The Save File Companion III

[OrionSR]

The purpose of this topic is to solicit guidance and share discoveries with the players of GTA III. I'm working on a project to document the save file structure of GTA III. The project is going remarkably well but I am frequently running into problems because I haven't played this game in years and barely remember anything. I plan to play the game eventually to get the nitty-gritty measurements I need, but it would really help if you would point me in the right direction. For the most part I don't need normal new play type answers. It's more like trying to explain something to someone who can't see. Please paint a picture that describes this re-occurring pattern of hex digits so I can make some guesses about what the numbers might be so I have a starting point to begin testing.

 

The current questions:

 

What is the 5th immunity? The docs suggest melee-proof but it doesn't work. The good money at this point is that it is unused.

 

Where are the cranes?

 

We've got the EV crane and crusher cranes isolated. The save suggests one more magnet object like those but the script don't seem to activate it, unless the 3rd magnet crane is really the same ev crane but this time goes the other way.

 

The other three cranes don't seem to do anything but rotate. I think these might be near the ev crane but I don't know how many. Most objects in GTA III seem to be static, they don't move, so anything that does might be important.

 

Do the crane magnets always rotate the vehicles in a predictable direction? Like, if you park it backward does it end up pointing the same direction in the end anyway?

 

What's the story on the crusher crane anyway. Anything other than put a car in and get some cash? Is it required for 100%? Do you get a prize for crushing stuff that's not mission related? The ev crane kept track of which vehicles were collected and we found where that info is stored. Does the crusher crane seem to remember anything?

 

New question: Does the crusher glitch work on the limited selection of vehicles at the EV crane?

Edited January 17, 2015 by OrionSR

[thehambone]

You should clarify what the "5th immunity" is referring to. (I know what you're referring to but others may not )

For those who don't know, the "5th immunity" is an additional vehicle immunity that exists in the game. The other four immunities are bulletproof, fireproof, explosion-proof, and collision-proof. So far, we've been unable to pinpoint what "proof" the 5th immunity represents, as it seems to have no effect in-game. The main game script suggests that several cars contain this 5th immunity. Below is a list of some of the "proofed" vehicles derived from the game's main script. Each number represents a different proof.

 

# model    BP FP EP CP ??  mission appearancesecurica,  1  1  0  0  1,  Van Heist stretch,   1  1  1  1  1,  Salvatores Called A Meetingtrash,     1  1  0  0  1,  Blow Fishcheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismocheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismo cheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismorhino,     1  0  0  0  0,  Arms Shortagebarracks,  1  0  0  0  0,  Arms Shortagebobcat,    1  1  1  0  1,  Evidence Dashpatriot,   1  0  0  0  0,  Marked Mansecurica,  0  0  1  0  0,  Escort Service

--------------

How many cranes and magnets are you expecting there to be? I know of 3 magnets: the crusher magnet, the EV magnet, and this other one that hangs out near the EV crane but doesn't pick up any cars. I know of 6 moving cranes (physical cranes, not just magnets): the crusher crane, 2 cranes at NE corner of Portland Harbor, 1 crane just south of EV magnet, and 2 GIANT cranes that tower over Portland Harbor (you can only see these moving from afar as the models don't load when you're near them for some reason). I'll post some photos of the cranes.

 

AFAIK, the crusher only gives cash to the player for "delivering" a car. It does not keep a record of cars crushed. It does, however, increment the "Cars crushed" stat each time a car is crushed. Crushing cars is not required for 100% completion, though there are 1 or 2 missions that require you to crush a car.

 

I believe the crusher glitch works with any car, as long as you can enter the car after the Taxi mission has been activated. You do understand how the crusher glitch is performed, right?

 

EDIT: Here are some crane and magnet pics:

Magnets:

 

Crusher magnet:

 

EV magnet:

 

3rd magnet:

 

 

Cranes:

 

Crusher crane:

 

Cranes in NE Portland Harbor:

 

Crane south of EV magnet:

 

Giant cranes:

 

Giant cranes (up close):

 

 

Crane Rotation:

 

 

 

 

 

Magnets don't appear to be attached to cranes. It's hard to tell though; the crusher crane and magnet move in unison, though I think the game may just be set up to make it appear as if the crane and magnet are attached, when in reality, they're two separate sets of movement coordinates. I could be wrong though. My reasoning for this is the fact that you don't see moving cranes for the EV and 3rd magnets. They could be the giant cranes, though it's very hard to tell since the part of the crane that actually moves is invisible when viewed from inside Portland Harbor.

 

For the crusher crane at least, the game appears to try to make the crane do the least possible rotation in order to get the car parallel with the crusher.

Edited January 17, 2015 by thehambone

[OrionSR]

Is there a change to that extra magnet near the ev crane after the ev vehicles are exported?

 

The question about the ev crane making DP vehicles goes to same or different - I'm not worried about the car.

 

And sorry, I was in a hurry. Please fill us in on the 5th immunity, I've got work in the morning and need to go to bed.

[Lethal Vaccine]

AFAIK, the crusher only gives cash to the player for "delivering" a car. It does not keep a record of cars crushed. It does, however, increment the "Cars crushed" stat each time a car is crushed. Crushing cars is not required for 100% completion, though there are 1 or 2 missions that require you to crush a car.

 

I believe the crusher glitch works with any car, as long as you can enter the car after the Taxi mission has been activated. You do understand how the crusher glitch is performed, right?

 

Correct. In the Stats when you hit Pause it keeps track of how many cars are crushed, but it does not tell WHICH cars were crushed.

 

I think there is only 1 Mission in III that uses the Crusher. It's "Dead Skunk in the Trunk." But beware, that this Vehicle you take to the Crusher is Unique and the only one in the Game. It's the Corpse Manana which has blood on the back near the trunk and a dead body in the back. It can be saved...

 

Incorrect. The Crusher does NOT work with EVERY Vehicle. For instance, I got the BP/FP Securicar and soon the BP/FP Trashmaster. The Crusher will NOT work with these Vehicles. You can NOT make them BP/DP/FP. But here is the crazy thing, the BP Barracks OL can be converted into BP/DP. The Crusher does NOT work with LARGE Vehicles, with the exception of the Barracks OL.

[fnxrak]

I wonder another thing in III, both garages in Shoreside Vale and Staunton Island can store up to 6 vehicles, why does portland only store 1 and I mean even if you can make 2 cars fit, I ask because I did it once can remember which cars though LOLOLOL and no, all other garages don't store 7 vehicles I also tried.

By the way also found out that the max ammount of money is the maximum positive value in 32 bits, 2.147.483.647 the same as in GTA V

Also the max amount of ammo should be 99.999, I haven't reached thsi in the grenades or molotovs but ASAP I will and onfirm it

Edited January 17, 2015 by fnxrak

[Lethal Vaccine]

I stored a Banshee and Manana in Portland. They fit right next to each other side by side, but one is always deleted if you try it. WildBrick142 has put a Vehicle inside Portland and another ON TOP of the first Vehicle, but it also disappeared. Supposedly Portland holds 6, just like SI and SSV, but it's impossible, even 2 is impossible it seems. Cuz if 2 could fit in Portland, we'd be able to store 14 Vehicles in III and not 13.

[what's my name]

Yeah six max vehicles can be store and if you try add more it'll dissapear even the space is fit up to two more cars with ease.

 

[Lethal Vaccine]

Idk if I will do 6 in SI. I know I can do 5 easily, though, and 6 in SSV easily and obviously one in Portland, but having a 13th Vehicle seems semi tricky. The one I will NOT be obtaining is the EP/EC Securicar since it's harder on PS2 than PC and also the BP/FP Securicar is better, which I have already. Also the EC Securicar is easy to get, but I can't fit it I don't think. I mean I can, but it's too tedious and annoying

[what's my name]

I'm not using vigilante glitch to get ep ec securicar cuz the trick make my game crash...i'm get it with using dp barrack ol .

[Lethal Vaccine]

You're on PC? It works on PC...Not PS2. I am playing the PS2 disc, so that Vehicle is completely unobtainable with that silly replay PC only method...I gotta also use the BP/DP Barracks OL to get it, but I can't. Garage Space problems...

 

I already currently have 8 Vehicles. The others I need now is the BP/DP Barracks OL, AP Bobcat, and BP/DP Patriot, all of which I will have tomorrow. The last, 12th Vehicle I need is the AP Cheetah, which I will get after 100% like I normally do just to make it easier with Garage Space.

[thehambone]

Is there a change to that extra magnet near the ev crane after the ev vehicles are exported?

Not that I'm aware of, though I did notice that the magnet's movement is slightly different in my 100% save than in my fresh save; it was moving mostly over the water instead of over land like in the picture I posted above. I think the movement slowly changes over time.

 

 

 

AFAIK, the crusher only gives cash to the player for "delivering" a car. It does not keep a record of cars crushed. It does, however, increment the "Cars crushed" stat each time a car is crushed. Crushing cars is not required for 100% completion, though there are 1 or 2 missions that require you to crush a car.

 

I believe the crusher glitch works with any car, as long as you can enter the car after the Taxi mission has been activated. You do understand how the crusher glitch is performed, right?

Incorrect. The Crusher does NOT work with EVERY Vehicle. For instance, I got the BP/FP Securicar and soon the BP/FP Trashmaster. The Crusher will NOT work with these Vehicles. You can NOT make them BP/DP/FP. But here is the crazy thing, the BP Barracks OL can be converted into BP/DP. The Crusher does NOT work with LARGE Vehicles, with the exception of the Barracks OL.

 

Thanks for the clarification!

 

 

I wonder another thing in III, both garages in Shoreside Vale and Staunton Island can store up to 6 vehicles, why does portland only store 1 and I mean even if you can make 2 cars fit, I ask because I did it once can remember which cars though LOLOLOL and no, all other garages don't store 7 vehicles I also tried.

I stored a Banshee and Manana in Portland. They fit right next to each other side by side, but one is always deleted if you try it. WildBrick142 has put a Vehicle inside Portland and another ON TOP of the first Vehicle, but it also disappeared. Supposedly Portland holds 6, just like SI and SSV, but it's impossible, even 2 is impossible it seems. Cuz if 2 could fit in Portland, we'd be able to store 14 Vehicles in III and not 13.

You're right, all 3 garages have 6 slots available. I've confirmed this with the research I've done on the save files. Portland's garage is restricted to 1 car because of its garage type (each of the 3 garages is a different garage "type", see this article). If you change the Portland garage's type, it'll be able to accept more cars. However doing so interferes with other garages that share the same type.

Here, I changed the Portland garage's type to that of the Shoreside Vale garage. As you can see, I was able to get 3 cars inside:

 

I used a car spawn script that I made to get that Kuruma on top.

The garage had no problem opening for more than one car and saving those 3 cars. However, since the Portland garage and Shoreside garage were sharing the same garage type, doing this overwrote the cars stored in the Shoreside garage.

 

 

By the way also found out that the max ammount of money is the maximum positive value in 32 bits, 2.147.483.647 the same as in GTA V

That's absolutely right! The game's max money value is equal to the max value of a 32-bit signed int, which means you can have negative money as well! Edited January 17, 2015 by thehambone

[Lethal Vaccine]

New question: Does the crusher glitch work on the limited selection of vehicles at the EV crane?

 

By that, do you mean make them into a Ghost and DP once put into the Garage? Well, it might, but I am not sure. It'd surely work on the Police Car, Ambulance, FBI Kuruma, and Barracks OL. But not the Fire Truck (too big) and Tank (too big). I am not sure about the Enforcer, either, since Vehicles like the Trashmaster and Securicar won't work. Enforcer appears to be even larger than the Securicar and just as massive as a Trashmaster in overall size.

 

I would like to know what exactly the Crusher is doing to make them into a Ghost and them into DP once put in a Garage. That's an insane discovery and one of the best glitches in GTA History. Adding DP is the best thing ever. If it wasn't for the Crusher Glitch, GTA III would only have ONE AP Vehicle in the entire Game, the AP/EC Stretch from "Salvatore's Called a Metting." But since we have the Crusher Glitch, the BP/EP/FP Bobcat and BP/EP/FP Cheetah can be converted into AP since the Crusher Glitch, unlike Gray Imports in SA, does NOT delete other properties from the vehicles. Crusher Glitch is the best! Not to mention DP is my favorite property out of them all, then BP, then EP, and then FP. But the BEST is H/DP Vehicles in LCS!

Edited January 19, 2015 by Militia

[OrionSR]

 

It'd surely work on the Police Car,

Someone please prove this in game.

 

 

I would like to know what exactly the Crusher is doing to make them into a Ghost and them into DP once put in a Garage.

Don't lose track of this question. How it works is probably not something I can answer without learning IDA. It's buried in the executable.

Edited January 19, 2015 by OrionSR

[Lethal Vaccine]

I "kinda" did. When I was doing my Starter Save and was ready to do 100 Taxi Fares, I wanted to do them in a row without stopping. What better way than to have a DP Taxi while doing it, right? Well I did this and it worked. Then I thought to myself, I should try it to the Police Car, too and do 20 Vigilante Kills in Portland with a DP Police Car. But I ran into a problem. When I got a Taxi to trigger the Taxi Mission inside the Police Car, the game got glitchy and was doing Taxi AND Vigilante at the SAME time. But it works, you just have to trigger Taxi at the proper time, cuz sometimes it won't trigger and only Vigilante will trigger, then.

[fnxrak]

Yeah it's too glitchy to either do vigilante or even the paramedic missions that way.

Besides doesn't the vigilante on GTA III add health to the police car everytime you kill a suspect like in other games?

If I remember correctly San Andreas had this and also when I did the vigilante this time the car took quite some damage so I believe a similar thing happens in III as well

And yes it does work an easy way to try it is for example using Misty as passenger in th efirst mission Luigi's Girls

[HeroBrineR007]

Yeah it's too glitchy to either do vigilante or even the paramedic missions that way.

Besides doesn't the vigilante on GTA III add health to the police car everytime you kill a suspect like in other games?

If I remember correctly San Andreas had this and also when I did the vigilante this time the car took quite some damage so I believe a similar thing happens in III as well

And yes it does work an easy way to try it is for example using Misty as passenger in th efirst mission Luigi's Girls

Happens for all R3 missions. My Ambulance was spitting out black smoke, and on the next level it became white

[Lethal Vaccine]

Yeah, when you drop patients off or kill a suspect, etc, it adds health to the Vehicle. III, VC, SA, LCS, and VCS are like that.

[HeroBrineR007]

Yeah, when you drop patients off or kill a suspect, etc, it adds health to the Vehicle. III, VC, SA, LCS, and VCS are like that.

Yeah. I noticed that while getting money in VC. I was on level 160 Vigilante i believe in a Hunter when i stopped and shot a few rockets at it. It only exploded after around 15 rockets or so.

[Pyrrhic]

Anyone have a save with a fifth immunity car saved in a garage? I'm interested in determining what exactly it is.

[thehambone]

Not at the moment, but I can make one for you in an hour or so.

[OrionSR]

I suggest two saves, identical except for the change of that immunity flag.

 

(Maybe red vs blue in the title, just for fun. I usually rename test saves anyway to help avoid confusion.)

Edited January 22, 2015 by OrionSR

[thehambone]

Here are both saves. I even used colors Orion had suggested! The saves are also titled so you know which one has the car with he immunity and which one doesn't. They are fresh gamesaves. Identical except for the titles and car immunity flag.

 

http://gtasnp.com/45753

http://gtasnp.com/45754

Edited January 22, 2015 by thehambone

[Pyrrhic]

Here are both saves. I even used colors Orion had suggested! The saves are also titled so you know which one has the car with he immunity and which one doesn't. They are fresh gamesaves. Identical except for the titles and car immunity flag.

 

http://gtasnp.com/45753

http://gtasnp.com/45754

 

Thanks, I'll try having a play around with it tomorrow.

Edited January 22, 2015 by Linc.

[Lethal Vaccine]

I think like OrionSR has said already, it's an "un-used" property. GTA III is so primitive. What could harm a Vehicle besides bullets, crashing, explosions, and molotovs/flamethrowers? Absolutely nothing.

 

And it's certainly not H, MP, TP, WP, PP, or UH.

[OrionSR]

It's not too often the players get a chance to teach the modders how the game works so it's not a complete waste of time to bash the car about just to see what happens. But I'm afraid that proving that the 5th immunity does nothing without testing the undefined everything else is an impossible task for a player. I think I need to turn this issue back to the exe divers. Something or nothing might be a question they can answer.

[Pyrrhic]

It is a shame that there is nothing internally that can tell us what this fifth immunity does. Unfortunately as Militia said, I can't really find anything that the car was proofed for or resistant to either. I'd love to search around inside the game but like most people I have no experience with programming or modding. I'm sure there'd be someone out there that can tell us something that we don't know, even if the immunity itself isn't actually active but present within the files.

[Sentrion]

I think there is only 1 Mission in III that uses the Crusher. It's "Dead Skunk in the Trunk." But beware, that this Vehicle you take to the Crusher is Unique and the only one in the Game. It's the Corpse Manana which has blood on the back near the trunk and a dead body in the back. It can be saved...

Marty Chonks Mission, "The Crook" has the objective of Crushing the Vehicle too. After the banker is killed, Marty wants Claude to go crush the evidence/car. Claude drives up to Harwood and goes to the Autocrusher, where the car is destroyed.

[Lethal Vaccine]

...Yeah, I forgot those! It's true, though. 1 or 2 of Marty Chonk's Missions do indeed require the use of the Crusher. Not sure why you NEED to use it. I'd imagine I can just destroy my car via ditching it into the water or also blowing it up with weapons or crashing it until it catches fire, etc, etc...I never tried it any other method since it tells you to crush the car...

[Andreaz1]

You should clarify what the "5th immunity" is referring to. (I know what you're referring to but others may not )

For those who don't know, the "5th immunity" is an additional vehicle immunity that exists in the game. The other four immunities are bulletproof, fireproof, explosion-proof, and collision-proof. So far, we've been unable to pinpoint what "proof" the 5th immunity represents, as it seems to have no effect in-game. The main game script suggests that several cars contain this 5th immunity. Below is a list of some of the "proofed" vehicles derived from the game's main script. Each number represents a different proof.

# model    BP FP EP CP ??  mission appearancesecurica,  1  1  0  0  1,  Van Heist stretch,   1  1  1  1  1,  Salvatores Called A Meetingtrash,     1  1  0  0  1,  Blow Fishcheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismocheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismo cheetah,   1  1  1  0  1,  Turismorhino,     1  0  0  0  0,  Arms Shortagebarracks,  1  0  0  0  0,  Arms Shortagebobcat,    1  1  1  0  1,  Evidence Dashpatriot,   1  0  0  0  0,  Marked Mansecurica,  0  0  1  0  0,  Escort Service

 

Is it the proofing that keps the car from exploding when turned upside down? I'm pretty sure the Bobcat from Evidence Dash has that immunity.

[Lethal Vaccine]

Tip Proof is gone once put in a Garage. It's been covered already in a couple topics...

 

The BP/EP/FP Bobcat and BP/EP/FP Cheetah are both TP, as well, but it's gone once it's put into a Garage. Also, the Fire Truck Side Mission Vehicles are also TP. But it's not a property that can be saved in III. These "other" properties only exist and can be saved in LCS and VCS. No other GTA Game has it as a saveable property...

Edited January 24, 2015 by Militia