Operation: Anchorage bugs

A bug is an in-game software malfunction that impacts visuals or gameplay in Operation: Anchorage.

General bugs

 * Game of the Year Edition: Upon receiving the radio signal, the quest and marker will not appear in the Pip-Boy unless you proceed to the Outcast outpost, however, the Outcast outpost does not appear as a marker on the map. Upon arriving, the quest and map marker appear. However, if you reload a save at any point that you've saved in that area or the simulation, your character is loaded at the Vault 101 entrance with no record of Anchorage in the Pip-Boy in addition to the character not having a weapon in their hand.
 * Power armored soldiers will attack you during the fight with Jingwei.
 * Looking into the G.E.C.K. reveals that the power armored soldiers being hostile is due to the "PlayerFaction" faction being a friend of the Chinese "DLC02ChineseEndBattleFaction" while having no relation set (neutral) to the American "DLC02AmericanEndBattleFaction" faction for the ending sequence. Thus, because the American soldiers are hostile to the Chinese, they also consider the neutral player, who is friendly with the Chinese, to be hostile. This may be triggered by accidentally attacking or injuring the soldiers, for example a stray bullet or grenade.
 * If you enter V.A.T.S. after killing Jingwei and try to shoot anyone while leaving the simulation, you will become stuck in the Simulation Pod with half the screen showing the Simulation Pod and the other half showing the battlefield. You must reload your last save to get out of this problem.
 * Before confronting Jingwei the player character may become stuck, resulting in a non-hostile Jingwei. In this instance, the battle between the Chinese soldiers and the power armor equipped American soldiers will continue.
 * Most glitches that do not let you complete the Anchorage simulation can be fixed with the console command  which will automatically end the simulation and bring you back to the outpost. Doing this may result in retention of Anchorage equipment.
 * If you punch the female doctor in the tent with the wounded soldiers, everyone in the camp will try to kill the doctor, even the wounded. Since she cannot be killed, this results in an endless cycle of her being knocked down and getting back up.
 * If you jump over a ledge after completing The Guns of Anchorage and begin to teleport to the HQ, the game will freeze, and you will be forced to load your last save.
 * If you enter the Chinese Compound at the same time as one of the power armored soldiers, sometimes you will get stuck in mid-air not being able to move. In this case you will still experience the dialogue with Jingwei, but neither of you will be able to move resulting in one of the soldiers killing him.
 * In some cases, this glitch will trap you in the cinematic mode, and Jingwei's dialogue will not start. Neither of you will be able to move and you must wait for one of the soldiers to kill him or quit the game and reload from the main menu. If you load from the menu, Jingwei's dialogue should commence.
 * If you jump off the edge of the cliffs right after rejoining Sergeant Montgomery, you will teleport into the room you just left. You will be unable exit because of an unusable door, and will have to load a previous save. DO NOT try to exit the cave by going towards the beginning. The game will autosave and then teleport you back into the cave, forcing you to load your last manual save (which could be in the Outcast base)
 * Because items do not deteriorate in the simulation, shooting an enemy's weapon won't have any effect. If the weapon is directly hit by a missile launcher or any other explosive, the enemy will just take splash damage which is usually minimal.
 * Freezing and a slow frame rate are a very common occurrence after the Guns of Anchorage quest. Shutting down and rebooting should temporarily rectify this. These glitches are noticeable immediately after leaving the General's command tent and are usually preceded by an unusually long loading time. Shutting down during loading may corrupt data so it is best to wait until loading completes and autosaves. It will then be safe to reboot. Quitting the game, going into the Game Data menu and deleting the game's data (clearing the cache) can also help to reduce slowdown.
 * While clearing the listening outpost there is the chance that you will not be able to clear the outpost even after eliminating all of the Chinese. Your objective will be to talk to Sergeant Montgomery, which cannot be done because you are stuck in the process of an objective which disables the Sergeant's dialogue menu.
 * Completion of the simulation may result in the armory door breaking. To fix this, simply save and restart your game.

Mapping bugs

 * In the building full of super mutants, before you enter the Outcast outpost, you can enter the second floor and exit the game area. After you cross two makeshift wooden bridges, turn left toward the staircase. There is a bookshelf and a vacuum cleaner near the stairs to the left. Stack some books on top of the shelf to get the height needed to access the second floor. Jump there, and then go to the northwest corner and jump down through the broken wall to exit the map. You can later reenter the area through Bailey's Crossroads Metro Station.
 * Before you cross the bridge to reach the second "Field Storage", head up the stairs and jump onto the rocks nearby. If you follow them along you will find footholds in the cliff for jumping higher up it. After climbing for a short time you will reach a hole in the cliff allowing you to go behind the stone.
 * You can climb onto the top of the mountains by jumping up to the left of the second "Field Storage" door and then making your way up and right, passing over the Field Storage door, though it is difficult. From here you can reach most of the geometry in the cliffs part of the level, including the distant plain and mountains and the bottom of the ravine. If you walk all the way back to the start of the level, on top of the mountains on the other side of the ravine, you can see your parachute stuck in some trees on top of the mountain above the level start. There is no known way of getting there; it is the highest mountain in the level and all of the approaches to the peak are apparently too steep to scale. There is also a "Chinese Radio Beacon" radio station centered in some trees near where the ravine meets the outer plain, but nothing can be found there.
 * After reaching the U.S. Army field headquarters at the beginning of the second section of the operation, it is possible to get behind the force field and walk freely around the open landscape. You are able to walk on almost all ground. It is also possible to complete the second section of the operation without firing your weapon by simply walking along the pipeline all the way to the Chinese HQ and activating the door from the inside. Doing this will bypass the other mission objectives so you will not receive the "Paving the Way" achievement, but you will receive the other three.
 * Upon entering the Chimera compound, the wall to the right hand side is climbable through a series of jumps and by sticking as close to the wall as possible. Once you reach the top you can walk through the force field and explore freely.
 * After completing the add-on using the "Gary 23 glitch," areas of the northern Capital Wasteland, predominantly the area between MDPL-13 power station and Greener Pastures disposal site, will have major texture issues. It appears that the game has loaded the models for Anchorage's simulated distant mountains while in the Capital Wasteland. The mountains are hollow, but can impair your vision. This can be fixed by shutting down your system for roughly 2 hours and allowing it to cool down.
 * On occasion, when leaving the simulation, the game's artwork/graphics will be tunneling and forming lines on the screen. It can be fixed by leaving the Outcast outpost.

Item bugs

 * The simulation contains special decorative copies of certain items, such as scrap metal, that cannot be picked up. In a few cases, however, the developers mistakenly used the Wasteland versions of some items. The result is that three scrap metals in the Listening Post can be picked up. There is also a medical clipboard that can be picked up in the bunker on the roof of the Listening Post.
 * The quartermaster states that the player may only change their gear loadout once. Dropping gear however will allow the player to have another gear loadout e.g. infantry and heavy weapons.
 * Sometimes when wearing the Chinese stealth armor, the player's head will disappear and large black lines will obscure your vision in 3rd person mode. Taking the armor off and putting it back on will make the black lines smaller, but the player's head will not reappear.

Miscellaneous bugs

 * Follower death. Leave followers behind at your house before starting this quest or they could be killed, as the game does not permit followers inside the Outcast outpost. Also, sometimes all of the items a follower was carrying disappear after exiting the Outcasts' bunker upon completion of the simulation.
 * When in the simulation, placing a marker on the new "world map" may in fact cause your compass to direct you to a different, unrelated location. When opening your map again, you will see yourself moving away from the marker you placed, despite the on-screen compass suggesting you are approaching it.
 * Attempting to sit in a chair present in the simulation may leave you stuck standing up, and unable to do anything other than load a previous save. Attempting to move slightly (after the sitting animation would normally have completed) should return you to a first-person viewpoint, at which point you can save the game and immediately reload it to become unstuck.
 * At the Pulse Fields, several Winterized T-51b power armor soldiers, each wielding a Fat Man, are usually present. When they blow up the wall leading to General Jingwei, there will be radiation from the explosion. If you are being irradiated when entering the Chinese HQ, the Geiger counter sound may continue to play even after you exit the simulation. If this happens, reload your save right before the door to the Chinese HQ. If that does not fix the problem, leaving the Outcast outpost will.
 * When trying to re-enter the Outcast outpost after having completed the DLC quests, the lift may occasionally stop moving, trapping you in the elevator shaft. If this happens to you, try turning around and hitting the switch on the lift. When this works, you'll see the elevator doors close (on the already closed elevator doors, no less), and the lift will rise, sending you back out to Bailey's Crossroads. (You may have to reload the autosave for it to work.)
 * If the quest You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head is currently in progress, and you collect the winterized T-51b power armor from the Outcast outpost armory, then that quest will be automatically completed. Since the quest is complete, you can not continue or finish it. If you have not picked up any keys from the targets, then the keys may no longer be obtainable.
 * PC users can reset the quest using the  console command, and then speak to Crowley to re-add the quest.
 * The loading screen while leaving the Outcast outpost lift may freeze, forcing you to restart your console. This normally only happens to people running the game from the hard drive.
 * If you've downloaded The Pitt, the game may spontaneously "reset" your DLC: quest progress, DLC items, and DLC perks are all lost. Be wary of this, and reload your game ASAP.
 * Downloading Point Lookout may remove the ability to place explosive charges on the cannons in the quest The Guns of Anchorage, preventing you from finishing Operation: Anchorage.
 * If you have played through Broken Steel before starting Operation: Anchorage, upon exiting the simulation, certain things may be reset to before Broken Steel. The water outside Project Purity that is supposed to be pure is, once again, radioactive.
 * If you have started the quest Picking Up the Trail but have not finished it by the time you start Operation: Anchorage, then the quest may show up as completed when you report to General Chase after securing the Listening Post. The achievement is unlocked, the XP granted, and the quest shown as completed with the next quest (Finding the Garden of Eden) started, even though you may not have even found Little Lamplight yet.
 * If you go to the Mining Town, encounter the Chinese, but return to the American Camp without attacking them, then there is a chance that the Quartermaster, the soldiers outside the tents, and even the grease monkeys will head to the Mining Town and attack the Chinese, often killing them. After the Chinese are dead, they will all return to the American Camp (with the exception of your strike team) and resume what they were doing before they attacked the Mining Town.
 * Due to the complex landscape of the DLC territories, the Mysterious Stranger falling bug will happen more often than in the base game, and instead of the help you'll only get the "Mysterious Stranger is unconscious" message.
 * If you are killed in the fight with General Jingwei, the dialogue box with him will sometimes not appear when the game loads back up. You will have to quit your game and reload from the main menu to fix this. Alternatively, you can use the command console to kill General Jingwei and force the end cut scene.
 * If you reverse pickpocket a grenade to any Chinese enemy and kill him, you will lose Karma.
 * If you pickpocket a Chinese soldier you will lose Karma.
 * Audio may randomly vanish if you load a save of the simulation.
 * After completing the simulation, upon unlocking the armory for the Outcasts, you are told you can take what you want. Strangely some items seem to trigger hostile NPCs as if you have stolen from them. I have been unable to find what caused this bug, nor a way around it, but by simply leaving via the elevator, once back in the wasteland the hostility stops straight away.