Fallout 2: Missing red Skilldex button

P

phaser

First time out of the vault
I'm not sure if this problem was mentioned before on this forum but I've checked almost all the topics here and found nothing.

Here is the problem:

After rather long time playing in F2 (I'm inside the Military Base) I've noticed that the red button from the game screen - the Skilldex button is MISSING and replaced by a black square. The same happens with the Clock button on the PipBoy screen. This has some connection with the number of cities visited or with the number of holodisk's read - the more are there the more probability of this strange bug to appear.

Has anybody experienced similar problem? Please help!

P.S. Yes, I've installed the patch (1.02e).
 
In The Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide said:
Buttons on the game display replaced by black squares and becoming unusable: the Skilldex button on the main screen, and the Sleep button in the Pipboy. This is actually a warning sign that the "too many items" bug is coming up.
Click to expand...

Greed is a sin, my son. In the long run, all item hoarders get punished... :twisted:
 
Thanx for a reply!

First of all I know Per Jorner's guide and I've also read about this problem but I dropped earlier all useless items in other locations to prevent any possibility of the "too many items" bug.

However as I said before I can see that this "missing Skilldex button" bug occurs when I add certain amount of holodisc info to my Pipboy (there are some in Military Base) and not before. It seems that the number of items stored on a map has noting to do with that.

Please tell my if anybody had this situation during the F2 playing and if this really leads to "too many items" bug and thus to total corruption of the game.
 
First, make saves more commonly. The bug is quite common, I think, if you don't install the patch, but the buttons always reappeared after game restart.

"Too many items"? Never heard of it.
 
Is that a problem? You can still access skills through "1-8" keys, and the rest mode through the "z" key ...
 
Didn't know about "z" for rest, but i rarely use rest anyhoo.

I always use 1-8 for skills anyway, it's much quicker than pressing the skilldex then the skill.
 
During my first game I rested for about a month in a corridor in the Enclave. Funny stuff... ;)
 
Thank you guys for the help you privided!

But there is still one more thing that is unclear to me and that makes me worried that I'll be unable to complete the game. This doubt is a question if the "missing Skilldex button" bug is a sign of forthcoming "too many items" bug and as result it could lead to game corruption.

Please let me know if anybody encountered any link between those two "phenomena" and if he/she was stil able to finish the game without a problem.
 
I encountered that bug some times as well. It did lead to game corruption, and the only workaround was loading a previous save. But after using the patch i don't remember having problems with it.
 
I'd be interested in anything you can find out about this; after all we don't really know how these things are connected. It's quite possible the black button bug is caused by Pipboy files and the freezing bug by items, or that both cause the black button bug but that only items corrupt save files. In games where I didn't collect "useless" items such as the MB holodisks, I probably didn't stop to download the files either, so I wouldn't have noticed. On the other hand, I got a mail from a guy who said he got the black button bug in the original Fallout when he loaded every item in the game onto an NPC (but without save game corruption - then again there are twice as many items in F2), which would seem to hint that they are related.
 
Skilldex button turns black

After consulting several pages I found someone with the same problem (skilldex black button). I understood that it has something to do with a so called "too many itens" bug and that the resolution is to load a previous saved game and then not to carry to many itens or Pip Boy hollodisc messages.
But my big problem is that when I load other saved games (even the ones where I didn't have this problem), the Skilldex button still appears black!!!
What shall I do?
This problem occurred first time after killing the dogs in the Military base.

Game has the UK official patch, running XP on Pentium 3, 512 RAM, and 128 Video

Please help me
 
If you restart the game, the button should return and not disappear unless you fall victim of the bug again.

Also, don't double post or try to use tags in the topic title.
 
You should have searched the forum, then, and posted in the thread about it.

Also, edityourpost

Merged.
 
I encountered this bug before (mainly when I'm using a FALCHE'd character and I wipe out towns and collect all the stuff from the bodies) but I've never noticed any game corruption...
 
During my many games of Fallout, I've encountered this bug (Skilldex button disappearing) many times, but always only in Fallout 2.

Also, while I know this is connected to the "Too many items" bug, I have yet to encounter that particular bug...even though I usually play a kleptomanic hoarder.
 
I have played games where I've collected every unique item I can find and hoarded huge loads of ammo and weapons at San Fran, and gone without the black button phenomenon. Whereas other games I've been two hours in with shit for items and gotten it.

I think it has more to do with a critical process being corrupted than simply with having too many items.
 
hello there,

I too encountered the missing skilldex button thing, wouldn't be that bad, but now it suddenly reappeared while I killed the Raiders which I didn't notice. Then after claiming the reward in Vault City the game crashes while leaving VC towards the yard. Oh well.
 
kitten_says_thanks.jpg
 
Load game, delete Vctyctyd.sav from save folder, keep playing.
 
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