Bugs and Undocumented Features in Ultima 4 (PC Version)

Last updated on 4-May-2005
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--- 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 

    Source: geocities.com/nodling/ultima/text/ultima4

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