Mothership Zeta bugs

This page includes a list of .

Information
A bug is an in-game software malfunction that impacts visuals or gameplay.

Multiple platforms

 * Near the end of the first cutscene, the aliens may freeze, leaving the player stuck, unable to move or progress. One way to fix this is to reload a previous save. Restarting the device and/or game may also be required. It is also possible to use Dogmeat to find the Alien Blaster and ammo near the UFO. After receiving the special items, store all items in the player character's inventory to avoid the bug, and only take the Alien Blaster and ammo. Return to the UFO and it should work now. Note that Dogmeat is able to find up to 120 alien ammo, which may take multiple searches.
 * Reloading a save prior to the abduction scene may cause your character's left arm to turn blue.
 * On PS3, it has been reported that at the point where the cutscene usually freezes, everything will freeze except for the alien furthest from the player. This alien will continue to move while the rest of the screen, including the other 2 aliens, are frozen in place.
 * You can enable player controls using command.
 * If Somah or Paulson are missing, they can be recovered using multiple console commands: " (the character's reference iD),, and.
 * If Sally is also missing, then you can recover her by disabling the cells' force fields normally, and then using these console commands: and.
 * If you save the Cryo Lab's generator for last, you might not be able to use the teleporter. This will get you locked in the lab where you must freeze the aliens and Elliott's team, with no way back to Sally! Killing Elliott or restarting the game may fix the problem. Another thing you may be able to do, and has a very high chance of working is, turning on the pip-boy light.
 * If you open a container from its side while your back is against an immovable object, you may be pushed into the object or wall and become stuck even when the container is closed. Only console command (PC only) or reloading a save (PS3/Xbox 360) will fix this.
 * If you ask Sally, "Are there any cool secrets on the ship?" (her Child at Heart option) and then interrupt her as she climbs into the vent (near the closed door she opens to show you her stash), she will reset and run back to the engine core, leaving the room locked permanently.
 * The world map in the Pip-Boy 3000 sometimes incorrectly displays that you may be in any random indoor area, such as Megaton, the Citadel, Shalebridge or Tenpenny Tower, due to the world map's handling of location tags. "Orbiting Earth" cannot explain this, as the view of Earth from the ship never changes.
 * When you loot a fallen Guardian Drone, its drone cannon will not show the correct item image.
 * When the General Chase's overcoat in the garbage disposal area is taken and worn, it will use the wrong model and appear as a set of Winterized Combat Armor. If the Operation: Anchorage DLC is not installed, the clothing may use no texture or the wrong textures.
 * The accompanying holotape is also glitched; it does nothing when you attempt to listen to it.
 * There are three corpses in the Cryo Lab that are supposed to be frozen solid. Grabbing a corpse will cause it to go limp, however.
 * There have been times when looking down at the Earth just after the Space Walk, Earth's image will just become black.
 * When using the drone cannon in V.A.T.S., the shots are fired straight even though the projectiles have weight, making them fall to the ground usually before coming near the target.
 * If you still have allied drones following you from Robot Assembly when you enter the Space walk, they may reappear after the Space Walk on the other side of the door. They will constantly attempt to open the door, trying to get back to your side, causing a message that says "Room Must Be Pressurized" to pop up every few seconds (or more frequently). It will continue until you make it to the button to compress the chamber and the room becomes pressurized.
 * When shooting any chair, blood will come out.
 * Sometimes, turning off a force field will only turn it invisible. This is fixed by reloading your game (it's possible to save and then reload).
 * After defeating the first aliens in the cell at the beginning, Somah may keep fighting you to the death. Saving and reloading fixes this.
 * After the main quest, some respawning aliens can become allied with you.
 * Upon entering the Weapons Lab, it is possible that weapons will behave very abnormally. Weapons may fire on their own, rates of fire may change, or weapons may fail to produce projectiles. Reloading a save will not fix the bug; one must restart the game.
 * After completing Mothership Zeta, or after reloading a save during the abduction cutscene, your character may be bathed in a red or blue glow. This may be a result of a teleporter lighting effect continuing after you have teleported. Restarting the game seems to fix the problem, as does being set on fire or unequipping your armor.
 * If you started You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head after obtaining the winterized T-51b power armor, but before starting Mothership Zeta, then retrieving the armor after escaping your cell may automatically complete the quest. It should be noted that the bug stems from the armor itself—not the DLC.

PC

 * Firing the death ray at The Bridge on full blast may cause the game to go grayscale.
 * There are two invisible turrets (perhaps more) in the Living Quarters section. Though they do not attack, when you come within range your 'Hidden' status will change to 'Detected'. They can be destroyed through conventional fire or explosives if one pinpoints their location.
 * When receiving the objective to disable the Death ray, if you go into the Weapons lab, grab the Destabilizer, and test it on the Brahmin, then the quest may complete itself. Sometimes not even this is required, and the quest will just randomly be marked as complete.
 * During the This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough... quest, after activating the Engineering Core teleporter to bring Sally and any of the other surviving non-player characters up, and after being given the objective to "Disable the Death Ray" and/or "Make Your Way to the Bridge", these objectives may auto complete, moving you to the objective "Defeat the Alien Captain" without any interaction by the player. There does not appear to be a specific trigger for this happening and it may happen at any time without any notification given to the player that these objectives have been completed. This results in being unable to complete "Disable the Death Ray" quest and prevents you from entering the Living quarters area. Changing the active quest is a possible fix. Saving the game with the problematic objectives still incomplete on a frequent basis, and reloading your game if they auto complete without the players interaction does work as well, but is very tedious. Once these two objectives have been properly completed by the player, there does not appear to be any ill effects to any of the other objectives in this quest. Hopefully this problem will be addressed in a future patch. It may also be possible to use console command "movetoqt" to move the player to current quest target, although it is unknown if this has any other side effects.
 * After the Space walk in the "This Galaxy Isn't Big Enough…" quest: If the teleporter back to the Engine Room cannot be activated, use the following console command: where "xx" is an add-on specific ID. This command will advance the quest to the next stage and activate the teleporter.
 * When you go the Bridge to defeat the Alien Captain in the final mission, after Sally comes through the teleporter and opens the first door, all non-player characters (including Sally) may immediately return back through the teleporter and all stand at the door downstairs which is inaccessible, which means you cannot continue any further through the mission as you need Sally to open all the doors. To fix this, try talking to all of the non-player characters while Sally is away opening the first door. Then when the door is open, push Sally to the end of the doorway and she'll make her way to the second door instead of turning around and running away.
 * Sometimes all the company may become stuck or run into the wall at the right of the second door if Sally opened the first one.
 * In some cases, Sally won't open even the first door when you turn the teleporter on. All non-player characters including her will immediately teleport back to the engine core and run to inaccessible door. If that happens just hit the tilde key to open the console, click on the door to show the door code, write and hit enter. Do the same for the next door.
 * If the above options don't work, use the command to get through the door and finish the DLC.
 * The game may randomly crash whenever you equip the Drone cannon.
 * If you have RL-3 as a companion, when you leave Zeta he will be near the crash site. If you go into the building at Greener Pastures Disposal Site nearby, he will clone himself. If you tell him to wait, one of the two will become hostile and attack the other.
 * After the quest Among the Stars Sally will open the first door, but for the second door she will go on the opposite side of the door where vent is absent and just stand there after a while assuming the door is opened.
 * When you destroy the plasma shields you can take the plasma stuff that is there for a little but if you do it will freeze and crash the game.
 * If, somehow, Private Beckett and Sergeant Daniels make it alive in through the Cryo Lab and Cryo storage and follow you back to the Engineering core, they will attack Somah.
 * Some mods have tried to let you back to previous cells of the Zeta space ship once the quest is finished, but none have been reported to fully get you back without suffering crashes, bugs, and/or other problems.
 * When you defeat the alien captain and move into the space ship fight sequence, the Death ray may never become available. Reloading may fix this.
 * The door leading to the Bridge might become inaccessible if you enter the Waste Disposal area when you are supposed to go to the Bridge instead. This is easily fixed by using to walk through the door, or clicking on the door in the console and disabling it.

Xbox 360
Sometimes, when going through the barracks, Toshiro kago will appear as a hostile in the back room with a teleporter and multiple dead aliens. When interacting with him, you can talk to him once, then he will sit down, and it will state "Character is fleeing" instead of Toshiro shushing you.

When standing on the Bridge trying to shoot the other alien ship the character may randomly explode after a couple of seconds.
 * A number of issues, including texture bugs and crashes, may result from cache issues and can be fixed by clearing the cache. Occasionally, these bugs may also correct themselves over time.
 * Cache issues may cause the game to freeze when teleporting from the Bridge to the Engineering Core.
 * Cache issues may cause the game to freeze when teleporting from the Capital Wasteland to the Bridge while over-encumbered.
 * Cache issues may occasionally cause some characters' foreheads to become invisible after accessing the Bridge. The glitch seems to affect Elliott and Somah more than other characters.
 * Portions of the Earth's surface may become invisible after destroying the attacking alien ship. Clearing the cache seems to fix this.
 * Certain teleporters may stop working. Reloading a previous save, creating a new save and reloading that, or restarting the game may fix the problem.
 * After destroying the Cryo Lab generator, it may become impossible to leave the area through either the teleporter or the doors ("Requires Key"). Signing out of Xbox LIVE and reloading a save may fix the teleporter.
 * The Maintenance Level teleporter may be lit up but nonfunctional. Restarting the console should fix the problem.
 * When returning to the Mothership after completing the DLC, the teleporters to and from the Engineering Core as well as the teleporter back to Earth may malfunction and stop working, stranding you in space. This may be fixed by restarting the console or loading a previous save that is not an autosave.
 * Crashes have been reported when entering certain areas after completing Mothership Zeta.
 * Crashes have been noted when attempting to enter the Museum of History, or Underworld beyond it.
 * Crashes have been noted when one fast travels to Rivet City after completing Mothership Zeta, and then attempts to leave.
 * Crashes have been noted when attempting to enter Tenpenny Tower.
 * Crashes have been noted when trying to fast travel to any location after returning to the Wasteland.
 * Conflicts with other quests' scripting have been reported.
 * If, prior to starting Mothership Zeta, you completed Tranquility Lane by activating the Failsafe terminal, then multiple Chinese soldiers may appear in the Cryo Lab if Elliott is with you.
 * Attempting to enter the Bridge after completing the unmarked quest Election Day may cause the game to freeze.
 * If you have not yet completed Who Dares Wins upon entering Mothership Zeta, the game may alert you that you've discovered the presidential metro location. The "Who Dares Wins" quest now has "enter the presidential metro" marked as completed.
 * After completing Mothership Zeta, if you have not already triggered the events at Andale, when you arrive there, the residents may all be standing around the shed, and upon approaching them they will confront you about why you were poking around in the shed, regardless of the fact that you had just arrived.
 * Sometimes after completing the Space Walk, a guardian drone can be found on the teleporter you arrived in.
 * Sometimes after completing the Space Walk, the teleporter normally used by Sally, Elliott, Paulson, and Somah will be on before the button is pressed. This prevents your allies from appearing when pressing the button, locking you out of the Space Walk, the teleporter, and the following room. Restarting your console will fix this.
 * If your teleporters have all frozen (normally starts at the Death Ray hub teleporter) and reloading and restarting won't fix this. You need to delete your latest saved games, from the area the glitch started, one by one until they work again. It may also work to leave the Biological Research area, save your game, return to the 360 dashboard, and start the game up again. Return to the teleporters and repeat as necessary. It may also work to save your game next to the teleporter you wish to enter then restart your console. You may then be able to enter the teleporter.
 * If you target enemies as they are waking up from hibernation (standing inside the cryo-pod but targetable) in V.A.T.S, you may become trapped in V.A.T.S and have to reload your save.
 * When destroying the generators, if the player enters the Engine Room and kills all the enemies there before destroying the last generator, the game will not register the deaths of the aliens. The red cursors will appear, footsteps could be heard, and the player will also be attacked even though the alien corpses are clearly visible. The only way to fix this is by going around and shooting all the corpses of the already-dead aliens.
 * If you attack Toshiro Kago and he becomes hostile, Elliott may run away and disappear from the game.
 * When you fight through the Waste Disposal area and get to the end, the teleporter matrix may not work. This stops you from completing the DLC unless you reload a previous save and then avoid Waste Disposal.
 * Toshiro Kago may simply pick up a combat knife somewhere to use instead of his Samurai's sword.
 * In the Experimental weapons area, there is a chamber where radscorpions and Raiders spawn in a room below for you to test your weapons on. Occasionally, albino radscorpions may start spawning constantly (around 20 were noted) and will stand around trying to find a way to attack you. The Xenotech Expert perk may also be awarded even if you didn't attack any of the targets.
 * Sometimes, when the player picks up the Drone Cannon Ex-B (correctly labeled on the floor), it will turn into a regular drone cannon.
 * In this case the Ex-B can often be found on the "corpses" of the destroyed bots, the Ex-B stays attached and falsely named regular drone cannons drop to the floor.
 * After you blow up the controls on the wall in the Robot assembly room, you can actually walk through the glass right beside the wall and be in the assembly line. Nothing except the glass around it is solid.
 * If you die or change the difficulty immediately after using the first healing arch there is a possibility that further healing arches will not be usable, either to heal or modify (although the options do appear, choosing to activate an arch does nothing).
 * Exiting the game and restarting can fix this bug.
 * If the player completes "This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough..." quest, heads back to the Capital Wasteland, and then returns to the Mothership, Paulson will still be there, but the non-player characters will tell you that he left the ship.
 * Save games may become unloadable (crashing on the loading slides) after saving on the ship. Pre-abduction saves appear to be unaffected.
 * Fix (does not work all the time): restart the main quest in Mothership Zeta, save, then load the original unloadable file.
 * Sometimes while fighting an alien, it will just disappear and may reappear right behind you or somewhere else nearby.
 * While in the Cryo chambers with Elliott's fallen unit, if you run in to the back room and unfreeze the two living members before Elliott enters the room and begins dialogue, the doors can lock, permanently preventing any kind of exit.
 * When, after completing the "Among the Stars" quest, you meet up with Sally and Somah, the hologram of the alien might not appear. This breaks the scripted event: the door will not unlock, and all you can do is stand there and stare at the Earth through the window in the ship. Keeping Elliott alive may prevent this bug.
 * If you freeze yourself using certain machines in the Cryo Lab, save while frozen, and then load that save, you may never thaw. The save won't be usable.
 * Teleporting out of the Cryo Lab before the generator explodes may prevent the game from recognizing the explosion... but may also prevent you from ever re-entering the Cryo Lab to try destroying the generator again. Reloading a previous save is the only fix.
 * In the Cryo Lab, if you freeze Elliott, you will be able to pickpocket him when he is on the floor without negative Karma.
 * After the Space Walk, Somah may not teleport to the Observation Deck with the others. If you teleport back to the Engineering Core, she will still talk about the Death ray and give you the quest to destroy it. Then if you teleport back, she follows.
 * After falling from the elevator in the Maintenance Level, jumping up the scrap pile to the character's rear may result in being trapped and requiring a reload.
 * Completing the Space Walk may break any Chinese stealth armor in your inventory.
 * After a certain point in Mothership Zeta, you might not be able to use the health generators.
 * After using the teleporter to access the ship's bridge, upon walking forward your character falls through the ship. After reloading the save you are unable to walk forward and your shots will stay in mid-air. If the rounds are explosive, they will NOT explode.
 * Trying to acquire the 2nd drone cannon Ex-B may cause the game to crash when trying to pick it up.
 * Each time Somah and Elliott Tercorien needed to use a teleporter (to escape the Cryo storage area for Tercorien and to get down from the 2nd floor to the first floor in the Robot assembly section for Somah), they would freeze on or near the teleporter and would not follow. The dialogue box would not open up to ask them to continue to follow. In each case it was necessary to return to a prior save and start over. Eventually the bug will stop occurring and the non-player characters would assist as intended.
 * While working on destroying the mothership power generators in the 3 sections needed for the quest "Among the Stars", the Paulson character died while in the hangar, so bug is untested on him.
 * After getting to the Observation deck with Sally, Paulson, Elliott and Somah, ALL of the characters may just stand there and do nothing, halting the progress through the Mothership.
 * After getting the Xenotech Expert perk and moving on to the Experimentation lab, your character will simply disappear in 3rd person mode.
 * This can be fixed by restarting the Xbox.
 * If you have a follower before beginning Mothership Zeta, tell them to wait at your house (Megaton or Tenpenny Tower). Then, when you complete "This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough…" and upon return to the Wasteland, your follower will come running at you and begin following. Because of this, the game thinks you have no follower and it will be possible to hire another follower. (if you have taken in Dogmeat as a follower and he is either following you, waiting somewhere, or at Vault 101, you will have to kill him in order for this glitch to work).
 * At the teleporter leading from Biological research to the Death ray hub, when all of your teammates are standing idly by, waiting for you to enter ahead of them, if you attack Elliott with sufficient damage to the legs (possibly so that his now "fleeing" status would realize that it cannot outrun you, and thus choose the next best option) he will escape from you into the teleporter which leads to the Death ray hub. However, once you pass through the device, he does not appear on the other side, as per the flow of the story.
 * It is possible that after downloading Mothership Zeta that the previous installation such as The Pitt and Operation: Anchorage will become inactive with weapons and armor from them missing. Not fixed by restarting game or by loading previous save. (Might be fixable by deleting all the FO3 DLCs and reinstalling them after clearing the cache and re-patching.)
 * It is possible that after the installation of Mothership Zeta that your character will no longer have the ability to gain experience and that previous saves will become corrupt with the same glitch.
 * After you equip one of the Alien Atomizers there is a very small chance that you won't be able to drop it or change weapon (the Pip-Boy will still show as if you had two guns equipped at the same time.) If you will equip another weapon it'll show that you have no ammunition for it. Changing back to the Atomizer will render it invisible in your hand. In order to get rid of the glitching Atomizer you must put everything you have in the container and then simply pick everything but the Atomizer up. The patch seems to fix this bug.
 * After defeating the enemy ship, it is possible for Elliott Tercorien to become frozen in one place, any attempt to converse with him simply creates a black box where text should appear. After a few minutes, he should unfreeze and act as normal.
 * Sometimes after freezing he will occasionally move and then re-freeze in his new position, and you will still be unable to converse with him.
 * If you had followers in your control when you were beamed up into the ship, you may receive a message in the middle of the Mothership Zeta quests stating that they have died, even if it is a follower as tough as the Broken Steel-enhanced Fawkes, whose health is extremely high. To fix this, you must revert to before you were beamed up into the ship, and make sure that all your followers are fired and get back to their respective "home zones" safely. Then you may begin the quest.
 * Sometimes when Sally will spawn out of her holding cell, you can simply run up to her and talk, skipping the First Module. However if this happens, and you skip the Module, Somah might stay near the Module and won't follow the player for the rest of the add-on.
 * Sometimes there may be invisible walls and you will simply be unable to move anywhere. Usually occurs randomly in the game.

PS3
The Number 1 thing to do to stop glitches in this (and all parts) of Fallout 3'' is simple: TURN OFF AUTOSAVES. Immediately doing this, the game stabilizes and makes a lot more content playable the first time. Just remember to save yourself more often.
 * During the Quest "This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough…", when you turn on the teleportation pad nobody will come. Deleting the game data (not the save data) fixes this.
 * After finishing Mothership Zeta, the player may not be able to return to the ship once they set foot on the Wasteland due to crashes during the loading screen.
 * When older save is loaded you start off looking between the players legs. This is fixed simply by moving. This can happen if you are carrying or using weapons and armor from any other DLC. So before starting the Mothership Zeta make sure you are not carrying weapons and armor from the other DLCs.
 * When returning to the Wasteland, your followers may be at the beacon waiting for you even if they were asked to wait at your house. As there are often sentry bots and albino radscorpions around, make sure they are well armed and armored before you leave for MZ.
 * During the "This Galaxy isn't Big Enough…" mission, on the Observation deck en route to the Bridge: Sally will just stand on the glass floor which overlooks the Earth, and won't open the door. This makes it impossible to advance any further. Some users have reported fixing this issue by loading an earlier save. May take several times. Leaving and re-entering the area may also work.
 * During "The Quest for the Stars", Somah may go up to the top level and stay there. This causes the game not to continue later on during "This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough…". Reloading an earlier save seems to fix this, as Somah will come through the teleporter in "This Galaxy Ain't Big Enough…" anyway.
 * When standing on the Bridge trying to shoot the other alien ship the character may randomly explode after a couple of seconds.
 * Sometimes, usually when you advance to level twenty, the skill point assignment and perk screens will not appear. Entering the next area seems to fix the problem, although this may cause you to skip a level. It is advisable that you save before entering the next area.
 * After killing the first aliens in the Holding Cells Somah will not come with you. Instead she will stay in the cell and repeat her speech from before the plan. Reloading a previous save file seems to fix this.
 * Any teleporter may stop working, trapping the PC in certain parts of the ship or rejecting them access to other.
 * When first entering the Steamworks area, Sally will offer to assist in killing the aliens ahead. If you offer her a grenade, then go back to the Holding Cells, then return to the Steamworks area, Sally will be frozen against the vent, telling you to be quiet. Your grenade will be gone, and you must kill the aliens yourself. Everything will return to normal afterwards.
 * When Sally goes through some of her holes to open any of the doors on the ship, she may never open any of them.