Fallout 2 Old Shop Bug and Killap's Patch

[Helton]

There's a bug in Fallout 2 where all shops in the game stop restocking. It has ruined my last two or three playthroughs, because I've been wanting to really build my character. Grind, LARP, get enough arms to equip an imaginary army, and just hand around in world. Hard to amass thousands of gauss ammo when you have to pick it off Enclave 6 or fewer shots at a time.

I think it may be tied to the game's calender as I think I remember noticing the year had stopped advancing in one of my games. Really sketchy on this though.

I downloaded Killap's patch and am going to try Fallout 2 again but I'd like to know: does it fix this bug?

 

[1eyedking]

Isn't there a changelog somewhere?

 

[Brother None]

Isn't there a changelog somewhere?

Yes

I don't see this particular bug mentioned, tho'

 

[Helton]

Yeah I searched keywords "shop" "stock" and "time" and didn't see anything that looked like this. Was hoping it had some other description and someone would recognize it and give me the rundown.

If not killap's is there any known fix for this?

 

[Kingston]

Are you sure it's a bug? I remember the Bozar becoming useless if you used it too much, 'cos the world would run out of the ammo it uses, so I used it a bit more sparingly in another playthrough.

Or have vendors stopped restocking everything? That would prolly be a bug.

 

[Helton]

Yes, everything. They become completely static.

 

[Brother None]

If not killap's is there any known fix for this?

No, I don't think so. Per mentions it in his guide:
All shops in the game may at some point cease to restock, apparently because the game timer goes out of whack and jumps to some negative value. This means shopkeepers will have no inventory at all if you visit them for the first time after the bug sets in, including random encounter merchants and trappers. Accounts vary slightly in details, but a common factor seems to be that the bug only strikes after a long time of playing (some 6 years or more of game time). Reported side effects include timer-dependent features breaking down (like waiting forever for the Dragon's next training session), character age becoming fixed, and the Pipboy losing track of special dates.

I don't think it's ever been fixed though, mostly because it's the engine bugging out and we don't have the source code.

 

[1eyedking]

Are you sure it's a bug? I remember the Bozar becoming useless if you used it too much, 'cos the world would run out of the ammo it uses, so I used it a bit more sparingly in another playthrough.

Or have vendors stopped restocking everything? That would prolly be a bug.

Who uses Bozars, anyway?

 

[Melcar]

I forget if it was the Restoration mod or the Megamod that turns Bozar into a sniper of killing many things + 10. It's actually rather fun that way.

 

[Mister Arkham]

It's funny, I came here looking to ask about the same problem in Fallout 3. I have had the problem in the past with 2 though, but it's always resolved itself with loading an earlier state and then reloading the current state for me.

 

[Helton]

Guess this might be an itch I'll never scrath...

Are there save game editors I could change the date to a reasonable positive number and maybe it'd just start counting again?

 

[sheek]

I think you'd have to hex edit, can't remember any utilities changing date.

 

[Jaesun]

Timeslip is probably the only one who could fix it. Though since he has not yet, maybe it something that cannot be fixed. That or no one has asked him.

 

[inwoker]

So my sig is actually true for somebody.