masterhand

I happen to be playing the Mac 5-pack GOG version.

Nim that's interesting your script file is written like that because that's exactly the change I had to splice into my script files to fix the bug. Mine is just like that except the clear_zone(39) is simply missing.

Also the bugfix was listed as being in the Mac version and not the PC version at least on that page I quoted, but I'm actually playing on Mac and you're playing on PC. It's odd.

At least that confirms I had the right idea!

Yeah, pretty sure it's impossible. It's a bug. I looked through the script files - interestingly, nowhere in the script files is the command given to clear the North Mines - it's given for the other three, but not North Mines.

If you look at how the zones are numbered, the hint book has it like this:

38: Eastern; 39: Core; 40: Northern; 41: Western

In terms of the script file numbering (and the numbering of most of the code):

37: Eastern; 38: Core; 39: Northern; 40: Western

To clear a zone, the script uses a function clear_zone, so to clear Eastern Mines for example:

clear_zone(37)

Each of the four files associated with mine zones that use this command, call it for 37, 38, and 40. This is unusual, most zones call "clear_zone(ME)" to clear themselves. The mine zones clear each other all at once. But 39 (Northern Mines) is never listed anywhere, and there's no clear_zone(ME) in any of the Northern Mines script files either.

http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/geneforge/techsupp.html

It says there for 1.02 bugfixes: "Can now clear the northern mines and inner crypt."

So what happened?

So, I read a few things about this. Looked at these threads:

G1 - All mines areas stay red

http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/16293-g1-all-mine-areas-stay-marked-red/

Can't clear Northern Mines in Geneforge 1

http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/14076-cant-clear-northern-mines-in-geneforge-1/

I guess there was a patch at some point that on some level fixed this as a bug? I have 1.2 of course so that can't be it.

I have the Western Mines, Mine Core, and Eastern Mine cleared (green). As soon as I got the Servant Mind in the Mine Core going, all three of those turned green at once - I didn't have to reenter them or go back and forth between the Servant Mind and the other areas. However at this time I hadn't been to North Mines yet. After that no matter what I do I cannot activate the North Mines.

I tried turning the defenses on and off, even before I went inside the North Mines for the first time. I spent a long time wandering around the North Mines with the defenses off like that and then got out of there and nothing. I mean I was constantly going in and out of there and wandering around all over the place in there with the defenses off. I made sure I tried going all the way from the east side of the full Mines to the west side all at once after the fact. Didn't work.

What I did at first was, when I was trying to go to the east side of the island (more specifically, the southeast part with Kazg and the Rebel Sholai), I didn't want to encounter any Sholai if I had to either fight them or be dishonest with them, because I didn't want to cause any relationship problems by being hostile or dishonest before I got over there and figured out what was going on. So instead of taking Northbridge or Southbridge or the other Sholai-occupied bridges, I went way around to the north and busted my way through the fully defense-active mines. Obviously that's not what the game expects you to do, it's kind of backwards. Guessing I may have glitched it. Anybody know anything?