------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic XBox Version Bug/Glitch FAQ FAQ Version 0.85 Copyright 2003 by Doktor X Last Revision: July 27th, 2003 Originally Created: July 25th, 2003 by Doktor X ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ is currently hosted at GameFAQs.com and StarWarsKnights.com These are the ONLY approved sites for this FAQ. If you find it anywhere else, they are using it without permission, and I cannot promise that you are seeing the latest version. If you run a gaming site and would like to host this FAQ please e-mail me with your site's details, and I will get back to you before the next revision. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================= TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= 1. Introduction 2. Revisions 3. Contact 4. General Advice a. On Saving (The _MOST_IMPORTANT_PART_ of this guide!) b. Other issues 5. Known Bugs (With Workarounds If Available) a. The Dreaded "Carth Glitch" (aka Stealth Glitch) b. Galaxy Droid c. Pazaak vs. Kudo on Tatooine d. Saving Levels for Jedi (aka Party XP Bug) e. The Invisible Player-Character f. Locking/Crashing/Freezing g. Floating Characters h. Mission's Side-Quest i. Equip/Un-equip Related Bugs j. Sand People Enclave Glitch k. Black Outs 6. Exploits a. Unlimited XP on Taris b. Swoop Racing Restart 7. Final Note 8. Contributors =============== 1. INTRODUCTION =============== I'm writing this guide because it is important for your enjoyment of the game. This is a great game but, but unfortunately there are some bugs that can totally ruin it for you, unless you follow my advice. Some people have played through the whole game without any problems, but the bugs are definitely there. I think that the most important point of this guide is the section on Saving. If you learn nothing else from this guide, learn the importance of keeping multiple save files! You can work around almost all of the bugs in this game if you have a save point to go back to. This is such a great game, it truly saddens me that the game had to ship with all of these bugs in it. I am not writing this post to flame BioWare in any way. I have a great respect for the work that they do, and the games that they have created. It is my hope that they will come out with a patch for this game, if at all possible, and make this FAQ completely pointless. Until such time, I will collect and report on known bugs in the game. If you are wishing to completely avoid spoilers, you can still safely read the General Advice section. The last two sections will be as vague as possible, while still giving all the info needed to document the bugs. There should not be any major story spoilers, but some minor spoilers might be there. Wherever possible, I'll warn you about them before hand, but you should still read those sections at your own risk. ============ 2. REVISIONS ============ July 27th, 2003 - Version 0.85 - First major update! Thanks for all the e-mails! - Added approved hosts to top of file - Fixed a few spelling errors - Additional instructions added to Contact section (3) - Additional info added to Carth Glitch (5a) - Additional info added to Galaxy Droid (5b) - Additional info added to Saving Levels for Jedi (5d) - Additional info added to Locking/Crashing/Freezing (5f) - Added Floating Characters Glitch (5g) - Added Mission's Side-Quest Bug (5h) - Added Equip/Un-equip Related Bugs (5i) - Added Sand People Enclave Glitch (5j) - Added Black Out Glitch (5k) - Added Exploits Section! (6) - Added Contributors section (8) July 25th, 2003 - Version 0.75 - FAQ first created ========== 3. CONTACT ========== E-mail: doktorx_faq@yahoo.com If you have any useful information to contribute to this FAQ, please e-mail me. If you want credit for your contribution, be sure to include what name you want to be credited as. I won't include your e-mail address in the FAQ unless you specifically request it. If your e-mail includes both a handle and a real name, I'll use the handle by default. If there's no name, I'll use the part of your e-mail address that appears before the @ sign. E-mailing bugs to me implies consent to use your name, and quote your message in this FAQ. If you would like to have your name or quote removed from this FAQ for any reason, please e-mail me at: doktorx_faq@yahoo.com If I quote you, I might correct your spelling, but I won't fix grammar or punctuation errors. I'm not your English teacher. Try to keep it legible! If you've got a spell check on your e-mail editor, save me some time and use it. For copyright reasons, I am not allowed to copy and paste quotes from forums. If you have a bug report, please write it in your own words. PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT tech support! I won't respond to any "Please help me!" e-mails. If you have good, specific info, I can use it for the FAQ, but I just don't have the time to respond to specific requests. No, I will NOT tell you how to beat the Rancor! ================= 4. GENERAL ADVICE ================= -------------------------------------------------------- 4a. On Saving (The _MOST_IMPORTANT_PART_ of this guide!) -------------------------------------------------------- I said it in the intro, and I'll say it again: If you learn nothing else from this guide, learn the importance of keeping multiple save files! You can work around almost all of the bugs in this game if you have a save point to go back to. If you only have one or two save files, and you run into any of the bugs detailed below (especially the Carth Glitch), your game WILL be ruined, and you won't be able to do anything other than start all over from the very beginning. You don't want to start over from the beginning, do you? No? Then please listen to this advice: Save early, and save OFTEN - INTO A SEPARATE FILE - as often as you can stand! Do NOT rely on the auto-save! The game will auto-save into the same slot every time, writing over itself, even if you are playing with a different character. If you are only using the auto-save, and you start a new game, you will loose all of your progress. The auto-save is there as a safety precaution in case you forget to save, but it is not intended to be your only save file! Don't continually over-write the same saves, your XBox should have plenty of disk space, so USE IT! If you are avoiding reading the rest of this guide for fear of spoilers, know this: The worst bug in the game, the Carth Glitch, can be overcome with a minimal amount of back-tracking, if you take this simple precaution - On the Ebon Hawk, save before you select a new planet to go to, every time. Do not save over this file, and do not delete it. There are other ways around it, but you'll have to read the Carth Glitch section for more specific information. If you want to be extra-careful, he's a list of recommended save-points: 1. On the Ebon Hawk, save before you select a new planet to go to, every time. 2. When you exit the Ebon Hawk onto a new planet, save before you start to explore 3. Before you enter an area where you think there might be a lot of fighting 4. As soon as you begin a fight with a boss character 5. As soon as you END a fight with a boss character 6. Save AT LEAST once an hour. 7. Save any other time you feel like it. And don't use the same file every time! There is an added benefit to having all of these save files: You will be able to re-play any part of the game you want, without having to start over. There are planets that you won't be able to go back to, and when that happens, you might decide to load an old save and finish all of the missions there. There are multiple ways to solve each mission. You might want to see how things turned out if you did it differently. If you saved into separate slots, you can do that. I was overly careful with my saving, so I used over 300 saves to finish the game the first time through. (This is beyond the space available on the X-Box, so I would delete the oldest saves every few hours.) This is extreme, and you probably don't need to do that many, but I only experienced one glitch, and when it happened I only had to replay about ten minutes of the game to get past it. You will see people complaining about glitches on the boards. The people who are the most vocal about the bugs are complaining because they didn't have a save file to fall back on. I don't blame these people for being angry. It isn't their fault that there are bugs in the game. I really feel sorry for these people if there is nothing they can do to get past the bugs. You don't have to end up that way though. Follow my advice, and you should be fine. ---------------- 4b. Other Issues ---------------- This FAQ was written specifically to address issues related to the programming of the game. These are bugs that can happen to anyone, regardless of how old or new their Xbox is, or how careful they are with their hardware and discs. There are some issues, however, that could be caused by things that are not related to the programming. You might have problems with a scratched, damaged, or dirty game disc, or you might have problems with your Xbox such as overheating, a malfunctioning DVD drive, or hard drive problems. If the game randomly crashes or freezes up, it could be due to these factors. Consult the XBox, BioWare, or LucasArts websites and helplines for more specific information. You might simply try using a lens cleaner on your DVD drive, vacuuming out your XBox, and placing your XBox in a well ventilated area (not on the carpet!) with some fans blowing on it. You actually MIGHT have a bad or damaged copy of the game disc, in which case you should try to take it back to the store where you bought it, but if you are having the problems listed below, it's more than likely a programming error, and will be the same for every copy of the game, unless they issue a patched version. ============================================= 5. KNOWN BUGS (With Workarounds If Available) ============================================= --------------------------------------------------- 5a. The Dreaded "Carth Glitch" (aka Stealth Glitch) --------------------------------------------------- This is generally considered the worst bug in the game. If you saved on the Ebon Hawk before selecting a new planet each time, you can get around this glitch by reloading and doing some things differently. If you don't want (minor) spoilers, skip the next few paragraphs and just know that keeping old saves is a good idea. This is actually a bug in stealth, and is not specific to the situation described below. It will actually happen in other places, if you have a cloaked character when you enter a cut-scene. The situation below is the most common place people will see this problem, but it's not the only one. At a certain point in the game, you will have to choose a single party member to stay behind to help you later. If you haven't played the game before, you will know this part when you come to it because the game will give you the choice of who to pick for this part. Some people will tell you not to pick Mission for this, but the real problem is if you use stealth/cloaking. If your character is cloaked when you finish this section, you will probably get the Carth Glitch. It won't happen right away, but during a certain cut scene, the game will not advance past a line of dialog from Carth, because Mission is supposed to speak next, and you can't see her! The game actually makes a roll of your awareness vs. her stealth during this cut-scene! IF you have a high enough awareness or are wearing awareness enhancing equipment you might be able to get past this. The game will automatically re-roll every 20 seconds, so if it is mathematically possible for you to beat Mission's stealth, you can just leave the game sitting, and it will eventually get past this. It make take minutes, but it could also take hours. If you have little or no awareness, then the only way to get past this is to load a previous save. If you didn't use stealth on this part, you shouldn't get the bug. Also, I'm pretty sure this is based on the awareness of YOUR character, and not Carth's awareness. I've seen some people say that you should try raising Carth's awareness, though. If you know for certain either way, please e-mail me. Simon Magus discusses the rules involved in the stealth roll: "The game uses a system similar to the d20 system used by many pencil-and-paper RPG's. Near as I can tell, the check to spot a person in stealth mode is dependent upon both the cloaked person's Stealth ability and the spotter's Awareness ability. I haven't seen it stated anywhere explicitly, but the formula is almost certainly something like this... DC + Stealth skill + other mods VS d20 roll + Awareness skill + other mods The DC is probably 10 or 15 (15 is more likely - and it's safer to assume the higher value). Modifiers for Stealth include Dexterity modifier and feats/equipment which increase the Stealth skill. Modifiers for Awareness include Wisdom modifier and feats/equipment which increase the Awareness skill. So, if 20 plus the Awareness modifiers is equal to or greater than the DC plus Stealth modifiers, it is mathematically possible for the person to be spotted. I'll let you know if I figure out exactly what the DC is, but signs point toward 15." From jwooley4991: "This game is based on the 3e d20 system, and if you roll a 20 thats an automatic success, there is always a chance. I play the pen and paper and it says that in the rule book, but it may have been changed, no clue really." I'm not sure if that's true for this game or not. Some people have left the game on overnight at this point, and still not rolled past it. If there truly IS always a 1 in 20 chance, and the game re-rolls every 20 seconds, it shouldn't take too long. ---------------- 5b. Galaxy Droid ---------------- So far, I don't think anyone has figured out how to repeat this, but some people have experienced a bug(?) where the Star Map is replaced by a droid called the Galaxy Droid, who will take you to any planet you want, even the planets you shouldn't have access to at that point in the story. Selecting certain planets will cause the game to freeze. If you get this bug, you might want to save it to a separate file, because it's pretty cool, but it WILL mess up your game. If you load previous save file, you should be fine. Some people believe that this is some sort of debugging mode accidentally left in the game by the programmers, but nobody can make it happen on purpose yet, as far as I know. ******possible SPOILERS****** This usually happens after the Leviathan, which makes it similar to the Carth Glitch. I'm not sure if the two glitches are related, however. Sightings of the Galaxy Droid are usually accompanied by seeing your crew standing in the main room of the Ebon Hawk, instead of in their usual positions, just like scene when you pick the character to rescue you from the Leviathan. If you see this happen, check your ship for the Galaxy Droid. j b writes: "went down to fight Malak, beat him, escaped, did the "shooter mini-game" and hyper-spaced out. then the game dies. the screen goes totally black, the music begins doubling over itself... if you do things.... force powers, press 'y' to ignite your lightsaber, etc the sound effects go of without a hitch... but none of the useful buttons work (namely, the start button)........... well, sometimes they don't work. In one instance so far, by screwing around with everything i could, I finally got the start menu to show up. the area map in the start menu still showed the hanger of the Leviathan, but titled it the Ebon Hawk. if you left the start menu, the screen was still black, but if you saved and reloaded the game, you could actually see again. Juhani and mission were no where to be found, when i loaded it up, and the galaxy droid was at the helm of the ship. Like you said, the galaxy droid, is like a hack, allowing you to go anywhere in the game, as if you'd never been there before (as long as they were completed events.....) essentially, it could possibly allow you to go back and complete things you missed... but missions that had been completed acted as if you'd never accepted them. it is not, however.... a "cool" thing...... it feels like your in a hacked world, it is impossibly choppy, buggy, and kind of disembodied..... and the galaxy droid lets you go everywhere in the game, including the Spire, and the Unknown world. Through this glitch, many others pop up. there is no "leave area" icons anymore so you can blunder into them...... and if you do while preforming another action, it locks up the game. also, if you go to a place like Taris, you loose the ability to return to the hawk. on dantooine, the jedi who wanders around the tree plaza will automatically ask you how your training goes when you pass through the plaza the first time.......... and the trap is set. without reloading, i have yet to be able to return to the Ebon hawk. every time you try to leave, the cut-scene of her question pops up. and rapid transit is disabled." Jim Matthews writes: "After getting free from the Leviathan and traveling to my final planet, which happened to be the planet with the Sith Academy I spoke with the smuggler about the cargo on-board the Ebon Hawk. Before doing anything on that planet I went back to Tatooine to complete the smuggling mission. Well when my ship arrived at Tatooine, instead of me being loaded into the cockpit of the Ebon Hawk like you normally do after travel, I was loaded into the big room mentioned above, with all my crew mates in a circle formation, minus Bastila. Well I tried talking to them, thinking it was some plot point, but they all had nothing relevant to say. I then proceeded to leave the ship, as I walked down the loading ramp, it simply loaded Tatooine without asking me what party members I wanted. Not only that, but when Tatooine loaded I wasn't in the Space Port as usual... I was already in the town. It never happened again and I don't have any explanation. But I just thought I'd let you be aware of this happening." He doesn't mention the Galaxy Droid here, but it sounds like the same bug. ------------------------------- 5c. Pazaak vs. Kudo on Tatooine ------------------------------- Winning at Pazaak vs. Kudo (I think that's his name) ten times is supposed to give you a cool prize. Instead, it gives you a bug. You don't get the prize, and you get an entry in your quest list telling you that someone is dead, even if he isn't. My advice: Don't play Pazaak with the guy. I didn't try this myself, so I don't know if the weird journal entry messes up the story or not, but if you got this bug, and you're worried about your story being messed up, reload a saved game. --------------------------------------------- 5d. Saving Levels for Jedi (aka Party XP Bug) --------------------------------------------- Some people have reported that saving levels until they become a Jedi causes an error in the way XP is calculated for the rest of the party members. "Saving Levels" is a strategy in which the player will avoid leveling their character's stats until after they become a Jedi in order to get more Force powers. Unfortunately, the best way to avoid this bug is to not use this strategy. The more levels you save, the more obvious this bug will become, but it should all even out as you get closer to level 20. This isn't a major bug, but it has been verified on the BioWare forums. The difference might not always be noticeable, and nothing bad should happen to you. ---------------------------------- 5e. The Invisible Player-Character ---------------------------------- There have been reports of the player character's head disappearing, or of only the character's clothing being seen, giving an "Invisible Man"-type look. It seems random to me. I haven't had this problem myself though. E-mail me if you know how to make it happen or how to make it stop. ----------------------------- 5f. Locking/Crashing/Freezing ----------------------------- There's a problem with the game locking up while saving (or loading?) for some people. Go to your dashboard and make sure that the time and date are set correctly. It has something to do with having the date set too far into the future (like 2097)! Gino I. writes: "When I first got the game, I had my Xbox unplugged and when I plugged it in and it brought my to the time/date screen which I accidentally skipped through. So when I put the game in, every time I tried to make a character it would lock up until I changed my time/date to what it should be." I've had freeze-ups sometimes during the auto-save, or at loading screens, but I can't find a pattern to them, and my clock is set correctly. Freezes have also been reported at the black screen between areas, before the load screen appears. There's not too much you can do about it. Just restart your XBox and keep going. (You *did* remember to save, right?) It's been reported that sometimes restarting the Xbox during a freeze will cause save files to incorrectly report huge playing times. ******possible SPOILERS****** Michael Peters writes: "When you are on Manaan, and you get to the south structure that has the scientist behind a forcefield, if you try to go back to the ocean floor before going through the forcefield and talking to the scientist (about poisoning the shark and such), it will freeze on the loading screen going back to the ocean floor. I duplicated this bug three times before writing about it. Hope this helps all the gamers out there." Sean Campbell writes: "One time I saved after giving the journal to Igela and I tried to go back into the sewers and it would not let me from the main save I had to use the quick save as you enter the sewers. It was the load screen that it got stuck on. Two times in saving I have corrupt games. The game has freezed on me during the transit back to the base. The game slows down a lot during some cut-scenes. I have the music go on me but still of the back ground noise on. When this happens I know the game will freeze soon." FinalFantasyAce0 writes: "in the ebon hawk at on dantooine. when u escape taris and land there. after bastilla tells u of the council i went in to the ebon hawk to get some items. upon leaving the game made a click like the one before entering party selection and froze. this wasn't a one timer either. it is recurrent only under those circumstances." ----------------------- 5g. Floating Characters ----------------------- ******possible SPOILERS****** Thanks to Aaron Harper for submitting this: "this glitch has happened to me at least 10 times. i will be running around on manaan (right outside your hanger in that long hallway), and something weird happens. i think it happens randomly, because it only happens about 1/3 of the time i'm there. i turn my camera around often (because my party will just completely stop moving all of the sudden). so i look back, and bastila is gone (by the way, this always happens when i'm controlling my created character). so i switch to her for her to catch up, and i start to run. she gets into the motion like she's about to run, but she freezes in mid-step of running (her right leg is in the air, while her left leg is back). she moves around, floating like this. when you stop, she brings her legs down normally, then the floating thing happens every time i run with her. so i switch to my other party member, hk-47. now my created character is doing this (they will follow you while floating as well). bastila and the created character are the only people i can get this to work with outside the hanger. the glitch will go away after you hit a loading zone. while i was in the sith base on manaan, in front of the big purple force shield thing, it happened again, except with jolee. this happened after bastila left my party (kidnapped my darth malak). i was running into the purple shield with jolee, and the floating glitch happened again, but it automatically went away a few minutes later for some reason. and i've never been able to get it work again in the sith base. at first i thought that it had something to do with my level of the force, but i don't think so. it doesn't hurt my game, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to use!" ------------------------ 5h. Mission's Side-Quest ------------------------ ******possible SPOILERS****** It has been reported that some people have problems on Tatooine with the Mission's Brother side-quest. From Nicole and Bill Maddocks: "After speaking to the Sandpeople chieftain, he says to take Griff and leave, but I am unable to find Griff anywhere in the Sandpeople Enclave. (Looks like he supposed to be in one of the prisoner cells, but...) If this is a glitch, looks like it happens when you complete Tatooine and go to other planets before returning to do this side-quest." ------------------------------- 5i. Equip/Un-equip Related Bugs ------------------------------- These are included for the sake of completeness. They might be bugs, or they might be intended behavior, it could go either way. ******possible SPOILERS****** From Paul Imhoff: "In the lower Shadowlands of Kashyyyk, in an attempt to take out the stealth Mandelorians, I was unable to equip weapons for one character after the Mandelorians de-cloaked. The first and second battle, I was unable to equip Bastila (either hand) with her double-bladed lightsaber. The third battle, I was unable to equip Jolee (either hand). My only supposition that this may not be a glitch is that the Mandelorians de-cloaked too close to the affected character, thus not allowing them to be armed." Also, space suits and/or underwater suits have a tendency to un-equip your weapons. Check your equip screen for all characters after you leave these scenes to be sure you're still equiped. This might be intended behavior for those suits, but I wanted to include it anyway, just in case. ------------------------------ 5j. Sand People Enclave Glitch ------------------------------ ******possible SPOILERS****** Possible problems when trying to enter the Enclave, even with Sand People Clothing on. Further details, and a solution can be found at: http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=241523&forum=26 I'm not allowed to copy and paste from forums for copyright reasons. Hopefully that thread will still be there if you are having this problem. (Thanks to Cypher50 for the link) -------------- 5k. Black Outs -------------- This happened to j b around Tatooine: "load screens, and often the actual game screens would appear without any information (either black, or with minimal frame lining) I got around the black out issue there, but it comes back later.." =========== 6. EXPLOITS =========== Exploits are bugs that can be used to your advantage, to gain things in the game without having to work for them. These are considered cheating, but since this isn't a multi-player game, the only person you're cheating by using them is yourself. Doing these things might make the game less fun for you, and they could cause un-intended side effects to your character. Use them at your own risk, and don't blame me if you have problems because of them. You don't need to cheat to finish the game. I'm including this section because they ARE bugs, and that is the point of this FAQ. I know there's more exploits out there. E-mail me! ------------------------- 6a. Unlimited XP on Taris ------------------------- ******possible SPOILERS****** From Zandterman: "On Taris, after completing the swoop race, but before completing the Sith base, I returned to the Hidden Bek base. I once again spoke to the security chief, and was presented the same options as before the swoop race. Interested, I once again told them I had the swoop accelerator. I was given the overnight waiting cut-scene, and then I showed up at the swoop race area. I was instantly awarded some 600 XP, and Bastilla was standing there. I had the vision again then was once again returned to the apartment. I don't know if I was actually awarded the XP, I didn't check. But my game has had no ill affects as of yet. This could perhaps turn into a place to easily level up before leaving Taris... if you're really patient." ------------------------ 6b. Swoop Racing Restart ------------------------ From Andrew Stehr: "well... I was working on my swoop racing in Manaan when I discovered that if I push the open disk button on the X-box while in the swoop racing screen [while swoop racing (paused or moving)] {popping the disk out} and then press the button again (popping it back in), it would start me back at the beginning of the race. This was very helpful to me seeing that I didn't have to go through a bunch of loading screens (and credits) just to reset the race. I came across a glitch, however; this little trick made my game-timer skyrocket... now on my save-game it says that I have over a million hours logged... guess I paid the price for laziness" Let me know if this is repeatable on other planets, or just Manaan. ============= 7. FINAL NOTE ============= There are probably other bugs, that may or may not be repeatable. As of this writing, these are the only repeatable bugs I know about. If a bug happens randomly, you can't plan for it, so it's best to follow my advice on saving. Please feel free to contact me using the information in section 3 if you have any additions to this guide. Thanks for reading, and I hope I've been able to help you get through these things! =============== 8. CONTRIBUTORS =============== E-mailing bugs to me implies consent to use your name, and quote your message in this FAQ. If you would like to have your name or quote removed from this FAQ for any reason, please e-mail me at: doktorx_faq@yahoo.com Big thanks to: Aaron Harper, Michael Peters, Gino I., Simon Magus, the anialator16, Cukeman12, Sean Campbell, Nicole and Bill Maddocks, Paul Imhoff, ehphoenix, jwooley4991, Zandterman, Cypher50, j b, Jim Matthews, Jeff Pulskamp, Andrew Stehr, FinalFantasyAce0