Operation: Anchorage exploits

 

This page lists exploits in Operation: Anchorage.
	Exploits should be written with brevity and clarity in mind. Please observe the editing guideline. In particular, do not use first-person or forum-style speech. Videos should not be included unless the exploit cannot be explained without one.

Exploits are "holes" in the game programming which allow a player to do something which the developers did not intend and which alter the balance of the game in a way that benefits the player.

Exploits

Infiniteskills

To do this glitch you need to have 2 Hockey masks and the Chinese Stealth Armor.

1. Play through the sim to get the stealth suit, then put it on. 2. Put on a hockey mask. 3. Select the second hockey mask while the first one is still on. Every time you try to select it your unarmed skill goes up by 5 points.

• Warning: The game lags and freezes frequently with really high skill (30000+).
• It may not work if the two head gears have exactly the same DR.
• The effect disappears when you remove the headgear.
• Sometimes your head will disappear. You can usually fix this by removing and re-equipping a hat.

This glitch works with any piece of headgear that increases a skill, such as the Enclave officer hat. However the unarmed skill is the only one to be confirmed increasing after 100.

"Gary 23 exploit" - bringing simulation items back to the Wasteland

Positioning a body in the pod

In brief, bring a body into the pod with you and position yourself so that you are looking at the body. When you return from the simulation, activate the body before the game has fully loaded the real world again. You will be able to transfer your simulation inventory to the body. Once you exit the body-container screen, the game will finish loading and giving you back your real-world inventory. The body will keep the simulation inventory, which you are now free to loot. This glitch is possible due to a flaw in the way the game handles inventory (and dialogue) popups, which causes the game to pause all other processes including the script normally meant to remove the simulation items.

• Save often when attempting this exploit. It's tricky, and you may have to start over several times.
• Also note that the player should not have started the simulation already. This exploit requires setup prior to entering the simulation. Also note: the player can just simply delete the Operation: Anchorage add-on, load your save, quit, reinstall, and you will be able to repeat the quest.
• The exploit will work with any dead body. Gary 23's body is just the one at hand.

1. After you equip the Neural Interface Suit, open the simulation pod but do not sit down on it yet.
2. Go into the locked room where Gary 23 is (the room is across located next to the simulation room) and then drag his body back into the pod room. Position him in the pod such that you can interact with him while sitting on the chair.
   • It is most important here to be looking at the body when the simulation starts - as if you were going to search it. The option to search it will be unavailable at this time.
3. Play through the add-on. At the end, General Chase will send you out of the simulation back to the Outcast Outpost.
4. During the loading screen, keep tapping the activate button with your view pointed down. If it works, you will have activated the body like a container, and your simulation inventory is now transferable to the body. If you were too late, your real-world inventory will appear, and you will have to try again.

Note: All weapons and armor from the simulation have extremely high health and thus seem to never degrade. Also many of the simulation items have the same item names as their wasteland counterparts, keep this in mind if you have both items in your inventory as it may cause confusion.

Obtain all requisition weapons

This glitch allows you to get all of the weapons that you requisition from the Quartermaster.

1. Get one of the tapes for a set of weapons, and get the weapons from the Quartermaster.
2. Go back to the command tent and get another tape.
3. Go outside again, drop your guns and talk to the Quartermaster again. He will give you the new set of weapons that you ask for. A message will then appear saying your other set of weapons were removed, but they will still be where you dropped them earlier.
4. Keep repeating until you get the desired packages/weapons.

• Talking to any NPC will reset your inventory and interrupt the exploit. This can be avoided by dropping all weapons and ammo before speaking to the NPC.

Obtain a pre-War Chinese assault rifle

It is possible to obtain a Chinese Assault Rifle during the Paving the Way quest, after all your items are removed. In order to do this, you will need to obtain the Gauss Rifle from the Quartermaster by passing a Speech Check. You will also need another weapon, and ammo for the weapon (such as a 10mm Pistol, though any will work). Alternatively, a sufficiently high Sneak skill may make this section a little easier

Once you've gotten the items, find a Chinese soldier with a Chinese Assault Rifle. With the Gauss Rifle equipped, enter V.A.T.S. and target their weapon with a single shot. A Critical Hit will knock the Chinese Soldier down. While he is down, run over to him, crouch, then activate him. (Alternatively, sneak up to the soldier and pickpocket him). You will gain access to his inventory. Take the 5.56mm rounds from him, and place the weapon you got earlier in his inventory, along with a few rounds of ammo for that weapon. Now, wait for him to get back up. Because he no longer has ammo for his Assault Rifle, he will switch weapons to whatever you gave him. Simply knock him down again, and the Chinese Assault Rifle will be in his inventory. You can then take it to the Capital Wasteland using the Gary 23 exploit.

Note that no enemy will be able to stand up to 2 hits from the Gauss Rifle. This method relies entirely on a bug with the Gauss Rifle. Occasionally, a shot made with the Gauss Rifle will hit, but do no damage. The knockdown effect of a Critical Hit is still applied, but no actual damage is inflicted. One of the hits (preferably the first) must be subject to this bug; otherwise, you will lose the weapon you put on the Chinese Soldier with no Chinese Assault Rifle to show for it.

Also note that this method can be used on Chinese Inferno Units to get a Pre-War Flamer. Should you manage to get it, Ammo Containers will start giving out 120 Flamer Fuel.

Obtaining a pre-War Chinese pistol

The Crimson Dragoon with the Chinese assault rifle guarding the outside of the Listening Post have Chinese Pistols in their inventory. Use the gauss rifle and go into vats and aim for their gun so you don't kill them but knock them down so you can pick pocket them. They don't use it so it is very easy to obtain, there's about 6 to 7 crimson dragoons and all have the Chinese pistol in their inventory.

Note that the Chinese pistol will be in very poor condition. It still retains the simulation traits of degrading very slowly and having a slightly pre war look but is required that you fix it to get it in full condition

Obtaining pre-War Flamer

A Flamer in poor condition can be taken from an American flamer unit that spawns and helps you raid one of the trench areas and will be accompanied by a riflemen. Once the battle is over he will remain inside of the room he charged into. During this point pickpocket his ammo, he will still have it equipped. Lead any kind of enemy near him, he will unequip his flamer and resort to his fists. Then kill the enemy before he kills the flamer unit. Then he will try to walk back to his scripted area and he will either get back or get stuck walking towards a wall. At this point you can pickpocket his flamer, but might be in low condition.

A second one in full condition can be taken by a American T-51b unit with the flamer but will be little harder to not get caught due him being accompanied by other power armor troopers. At first they will spawn to assist the player. Once the enemies are dealt with then they will remain near some sandbags. Do not continue forward or else he will be killed by the pulse field when attempting to cross. At this point hide behind a broken floor that's standing vertically, it is the only spot you can hid from where he stands. Then pick pocket his ammo then hit him a few times to make him hostile. Make sure he un-equips his gun before you holster your weapon. Then hide again behind the floor standing vertically next to the sandbags then pick pocket the flamer. You can use this same method to obtain the other Power Armor Soldiers' Fat Man & Miniguns as well.

The flamer can also be obtained from Chinese Inferno Units utilizing the Gauss Rifle method used previously, though this is slightly more difficult.

Note: do not do the steps on getting the fully repaired flamer on the American flamer unit if you plan on getting the fully repaired flamer, or else when hitting the power armor trooper with the flamer he will remain hostile and not return to friendly. Also note pickpocketing Power Armor Soldiers is extremely difficult and requires a Sneak skill of 85 or more, and even then still isn't guaranteed to succeed.

Obtain three winterized combat armors

It is possible to obtain three copies of the Winterized Combat Armor by first removing your armor as soon as the simulation starts (it will need to be 100%), and when you get to the command area reverse pickpocket the armor onto the Quartermaster (you will notice that he now has two in his inventory), now kill him (he is the only character in the sim that is lootable after death due to a glitch) and when you search him do not take them one at a time, use the "take all" option. It is also recommended that you use a weapon such as the Sniper or Gauss Rifle to (instantly and stealthily) kill him and hide behind the medical tent when doing it as he and Benjamin Montgomery may turn hostile if caught, preventing you from completing the add-on.

The extra suits can be used to obtain the Army Mechanic Jumpsuit, Chinese stealth armor (sim version), and/or General Jingwei's uniform through Reverse Pickpocketing (only a max of 3 articles of clothing, including the combat armor it's self, can be taken).

Other Notes:

• Although the American war correspondent wears Pre-War business wear and a Pre-War Hat, there is no sim equivalent of these items. In other words, he wears the standard wasteland variants there by negating any advantage to stealing them.
• General Chase cannot be pick-pocketed, thus his overcoat cannot be obtained without console commands.
• The Winterized Chinese jumpsuit cannot be stolen from Chinese soldiers as it appears as an invisible item in their inventory. It can still be acquired via console commands.
• Although the sim stealth armor can be taken (as mentioned above) it lacks the stealth field of the wasteland variant, there by making it's value questionable. It still retains the other effects such as high item HP and bonuses to sneak however.
• Though Jingwei's uniform can be stolen, his hat cannot be taken due to your headwear not having high enough DR for you to trade with him. An equipable Chinese Commando Hat (Ushanka) can be found outside the U.S. Army field headquarters on some sandbags however (near the US soldier executing prisoners).

Obtaining smoke grenades

Much like the Tesla Cannon (Beta) in the Broken Steel add-on, the smoke grenades cannot be obtained under normal map conditions but can be obtained by doing a series of jumps in between the point where one of the pipes and the rockside meets, as can be seen in this video.

Unlimited ammunition

The Ammo Glitch taken to extremes

It is possible to drop your ammo, replenish, and then pick your original ammunition up again, bypassing the simulation's built in ammo cap. This allows for infinite ammo.

• The actual maximum number of ammo you can pick up at once is 32,768. (Binary code is based on powers of 2 and 32,768 is 2¹⁵ power). The ammo was set up as a 16 bit signed integer, where the high bit (2¹⁶) controls if the number is positive or negative. So once you reach 2¹⁶, the game interprets it as -(2¹⁵).
• By dropping ammo in bundles less than 32,768 (and leaving that same amount or higher in your inventory), you can repeat this glitch over and over again.
• This can be useful with the Gary 23 glitch as you can take back all the ammo and use or sell it. If you have The Pitt installed you can take the ammo to the ammo press and get whatever ammo you want, e.g. 30,000 .308 caliber rounds and change them into 30,000 .44 magnum ammo, or to 450,000 5mm rounds which sell for around 1 cap each
• If you pick up an extra weapon of any type that would normally give you extra ammo (for instance a second Chinese assault rifle would be converted into 5.56mm rounds) then all the extra ammo you acquired through the glitch will disappear

Unlimited experience points

During the fight with Jingwei

You can get over 1000 XP per minute of "Very Hard" difficulty.

During the fight with Jingwei in the courtyard, there is a Chinese sniper on some very large metal crates. At the back of those crates are 4 barrels, two of which are close to the crates. Jump on the barrels then onto the corner of the lower crate. The location will shield you on all sides except the side facing a door out of which continually spawn Chinese commandos.

Note that Sergeant Montgomery may be in the area and he will only target Jingwei therefore limiting the time you have to kill troops because Montgomery will make quick work out of Jingwei.

You can kill the Quartermaster in the end and get attacked by Sergeant Montgomery. At this point the entire base will attack Montgomery. Run around the entire base for a full two minutes, making sure everyone that spawns in the base is attacking Sergeant Montgomery, then leave the base. Sergeant Montgomery will stay in the base now killing off everyone and you are free to attack Jingwei for as long as you want. When you start a new game you can go from level 2 to 20 very quickly this way. Make you have plenty of ammo. Stay in position and shoot unlimited enemies to receive unlimited XP. Combat Shotgun works very well for this as it can still kill the soldiers in 2-3 shots but has a larger ammo capacity than the sniper rifle.

To get rid of the Sergeant Montgomery, send him and your team to one of the locations when you first speak to him and then never talk to him again. This will leave him at the base after you finish with one of the two locations. Also, there may be a glitch where the American soldiers will attack you if you do this enough. If that is the case, just move to a position where they cannot see you.

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  Foward shooting position

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  Aim point

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  Aim point, zoomed

Killing your own robot teammates

1. First, you will need to recruit a Strike Team that has only one robot in it. (Benjamin Montgomery will be in your team by default, but do not assign any other NPCs to your squad while attempting this glitch because they will make it more difficult.)
2. Hide behind Benjamin Montgomery, and then sneak attack the robot.
3. Once the robot is destroyed you can request another from Benjamin Montgomery. Within seconds, another will appear nearby. Repeat.

Xbox 360 only

Disconnecting from Xbox Live causes all items and quest progress specific to Anchorage to be deleted. After you complete Anchorage, simply disconnect, reconnect, and replay. Rinse and repeat for as much exp as you want.