Talk:Shalebridge

The following moved from main article
It can stay here. The current entry on the article page is sufficient.--Gothemasticator 09:49, January 5, 2010 (UTC)

Shalebridge Tunnels specific bugs

 * In old versions, do NOT loot any of the invader ants, as it will trigger a message that makes the game freeze upon reentry of the tunnels. This includes loading a save made within the tunnels, and it is thus possible to make a playthrough impossible to continue, should all saves be made within the tunnels after receiving the message, unless there are backup saves.

Shalebridge Hill specific bugs

 * The Queen Lair has only minor loot, 10mm Pistol, 10mm ammo, shotgun shells and 5.56mm ammo. The 5.56mm ammo is bugged however so don't try to pick it up or you will experience critical error (no visible error seen when picking it up in the PS3 version or 360 version, however, it seems to crash the application consistently for some PC users). (with the 1.1 patch this seems to be fixed) A Scoped .44 Magnum with ammo can be found near a rotting Brahmin corpse.
 * Followers that follow you into the hill tend to get stuck at the entrance due to spawning in the ground. Clover, especially has issues with this and seems to die after a few minutes if left there. Also, Star Paladin Cross does this sometimes when entering the hill. Just walk away from the entrance, and your companion will spawn back up onto ground (if not killed from being underground too long).

Other Bugs

 * In the PS3 version, NPC Star Paladin Cross won't follow you into either the tunnel or the hill. However, she will suddenly appear inside after you travel in a ways and have no problems following you after that. Fawkes also displays this behavior, which puts forth the possibility that any of the humanoid NPCs will behave in this manner as well (Charon should follow you just fine).
 * After injecting the stimpaks into the hive and then killing the Ant Queen, there is a chance you cannot enter the tunnel anymore. This issue has been spotted on Xbox 360 version. The game will freeze on loading screen when you attempt to enter the tunnels after the enemy queen is dead.
 * The trigger for this bug appears to be "inspecting" (attempting to loot) the invader ants' corpses ("It appears this ant is from..." message). Upon exiting the tunnels, it will always freeze upon returning. Best course of action is to NOT interact with the corpses when killed. Though sometimes the game may freeze even if you don't.
 * The game can also freeze by looting the two Yao Guai's in the area.
 * The Ant Researcher seems to be falling through the ground an awful lot if you kill him near the pool, lead him away or decapitate him (PS3 confirmed). This is, of course, if you find him actually alive.
 * On the 360 version if you attempt to access the 'Ant Compost Heap' in the forager ant tunnel and receive the message "With the rival queen ant dead, these forager ants should be able to make necter faster", it will trigger the freezing bug. Now if you exit the tunnel and try to re-enter, the game will occasionally of the time at the loading screen on re-entry. (confirmed) (only ocasionally on PS3)
 * Freezing issues will probably occur due to one killing all of the Invader Ants before the Forager Ants die. When this happens, you can't target the Forager Ants with VATS, which seems to activate the glitch upon reentry to the cave. If you wish to return, make sure to kill the Forager Ants first.
 * After extensive testing: Ants appear to be the cause of at least one type of crash. To solve this, changing mode to Very Easy and Sneak Attacking with an energy weapon to turn them into dust. Ant bodies appear to cause framerate issues. (User tried a shotgun to kill all of them which caused the XBox 360 framerate to drop below 10fps.)
 * Ant Queen may be glitched into the wall, shooting at her causes her to move to her spawn location (This was directly behind the User and gave her a bit of an advantage, Experienced on PC)

Bug fix
Game of the Year Edition experienced no "bugs/glitches" in this area (1 confirmed case on PS3). This glitch fix has also been confirmed for the 360 by Lionmaster15 23:39, October 17, 2010 (UTC).

Solve the Bug for Everyone(checked 360 basic, Game of the Year, and pc basic version; prior to this all of these would freeze upon entering this zone):

The zone freezing or crashing seems to be entirely based off of graphics and the cpu having trouble registering all the movements during elapsed time of ants stuck in the wall. What basically happens is the first time you zone in ants may fall through the ground which is all and good and your computer(or console) can handle the calculations on a second to second basis. Now if you were to leave and wait for to long of a period when you re-enter the game attempts to take the current ants through thier movements while you were gone. This causes a huge problem for all the ants that were off the map as your computer now has to run through all the calculations to see what the ant would have done. My guess is that somewhere there is an unbuffered variable in the programming and when it tries to run ten thousand computations at once some will be forgotten and the zone does not load correctly(this is my theory after hours of testing based off of pretty complete programing knowledge). So to fix this your first time in the zone do these things.

1. If the first ant you see agros zone out and find the other entrance to the tunnels(aka the good side). You entered the evil side of the tunnels. There are two entrances.

2. Run all the way to the back while sneaking.

3. Kill all green ants in the final room leaving any enemy ants alive. If you kill any enemy ants load your last save and try again.

4. Once the back room is clear of green ants move through the rest of the good side and kill all remaining good ants. The hall way ants should now not respawn(they will respawn without zonning if enough good ants are alive and the enemy ants are dead). If the hall ants continue to respawn you will have to start over.

5. Now that you know the hall way ants are not respawning you can kill the red marked(evil) ants.

6. Loot the book off the scientists body.

7. Start tracking down green marked(good) ants that are off map. Once you find one get as close as possible to the marker and stand there(sometimes up to 15 minutes). This will cause your computer to focus on that ants calculations and will eventually correct the off map bug. Once the ant pops above ground kill it then zone out to the wastelands(if you do not return to the wastelands after every 10-15 minutes you run the risk of screwing this up).

8. Return to the tunnel without allowing any time to pass(especially do not use the wait feature). Return to step 7 until you are 99% possative all green marked ants on this side of the zone are dead (run along all walls to see if any green marks show up on your compass, sometimes the ants are very far off map). There are generally between 2 and 4 off map ants.

9. Once you think you have killed all the green ants return two more times, without any time deley; checking carefully for any other green markers(you zone and rezone as this seems to move ants slightly closer to the surface each time).

10. Now that you have all green ants dead return to the wastelands and wait 73 hours. When you return go to the back room and the scientist will be alive and 90% of the time runs from you, the other 10% he might attack(on very hard). A single VATS to the head with most weapons kills him fast. If you need money collect any loot he has as well since its basically hassle free cash. At this point the scientist should be the only NPC you run into on the forager ants side of the tunnels so you simply have to kill him and run back out and wait again.

Notes: As long as you wait in the wastelands the area NPCs do not respawn so even when you leave the ant tunnels you still do not have to worry about encounters. Takes 3-4 hours to get 50-60 books. A very low perception may require some extra hassle as you may not always see ants that are off the map. Enjoy! __

I'd just like to say that I followed the steps above exactly, and after almost 6 months of trying on and off I finally found a method that works. Bug fixed!! HUGE thanks.

Queen's lair: Missing shotgun?
I had a really hard, long look around the queen's lair and can't find a shotgun (combat or sawed-off) to go with the shells there. All the other rounds have matching firearms. Either someone at forgot to add a shotgun or I'm just not looking in the right place. If someone finds it, let me know and/or fix the page. Arisian 01:47, August 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * No shotgun exists on the ground in that cell (ShalebridgeCavern01 - shown as Shalebridge Hill on the map). I'm not familiar with the area so I'm gonna do a quick check to see if there's corpses that might have a shotgun, but I see a lot of other weapons just lying out in the open in that cell, so probably not. Kris   mailbox 03:08, August 14, 2010 (UTC)
 * No corpses either, the only containers are Ant Refuse Piles, and there are no NPCs at all in the cell. Kris   mailbox 03:11, August 14, 2010 (UTC)

Amount of ants in areas?
Can someone please tell me how many ants are in the hills and tunnels? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.170.234.199 (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~ !

Bugs, exploits and cheats
I can't understand this whole thing around that bug, which occurs by reentering a cleared area. What's the intention of reentering the tunnels? Because it's possible?

Seems, like most people want to do it to get multiple science-skill-books – from a "respawning" researcher.

Sorry, but I don't see much difference between using something like an exploit (same person reincarnates every three days with always the same book in its backpack and must be killed for it) and cheating that book a sixty times or taking the short way and cheating the skill directly. Would take 3 to 4 minutes, not 3 to 4 hours… (Not calculated the time, some people do need to get the workaround.)

Btw, I've installed the original game with patch and add-ons from the GOTY-DVD. I first entered the tunnels … killed no single green ant … shot three red ants, after they did kill two green ones … found the researcher and looted him … injected the clutch with a stimulation … and left. Then entered the hills … killed ALL there … and left. OK, didn't try to reenter the tunnels – because I don't think, that I would see some effects by the stimulation right now (or ever).

--CompleCCity 03:29, November 27, 2011 (UTC)