and tank also take 12 mins to charge

battle vs kassad: the buildings to the north-west have units that seem to be only destroyable by special means (a rpg-trooper is not supposed to take the hit of a 3-chevron hyper sonic aurora and live to tell the tale in form of firing back)

btw: when completing challenge 7 of nuke, rather than being brought to challenge #8, #7 starts again.
same with demos challenge #6

leang seems not to rebuild her dozer army unless that outpost-commandcenter with fancy blue bar is destroyed..

demos terrorist sometimes create nasty graphic mess-ups that resolves when the terrorist isnt on the screen anymore

it sorta irritates me that alexander and not townes is the emp-freak

[Shockwavelover84]

Also one more thing if I may. I think you should just add a P.S. note or just a note and then add in extra bits of things you would like to add in the same post, rather than double posting?

No problem.

[Shockwavelover84]

on granger: he sends attach chinooks without having helipad or war factory

I think this is intentional - for example at certain points in the mission, Granger will attack your base with Sheridans and Hurricanes, even though he has no war factory - I believe these units are triggered to generate on the map at certain points in the game (such as when Granger says "Send reinforcements"). I definitely would be for giving him a War Factory though - maybe in a separate base in the Northwest.

laser is very eager on taking apart his own base with is own pcs

What's a PCS? I don't know what you mean.

on nuke: he really needs to get a second arifield and his second tech building

On that, I think I recall the Nuke general building MiGS, but he'll just sit them in his Airfield and never use them - either that or he never builds MIGS at all - I don't recall for sure. Also I belive in the original ZH mission, he would never rebuild any structures if destroyed - I think this has been fixed in SW though, but later in the game he basically stops attacking or only does so very infrequently, which makes this mission one of the easier ones.

leang seems not to rebuild her dozer army unless that outpost-commandcenter with fancy blue bar is destroyed..

Hm I'm not sure what you mean here, can you be more specific? What structure do you mean? I've never had any problems with her rebuiling her dozers, in fact she does this pretty much nonstop.

it sorta irritates me that alexander and not townes is the emp-freak

Well that's just how the game was designed, not really a glitch, just a personal preference. Personally I like the way it was designed, and a lot was done for the sake of balance as well.

[nubler]

the 5 vehicles he eventually sends are there on the map from the beginning: tanks+avenger guard the 3 derricks, while one hurricane is at each base entrance.

the assault chinook seems to be a relict from the initial zh, judging from where build

to leang:
there are 4 command centers to be destroyed.
three of them are at the very back of her base sorta near the earth shaker. the one i mean is the one that is not there, its the one if you check somewhat to the direct south of her internet center.

lasers pc is renamed to laser uplink cannon.


the thing is, that if you fire a strong pulsed laser, the emp generated cannot be neclected

[Shockwavelover84]

lasers pc is renamed to laser uplink cannon.

You mean he'll attack his own base with his own particle cannons? I've never seen that happen before, but I've noticed the glitches with other AI's superweapons (ex. Kassad will fire his Scud Storm at a corner of the map instead of at the player's base - I mentioned this above.) What General and difficulty were you playing as when this glitch occured?

the thing is, that if you fire a strong pulsed laser, the emp generated cannot be neclected

That would probably lead to game imbalance just for the sake of realism. Overall this game was designed to be more sci-fi than pure realism - there are lots of other examples of non-realism which lead to balance and a funner game. I mean IRL I doubt that the GLA's salvaged WWII and Cold War era vehicles could stand any chance against US or Chinese tanks, just an obvious example.

[nubler]

You mean he'll attack his own base with his own particle cannons? I've never seen that happen before, but I've noticed the glitches with other AI's superweapons (ex. Kassad will fire his Scud Storm at a corner of the map instead of at the player's base - I mentioned this above.) What General and difficulty were you playing as when this glitch occured?

do not build any defense structures (which only armor needs anyway) or superweapons

That would probably lead to game imbalance just for the sake of realism. Overall this game was designed to be more sci-fi than pure realism - there are lots of other examples of non-realism which lead to balance and a funner game. I mean IRL I doubt that the GLA's salvaged WWII and Cold War era vehicles could stand any chance against US or Chinese tanks, just an obvious example.

considering that an infamous weapon from 1942 commonly spreads greater fear than todays plastic toys as example?

[Shiro]

In vZH at least Comanches would not land for pilots unless they were damaged and being repaired at an airfield which then allowed pilots to enter so this glitch appears new.

[Shockwavelover84]

In vZH at least Comanches would not land for pilots unless they were damaged and being repaired at an airfield which then allowed pilots to enter so this glitch appears new.

I think you're right on that - I'm not sure if they get the veterancy or not if the pilot enters them while they're being repaird (haven't tried that), but I know for a fact that they don't get the veterency if you tell the pilot to enter them while they're in the air - they'll land like chinook so the pilot will enter them, but they won't get the pilot's chevrons.

UPDATE: Apparently Commanches do sometimes get the pilot's veterancy, but other times they don't. This glitch may be specific to a certain General, or just happen at random.

This post has been edited by Shockwavelover84: 12 Jan 2012, 11:48

[Pickysaurus]

In my experience, you can't put avpilot into a commache unless it is repairing, but it always ranks up.

[Shockwavelover84]

In my experience, you can't put avpilot into a commache unless it is repairing, but it always ranks up.

In the original ZH that was the case, but in Shockwave, the Commanche will land to pick the pilot up (like a Chinook) if the pilot is ordered to get in it. If you do it this way, sometimes it will get the pilot's veterancy, but sometimes it won't. The glitch seems random.

[Pickysaurus]

Another glitch I've found is that on Alexander's GC map, you can't waypoint that raised central platform with the 4 cloaked missile turrets for Desert Flies.
Not game breaking, but worth a mention.

[Shockwavelover84]

Another couple ones I'll mention:

*In regards to the glitch where non-idle GLA workers will be counted as idle after saving a game and reloading it - I've also noticed this glitch occurring for USA/China dozers in certain skirmish maps.

*If a Shatterer has a drone deployed and is in water, then General Leang's Sentinel Cannons can fire on the Shatterer even if the Sentinel Cannon's power is out. Normally Sentinel Cannons can fire on air units even if the power is out, but not ground units - and this glitch seems to happen only if the Shatterer is both in the water, and has a drone deployed. The game might detect the Shatterer as an air unit when it's over water because usually only air units can move over water.

*After General Tao (China Nuke General)'s Overlords are upgraded with the tactical nuclear missiles - they apparently aren't supposed to fire on air units, but will sometimes auto-fire on nearby air units anyway (although they do almost no damage - about the equivalent of a single gattling cannon bullet per missile). Also, the Overlord can still be commanded to attack an air unit without the red "can't attack cursor" appearing, but they will simply not fire when commanded to - whenever they fire on air units, it's always done on it's own without being given a command.

EDIT: Another one:

*General Deathstrike will often send Radar Tanks at your base while attacking. The AI seems to think the Radar Tank is a combat unit, even though it's not (it's just Deathtrike's version of the Radar Van).

This post has been edited by Shockwavelover84: 2 Mar 2012, 22:49