History GoodBadBugs / Mech

** In ''[=MechWarrior=] 2'', missions had a weight limit for the player's mech. This was to insure a stable difficulty - using an 80-ton assault mech in the first missions would make gameplay way too easy. However, the lightest mech in the game--the 20-ton ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Firemoth Firemoth]]''--had an interesting glitch: by enabling double heat sinks, removing all extra sinks, and disabling them again, their number went to -1. It was then possible to keep removing heatsinks indefinitely, sending their number way into negative digits. Since each one removed dropped the weight by one ton, it was then possible to load up the mech with the most powerful engines, weapons and the maximum amount of armor a 20 ton mech could carry (which still wasn't very much), ignoring weight requisites completely. Playing with such a modified ''Firemoth'' (after disabling heat tracking from the options--otherwise the negative number of heatsinks would explode the mech from heat buildup almost instantly after mission start) resulted in you piloting a diminutive little mech capable of zipping around the battlefield at 500 kmh, blasting away 100-ton behemoths in a single volley.

* ''{{VideoGame/Starsiege}}'' had a number of exploits... some of which became standard practice because they were just that good. Where do I even start?
** First, there's the Shield Modulator, which focuses the shields and allows them to track a target. The shields are strengthened all around (exactly as ''not'' intended) except for a very small arc in the rear... which remains exposed even when the shields are unfocused and "closed." This creates fantastic backstab opportunities.
** Second, there's the ramming physics. If you ram a shielded vehicle from head on or from behind, you get a fairly normal collision. If you ram from the side from a good enough running start, you can punt some vehicles clear across the map. AIs are even more susceptible.
** Third, some vehicles have faulty or tiny collision boxes that make them less vulnerable to enemy fire... and are consequently some of the most favored rides in the game.
** Fourth, splash damage has some... interesting effects against shields. The weapon's full damage rating is applied to every location the blast "hits" (rather than being weaker farther out from the center as it is against armor), making splash weapons exceptionally good shieldkillers. The EMP cannon, which deals minor splash damage, has consequently become standard equipment for every vehicle with more than three hardpoints.
** Fifth, the Predator. By mounting a certain armor, it becomes utterly invisible to even the most sensitive radar. Combined with the aforementioned Shield Modulator hole, the Pred becomes an assassination machine.
** Sixth, Landsharking. The curious physics allow players to drive their vehicles into the underside of a ramp and force them through the ground. In a [[AMechByAnyOtherName HERC]], this can protect your legs from damage. In a tank, you can hide your entire vehicle underground except for the weapon mounts. This is called landsharking because several of the tanks have a vertical "fin" on top of their turrets. Understandably, later-build fanmaps feature barriers beneath any ramps to prevent this.
*** I could go on, but you get the idea. Suffice it to say we 'Siegers should have gotten another patch or five.

** In ''[=MechWarrior=] 2'', missions had a weight limit for the player's mech. This was to insure a stable difficulty - using an 80-ton assault mech in the first missions would make gameplay way too easy. However, the lightest mech in the game--the 20-ton ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Firemoth Firemoth]]''--had an interesting glitch: by enabling double heat sinks, removing all extra sinks, and disabling them again, their number went to -1. It was then possible to keep removing heatsinks indefinitely, sending their number way into negative digits. Since each one removed dropped the weight by one ton, it was then possible to load up the mech with the most powerful engines, weapons and insane amounts of armor, ignoring weight requisites completely. Playing with such a modified ''Firemoth'' (after disabling heat tracking from the options--otherwise the negative number of heatsinks would explode the mech from heat buildup almost instantly after mission start) resulted in you piloting a diminutive little mech capable of zipping around the battlefield at 500 kmh, blasting away 100-ton behemoths in a single volley, and effortlessly shrugging off any plausible amount of enemy firepower.

** The only thing that can override Trombe! is blasting "[[Anime/GoShogun On the Beautiful Blue Danube]]" from your ship's speakers, or [[Anime/{{Macross7}} the music of the band Fire Bomber]]. This is because those songs are actually playing in-universe, and are thus given ultimate priority.

** The exact bug works like this: At the start of the game, he is an enemy boss, and thus his theme was correctly given the property of overriding all other music when he engages in battle, like all the other bosses with unique theme songs. However, later he joins your side as a playable character, and they added the normal player priority flag, which overrides normal music, but not bosses. The problem is that they forgot to remove the boss priority flag. Player priority plus boss priority equals higher than boss priority, so he gets to override the final boss's theme. It helps that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BizXfnuJ-j4 this theme]] is a piece of CrowningMusicOfAwesome.

* ''Zeonic Front: Anime/MobileSuitGundam 0079'' has a particularly difficult mission where the player is tasked with gathering data on the Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank, the problem being that pretty much all three can one-shot any of your units, regardless of how well you've upgraded them. However, there's specific rock on that map which the AI doesn't seem to be able to deal with; all strategies for S-ranking this mission involve hiding behind the rock, which lets you scan the enemies without drawing their fire.

* SuperRobotWarsAlpha 2 has one that turns [=GoShogun=] into an extremely powerful unit as you near the endgame. During one particular stage, the machine gets a plotline upgrade and its Go Flasher transforms into the stronger, ALL version called the Go Flasher Special. Due to an oversight in coding though, any parts you had equipped to [=GoShogun=] at the start of the stage are removed and simultaneously kept on. Though these duplicated parts are lost if taken off of the machine, this essentially lets you give the machine a free Haro (giving it movement, range, and accuracy bonuses) or even a GS Ride (granting it an addition 100 Energy and a 20% Energy recovery every turn).

* In DynastyWarriorsGundam 3, there's an amusing glitch where [[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Garrod Ran]] will constantly refer to [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Paptimus Sirocco]] [[ViewerGenderConfusion as "her" and "she"]] during battle. This becomes especially obvious during the "Those who Pass By" campaign, where the two interact fairly regularly.

* ''[=MechWarrior 2=]'' also had an arachnoid quadrupedal Mech - the Tarantula - which was [[DummiedOut not normally available to the player]], but appeared in a mission. Because the game engine was only able to handle bipedal Mechs, an ugly hack was devised by the designers in which the two forward legs of the Tarantula were actually treated by the engine as arms. Because every Mech stands upright (but immobile) even with one leg missing, but can keep walking around even with both arms gone, this could result in the tarantula losing just one hind leg and stopping cold, losing both forward legs and still walking about, or losing both forward legs and one hind leg, which would leave it staying still while hovering implausibly on the one remaining hind leg.

* In ''[=MechWarrior=] 2'', missions had a weight limit for the player's mech. This was to insure a stable difficulty - using an 80-ton assault mech in the first missions would make gameplay way too easy. However, the lightest mech in the game--the 20-ton ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Firemoth Firemoth]]''--had an interesting glitch: by enabling double heat sinks, removing all extra sinks, and disabling them again, their number went to -1. It was then possible to keep removing heatsinks indefinitely, sending their number way into negative digits. Since each one removed dropped the weight by one ton, it was then possible to load up the mech with the most powerful engines, weapons and insane amounts of armor, ignoring weight requisites completely. Playing with such a modified ''Firemoth'' (after disabling heat tracking from the options--otherwise the negative number of heatsinks would explode the mech from heat buildup almost instantly after mission start) resulted in you piloting a diminutive little mech capable of zipping around the battlefield at 500 kmh, blasting away 100-ton behemoths in a single volley, and effortlessly shrugging off any plausible amount of enemy firepower.

*** Another interesting glitch in ''Mercenaries'' concerned Jump Jets and locational damage. If you shot out an Enemy Mech's legs, if it had jump-jets, it would try to keep itself upright using jets. Sometimes, the AI can't keep it upright, and they end up in a facedown mech, but with a living pilot and working jump jets, which they will use to try and get upright again. Which, in some mechs with exposed heads, can result in the AI commiting suicide by jetting headfirst into a building while facedown on the ground.

* In ''MechWarrior 2'', missions had a weight limit for the player's mech. This was to insure a stable difficulty - using an 80-ton assault mech in the first missions would make gameplay way too easy. However, the lightest mech in the game--the 20-ton ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Firemoth Firemoth]]''--had an interesting glitch: by enabling double heat sinks, removing all extra sinks, and disabling them again, their number went to -1. It was then possible to keep removing heatsinks indefinitely, sending their number way into negative digits. Since each one removed dropped the weight by one ton, it was then possible to load up the mech with the most powerful engines, weapons and insane amounts of armor, ignoring weight requisites completely. Playing with such a modified ''Firemoth'' (after disabling heat tracking from the options--otherwise the negative number of heatsinks would explode the mech from heat buildup almost instantly after mission start) resulted in you piloting a diminutive little mech capable of zipping around the battlefield at 500 kmh, blasting away 100-ton behemoths in a single volley, and effortlessly shrugging off any plausible amount of enemy firepower.
** The game had an arachnoid quadrupedal Mech - the Tarantula - which was not normally available to the player, but appeared in a mission. Because the game engine was only able to handle bipedal Mechs, an ugly hack was devised by the designers in which the two forward legs of the Tarantula were actually treated by the engine as arms. Because every Mech stands upright (but immobile) even with one leg missing, but can keep walking around even with both arms gone, this could result in the tarantula losing just one hind leg and stopping cold, losing both forward legs and still walking about, or losing both forward legs and one hind leg, which would leave it staying still while hovering implausibly on the one remaining hind leg.

*** Another interesting glitch in Mercenaries concerned Jump Jets and locational damage. If you shot out an Enemy Mech's legs, if it had jump-jets, it would try to keep itself upright using jets. Sometimes, the AI can't keep it upright, and they end up in a facedown mech, but with a living pilot and working jump jets, which they will use to try and get upright again. Which, in some mechs with exposed heads, can result in the AI commiting suicide by jetting headfirst into a building while facedown on the ground.
** In ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'', the Sparrowhawk scout plane had some hilarious physics bugs which could turn it into a joke or a full on GameBreaker. The [[FanNickname Shawk]] had so little armor that [[MadeOfExplodium it would explode if you bumped into it too fast while trying to get in]], or if you ran over an enemy [[PoweredArmor battlearmor]] player at max speed. Using the Shawk to ram tanks turned it into an [[{{Troll}} entirely different monster]] - smashing it into the side of a Partisan at the plane's max speed (400kph) would cause the tank to spin [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EPAybB_CpQ&t=40s wildly end-over-end, and would typically be catapulted half a kilometer into the distance]]. The Shawk could "win" [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming fights with other aerospace fighters]] despite being out-tonned by almost every other plane by 20 tons; the Shawk would smash into an enemy plane, destroy the enemy, then often ricochet away or be disabled - but not destroyed - allowing the pilot to bail out.

* The NES version of the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' had a glitch when you entered the computer room, if you went immediately right you would glitch into the final boss room without having to blow up the computer. This was helpful if you didn't rescue the professor (even though you KNEW you needed plastic explosives to destroy the computer, the game won't let you unless the professor told you).
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', Snake reloads the long barrel / scope Desert Eagle with a magazine. However, a glitch means the magazine is inside ''another'' long barrel / scope Desert Eagle, which he duly inserts into the space occupied by the first. It helps if you exclaim "my deagle needs more deagle!" while doing this.

* In DynastyWarriorsGundam 3, there's an amusing glitch where [[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Garrod Ran]] will constantly refer to [[ZetaGundam Paptimus Sirocco]] [[ViewerGenderConfusion as "her" and "she"]] during battle. This becomes especially obvious during the "Those who Pass By" campaign, where the two interact fairly regularly.

** There's also few game freezing bugs, such as one of [[Toys/BBSenshiSangokuden Ryofu Tallgeese]]'s attacks. One where you evade an enemy attack and counterattack back the game might freeze for a moment, possibly no danger of game crashing though. And last if you attack Master Therion with Shining Trapezohedron in the VisualNovel/{{Demonbane}} finale, if he counterattacks with his Shining Trapezohedron the game will freeze; this can double as EasterEgg because it's the bad result of the Visual Novel.