Stuck in TC Pearle Ship-scan Mission

oddible · Post by **oddible** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 09:35

I'm in the Terran Conflict: Split Espionage and Sabotage mission.

I had Capt. Pearle in a TP but was having trouble so went to get a bigger more powerful ship (M6). I swapped him in the cargo but now when I scan the ships nothing happens and no new ships are offered. I tried putting him back in the first ship, I tried dumping him out in space (which gave me a new mission alert - Pick up Capt. Pearle, however when I get him back in my ship it never registers that I've got him and is stuck on the 'Pick up Capt. Pearle'. The resolution here (http://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq_ ... &version=9) didn't solve the problem.

Sadly I was doing a bunch of docking to try things and I don't have a save from before I swapped him between ships (well I do but it was from days ago).

Any way to resolve this?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 11:53

Here are some extracts from 2 plot guides. I assume you have dropped all the satellites OK. Which bit exactly is not working (before you dumped Pearle in space)?

Spoiler

Show

Spychotic: "He soon spots some unusual activity in Family Zyarth; some Terraformer ships that didn’t enter the sector by gate. They quickly jump out. Move back there. Pearle, having a Sherlock Holmes moment, comes up with a brilliant idea; if the Terraformers are being manufactured in Family Zyarth and they have jumpdrives, then we can trace freighters with jumpdrive components to find the factory. This idea isn’t so brilliant for the poor sod who has to do the scanning, though. The ships are highlighted as before, in a separate section on the gravidar."

Apricotslice: "Now wait for Pearle to call you. After a bit (10 game minutes or so), he does, and its back to Family Zyarth. In the special section of the nav, you will get 4 freighters to scan. Do each one. One of them turns red, so ever so gently attack it since we want to capture it. If your lucky, he will bail as soon as the hull gets touched, but if your unlucky he will bail when there is orange peel left and the last bullet you fire will kill the ship. If that happens, there is a laugh over the intercom and an assurance that another ship will come along. Better to reload and do it again."

pr0nflakes · Post by **pr0nflakes** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 14:49

It's been i while since i played TC but i remember the same thing happening to me, I think i remember flying up to the station i had to take him too and dumping him in space. He then docks himself in his space suit.

Like i say it's been a while so i can't say for sure but its worth a shot if you still need a fix.

oddible · Post by **oddible** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 18:55

Here's exactly where I am stuck:

Spoiler

Show

I'm in Family Zyarth with Pearle in my ship. 3 transports have appeared, I scan all 3 and on the 3rd one Pearle says that's the one and I should shoot him and take the ship. The first time I did it I didn't have any weapons and the ship jumped away. He says, that's ok more will come. So I go to jump in a freight ship that has a bunch of mosquitos and load them onto my ship. I notice 3 new transports have appeared (in the top mission section of the sector map again), so I scan them and on the 3rd one again he says that's the one, shoot it. I shoot it with missiles to try to get it low but my joystick config is dumb and I let it get away again. So I jump in my new M6 and transfer Pearle over to the M6 using the Transfer Freight option. The M6 is new though so I jump in a couple other supply freighters and have some docking / undocking to try stuff while I'm getting it set up (enough docking / undockings that I overwrite the auto save before I transfered Pearle).

Now I go out and scan the freighters but nothing happens - no announcement that one of them is the one. Then no announcement that more will come. Then no more spawn.

At this point I try everything. I put him back in the original ship and try it, nothing. I eject him into space, this gets the Mission Change "go pick up Pearle" which I do but it doesn't register and now the mission is stuck on "go pick up Pearle".

I'm frankly baffled that the game doesn't have a way to reset a borked missions. The abandon button is greyed out.

I used Ketraar's Plot Reset mod to reset it but now my game is **modified**

so I won't get my achievements or be able to use stats. Of all the problems with this game, mostly UI, the lack of attention to this basic UX heuristic - being able to back out of a stuck situation - is the most problematic. Combined with the fact that the game makes auto saves a breeze, I got into an irreversible situation.

TTD · Post by **TTD** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 22:32

Hope you have a saved game from before you started this piece.

oddible · Post by **oddible** » Mon, 28. Apr 14, 23:08

TTD wrote:Hope you have a saved game from before you started this piece.

Probably 30 hours of gameplay back. Not worth it. Using this sh*tty game mechanics failure to just bite the bullet and go **modified** and fix several of the other crappy ui implementation issues.