Channel Update - August 2022 | Next video status (Patreon)

Howdy, folks!

~~~ GTA SA - Another removed mission (WIP name)

Previously I wrote about a removed mission involving Tenpenny and Hernandez. Good news is, the script was finally finished and soon enough I will receive voice lines for this video. The stupid thing is, I still didn't come up with the name for this video.

~Behind the scenes

I don't know why, but during this month I was mainly interested in digging in the leaked mission sources from San Andreas. Thanks to Sergeanur and his incredible "UndefinifiedGrove" project, the mission sources are now compatible with the vanilla game.

If you didn't know, the leaked sources were flooded with mobile tweaks, additions and lame hacks. This is why the compiled didn't work in the vanilla version, but not anymore. Serge had managed to fully get rid of all mobile filth. There is no need anymore to use poopy mobile ports to test the code like I did months ago.

Despite the fact that it was kinda inconvenient to use PS3 version, I had managed to restore the mission "Impounded". I think, I even had an idea to make a video about it. But the video was never in the works, because I wanted to make rather something rather new than remastering my older video.

During August I learnt a lot about GTA SA mission code. I've managed to restore valet side mission in Los Santos...

and Las Venturas.

Yeah, that's right, the valet side mission wasn't intended to be exclusive side work in SF. The developers fully coded this activity in LS and LV too. (Technically LV version is a little bit unfinished, but with a few tweaks fully playable.) 

Also noticed tons of mysteries. For instance, the mission "Los Sepulcros" has a chunk of code, which spawns Ryder's car near CJ's house, but disabled. As you can see, it is a brown Sadler, which was his main car before receiving Picador.

I also noticed lots of small disabled things. For instance, in this area in LV, the developers commented out this "cargen" with Pizzaboy. I guess, the developers planned here The Well Stacked Pizza Co. and this scooter was probably meant for a side mission.

A very minor feature is this disabled bribe in Fort Carson. Is it interesting find? Dunno.

Spotted a few cut things that look unfinished. For instance, there is an unused string, which suggests that we could change the incline on a treadmill. 

Guess what, the code from this feature is still there, but disabled. Technically this feature does work. The higher is the incline, the harder is to run on the treadmill. The problem is, the visual part of this feature is either missing or was never coded till the end. I mean, the treadmill is not moving up or down and it kinda disappointing, but not a surprise. 

Found tons of broken stuff, which has to be fixed somehow. For instance, there is an unused "porta_cabin" script, which, according to the code, was assigned to the "portakabin" model.

The idea of this script was to spawn 4 construction workers inside and if the player damaged some segments of their cabin, these workers would abandon their cabin. If the player continued destroying their cabin, they would flee in panic.

To make it work, if the player was close enough, the portakabin model would split into 3 separate models (segments), which you could break. The sad thing is, these models are absent from the final game and I had to use the "full" model 4 times, but the model is unbreakable. If you replace those models with the boxes, the script kinda works.

Funny enough, the code is so old and rusty that it requests CONST1 model. There is no such model too. 

Some finds are weird. For instance these doors are called "mexican_gate_left" and "mexican_gate_right'. According to the code, these gates cannot be broken.

When they are created, the game would change the variable "created_gates_1stime_riot3" TRUE. What are so weird about these gates?Well, first, riot3 is the removed mission in "riot" mission strand. It took place before the finale and after "Los Desperados". Second, why are these "Mexican" doors created in Verona Beach in front of the ordinary parking lot? 

Third, are these from South side Mexicans (Aztecas) or North side Mexicans (Vagos)?  As far as I recall this is the only lead to "riot3" and if I recall correctly, Aztecas meant to have a turf near Los Santos Conference Center.

Also had a pleasure to restore the mission "Impounded", but at this time I've managed to restore a phone call with Cesar too. I had to code it from scratch, because it was either fully removed or never implemented. The mission by the way is much easier in Vanilla than on PS3. Not sure why.

And you might be wondering am I doing this stuff for a future video? Well, it is hard to say right now. Yes, I am documenting these finds, but will I use this for a video, I don't know yet. I am just taking notes. Most of these finds are so freakin random, that I don't have a clue what to do with them. Sometimes, the developers disabled one line in a dialogue and that line doesn't make a difference. Maybe it is a good idea to make a compilation with these finds? I guess, it is a good idea and doesn't seem to be that complicated.

Right now I am just enjoying messing around the code. Sometimes you just need to do something for fun and enjoy it. What is more importantly, the project "UndefinifiedGrove" inspired other people to mess around the code too. Cool stuff.

~~~

This is it for now. Than you for watching and supporting me.  I hope to see you soon.