The Undertow Continuity [SPOILERS]

[Twelvefield]

I think I'm stuck in the Undertow mission. The spy that was suspected was in waepons training and supposedly ran away to avoid a polygraph, but instead completed training and stayed in the base. Now there's no progress in Undertow and I've played out several weeks of game time.

Was this situation ever fixed or resolved? Can it be fixed?

[Scorrp10]

That is indeed a weird one. That said, "polygraph test" can be a red herring. My experiences: (potential SPOILERS)


First campaign, around time when looking for Undertow, I had one of my best guys fail polygraph and run.
Another came down with weird disease, and had to be isolated, then went missing.
Third guy, I got a call from their drunk wife claiming various implicating things, and I had him sent off on some make-up task while investigating.

The polygraph guy turned out to be working with organ harvesters. I took him back in and got a nice chunk of cash as profit sharing.
The sick girl was found half dead in apparently former beholder hideout, I managed to get her cured and she turned Loyal.
The drunk wife accusations got confirmed, and the guy was fingered as Undertow and executed.

My second campaign, I also got all three cases. Ploygraph fail played out same. The drunk wife, I brought her in, picked her brain in MK Ultra, found it all unfounded, and opted to release her. Agent appreciated the gesture and turned loyal.
The disease case, informants located the missing 'sick' agent apparently all hale and healthy, disease being just a mild strain to get away from scrutiny. That agent was tagged Undertow.

So, maybe you ought to see if there are other story missions available? Though with polygraph agent being in training might have bugged your game. Hopefully you got a save from not too long ago.

[Twelvefield]

Thanks for your insight. There seem to be three "quests": the polygraph, the disease, and the drunk spouse. In my game, the disease and the drunk spouse turned out differently, and it looked like the polygraph might be the culprit.

EDIT: I also tried executing my suspicious agents, and then when nothing happened, I executed everybody. I had a lot of money saved by this time, so I could afford to slay the house. In any case, I came to the same conclusion as you and I am running the game from an old save pre-Undertow.

After you found the traitor, how long did it take for the game to move on to the next phase of the story?

[Scorrp10]

Once you get the Undertow burial scene (for which the game needs to positively finger him/her and place in your MK Ultra with a Beholder tag) the story moves on right away.

[Twelvefield]

Once again, thanks for your help! I got past Undertow!

If anyone else gets stuck or is about to get stuck:

1) In Chapter 6 (Leonides) don't train agents or give them any bodywork. Just let them do their jobs.

2) There are three "quests": a polygraph, a sick agent, and a drunk spouse. My thinking is any one of these could trigger the traitor. Be vigilant, but try not to go over the top with your responses...? I don't know. It seems to be a random setup by the game, and you definitely have to try all three.

3) If you go through all three and you have an agent that runs away but also at the same time stays in the base, then that's the bug and you're stuck. Agents will run away but they will come back, either by your action or by force.

so 4) Be sure to have a Chapter 5 save on hand in case Chapter 6 gets stuck. I guess I should have numbered these items differently, I think this is the most important one. The good news is that you can progress through Chapter 6 even if it is bugged by using an old Chaper 5 save (or earlier), and Chapter 6 is short, so it doesn't take long to get past the bugged section.

[LordRedStone]

Just confirming here that indeed all three events happen at different points in the chapter and every single one of them can tell you who Undertow is.

In the file, it also looks like only the "real" event is needed for progression - it might be worth to try and keep playing if an agent got stuck, this is only going to be a problem if it is really Undertow.

Finally, CFG is aware of this problem and working on a fix.

[nephilimnexus]

In one game I played, it turned out that Lamster was Undertow.

[Daminotaur]

Dang, I have the problem with Undertow... Mine is the agent that failed the polygraph, but he was in the middle of training... So he went MIA after failing the polygraph, but somehow showed up in my base when he finished his training... I brainwashed him and continue using him...

I guess my campaign is now bugged...

Unfortunately, I am playing on IRONMAN... I would have to restart the whole campaign then...

[Raider_1001]

I play through the campaign twice and undertow is always the one with the disease.

The ploy-graph test decision chain will end up with an agent turned out to be a human organ harvester, but not a traitor. If you forgive the agent you get a cash bonus, or you can kill the agent on ethical grounds.

The wife decision chain will end up with the agent turned out to be innocent because the wife has mental/drinking problems, although if you drugged the wife to coma during interrogations the impacted agent will defect to beholder to spite you.

[LordRedStone]

Originally posted by Raider_1001:

I play through the campaign twice and undertow is always the one with the disease.

Again, that is not true.
You just got (un?)lucky. (The probability to get the same event twice is 1/3, the probability for exactly this event twice is 1/9. )

Look at the mod files: DT_SidestoryEvents.csv, lines 151 to 204 describe the three different sidestory events.
cs9_sse1 is the wife storyline,
cs9_sse2 is the disease storyline,
cs9_sse3 is the polygraph storyline.
All of them have an _u option, which means that Undertow is found in this storyline.

Futhermore, in [SteamPath]\steamapps\common\PhantomDoctrine\IWTB\Content\Data\Design\StrategicLogic\Campaign09.xml you can see how these events appear in the campaign. From line 208 onwards there is a random switch with 9 options which chooses 3 timers that start the sidestories after a certain time. The order of the three storylines is randomized, and also which events are red herrings and which one reveals Undertow.

[Duk of Deth]

Undertow is always random. If you think you're stuck, verify your game files. I have put in over eight hundred hours and never once got stuck; usually I'm dragging it out in order to get everyone all trained up. I've never had undertow revealed by way of the drunk spouse, though.

[Siro]

Hi, it seems I'm stuck in this situation, but the problem is that I haven't made several savegames...

Does someone know if there's a way to edit the savegame and maybe to change a value for activating the next chapter?

Originally posted by laurence_smith:

If you think you're stuck, verify your game files.

What do you mean by that? how do you verify your game files?

[LordRedStone]

I don't think verifying your files with Steam would help. The game itself works correctly, it's just the save that was messed up.
If you're already stuck in the chapter (all three missions played out without finding Undertow), then changing the campaign code most likely won't work.

Your best bet would probably finding someone who can edit your save. That in itself will be hard because ownership and support of the game right now is very unclear.

[Siro]

Thanks for the quick answer.
Indeed verifying the game's integrity should not help.
I was not looking for someone to edit the savegame but more for a tool or an explanation how to do it. But I should not keep much hope for that, the game's probably not popular enough for that someone has invested time into that...

I suppose I have to accept the hard reality and start a new campaign...

[LordRedStone]

Originally posted by Sirodepom:

I suppose I have to accept the hard reality and start a new campaign...

Keep the old file around just in case. In the community I haven't seen a save file editor, but if it's a regular UE Save, maybe there is a way.

The best way would be to write to the support of Good Shepherd Entertainment, they might have the tools or at least give clarity on who's responsble.

[Siro]

Well I decided to start a new campaign. Now I'm in chapter 3 at the moment it asks to upgrade Mk Ultra, but I already did it.
So nothing triggers and I'm stuck again. This game is really too broken, I give it up!