Bugs and Undocumented Features in Ultima 4 (PC Version) Last updated on 4-May-2005 Please send additions, corrections and feedback to this e-mail address: Remove space + vowels from "marc winterrowd" and append "at yahoo dot com" --- Bugs --- 1) No sleep or bomb traps There are acid and poison traps in the PC version, but no sleep or bomb traps. All four trap types were present in the C64 version. There is code for sleep and bomb traps in avatar.exe, but a bug prevents them from occurring. 2) Attackable ankhs You can attack the ankh NPC's in Skara Brae and Cove. In combat, the ankh NPC alternates between the chest and ankh tile. When you kill it, the game says you've killed a Phantom. 3) Flaming Oil range bug Attack with a flaming oil and choose a range of 0. Sometimes, this causes a fire field to appear at (5/3), along with the message "Phantom Killed! Exp. 8". 4) Quit & Save crash You won't get this bug unless you do some hex editing. Set the number of moves in PARTY.SAV to 2^31. Journey Onward and save. The game will either crash or display random tiles, depending on where you're running it (DOS, DOS emulator, Windows). If you set the number of moves to a value greater than 2^31, the game doesn't crash when you save. However, it displays a negative number of moves, followed by a random character. 5) Moon phase not loaded Ultima 4 saves the moon phase in PARTY.SAV, but doesn't load the saved moon phase when you Journey Onward. It just resets both phases to new moon. 6) Horse under a balloon Ride a horse onto a balloon and x-it. The horse is now under the balloon, and you can't board it until you move the balloon out of the way. 7) Horse under a chest Ride a horse onto a chest and x-it. Sometimes, the horse disappears under the chest, and you can't board it until you get the chest. 8) Horse on a water tile Ride a horse onto a ship and x-it. The horse is now under the ship. Board the ship and sail away. The horse remains on the water tile. 9) Lock Lake and the whirlpool Place a few inanimate objects (horses, chests, ships) in or around Lock Lake. Make sure your ship is damaged badly enough so that sailing into a whirlpool will sink it. Sail into a whirlpool. The objects you placed around Lock Lake will appear, even if you're nowhere near it. 10) Avoiding blood donations When a healer asks you to donate blood, just press Enter/Space/Escape. You'll lose neither karma nor hit points. 11) Display bug in the Abyss In the altar room on level 1 of the Abyss, Ultima 4 displays walls that aren't there. 12) Hidden keywords Go to Moonglow and ask Calabrini (the greeter at the bridge) about his job. Then ask him about "healing". He'll reply "Fine", because the game only checks the first four letters of your question, and the standard keyword "heal(th)" takes precendence over the keyword "heal(ing)". Michelle in Serpent's Hold is the other NPC with this bug. 14) Destroying dungeon walls (discovered by Dan_Ultima) In dungeons, the Energy Field spell always succeeds (even if the game displays "Failed!") and replaces whatever is in front of the party. You can use this bug to tunnel through any dungeon, even the Abyss. -- Engine Limitations -- 1) Reloading repairs/damages ships There's a quick way to repair damaged ships: x-it the ship, save and restart the game. The ship's hull is now at 50. 2) Lava fields can be dispelled When a Lava Lizard's ranged attack hits an obstacle, it leaves a lava field. You can't dispel the lava field, but there's another way to remove it. Cast an energy field onto the lava field and dispel the energy field. Note: When you dispel an energy field during combat, Ultima 4 replaces the field with the tile under the caster. 3) Magical sleep cures poison Magically induced sleep (sleep fields, sleep spell) cures poisoned characters. -- Miscellaneous -- 1) Sea orcs You can't hole up & camp on board a ship, but you can x-it the ship and then hole up & camp. You will sometimes get ambushed by land monsters, even if you're in the middle of the ocean. You can flee from the camp battle, though I'm not sure where to. 2) Upgraded U4 hangs in Freedos Beta 8 This bug occurs only if you run Ultima 4 with the VGA upgrade under Freedos Beta 8. When you press Alt-X, Alt-R or Alt-Q, the game freezes, unless you're in Ztats mode. However, you can always quit the game with Ctrl-C, even when you're not in Ztats mode. 3) Typo in conversation with tavernkeeper Go to the tavern in Britan and order an ale. Pay the tavernkeeper one more gp than he asks. Ask him about one of his secrets, e.g. "nightshade". When he asks for more money, give him 0 gp or just press Enter. He will end the conversation with: "Sorry, I could not hep ya mate!" 4) Conversation bug in Buccaneer's Den Ask any of these NPC's about "a", and they will reply "A": Boris (orc) Roofus (guards at 5/14 and 5/16) Brigant (troll at 27/10) -- Undocumented Features -- 1) Command-line parameters c forces the game into CGA mode e forces the game into EGA mode t forces the game into Tandy mode -- Sources -- Dan_Ultima <email: append "at users dot sourceforge dot net" to his nick>