Talk:Citadel: Batarian Codes

Acquisition

This mission has some other trigger as it's not available to me right now (post Palaven, pre-Sur'Kesh) Ea-41905502 06:11, March 15, 2012 (UTC)

Walkthrough

Balak seems to appear even if you kill him in Bring Down The Sky. Can anybody confirm this? --78.179.90.255 18:15, March 19, 2012 (UTC)

My first play-through he showed up even though I killed him in Bring Down the Sky. On my Insanity play-through I copied my save from ME1 back from my external harddrive to my 360 hard drive before starting, and this time he didn't show up. I'm assuming the fact that you killed/spared him isn't reflected in a ME2 save or something...Eyestothesky 02:58, March 21, 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure I killed this ******* in the DLC in my second playthrough and he still showed up... Maybe I left him to bleed out by accident... Notso (talk) 14:12, December 1, 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I deleted my ME1 and ME2 saves after I imported my character to ME3 (I don't know why). Putting a ME1 save again on hard drive could fix this then? Playing on PC. --88.241.143.108 12:39, March 21, 2012 (UTC)

There is a mention that if you killed Balak in ME1 during the Bring Down the Sky DLC that the Alliance Third Fleet asset is updated in ME3 instead of the Batarian Fleet, but I cannot find any mention of this update on the War Assets page. How is it updated (+/- point total)? Can someone verify this and update the Third Fleet War Assets section? --N7Legion 15:36, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

If you left him to bleed out he apparently manages to pick himself up and walk away despite the fact that the Chief Engineer guy-dude-person would be there to stop him. I can verify this fact given that my canon shepard left him to bleed out rather than finishing him and he showed up. Balak made no mention of this unfortunately. --Go Bruins! 05:29, April 3, 2012 (UTC)

Shepards Head

Anyone else have this...creepy...glitch? I went and hit the terminal in the hospital and during the dialogue after I pressed on it Shepards head started jerking around, at points going completely horizontal to the point where it looks almost like his neck's broken. I'm fairly certain it's something with the physics, but I only seem to have it occur during this quest, and only when I activate this terminal. It's honestly pretty disturbing... Playing on 360. Eyestothesky 02:50, March 21, 2012 (UTC)

Different Variants

The page currently says the following... "Note: there are 2 versions pertain to how the Batarian codes were used for: if Bring Down the Sky was completed, the codes were used to secure more provisions for the Batarians; if not, they were used in sabotages targeting humans and System Alliance military assets on Citadel. "

That is not accurate. Now it may be a case of killing Balak gets you the result of more provisions. However, I let Balak live in my playthrough and am getting the human sabotages, just as though I hadn't done Bring Down The Sky at all.

Not going to edit the main page yet as I'd like to confirm this somehow first, plus the fact that I am paranoid about editing anything in the wiki :) --Bhsup 05:43, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

It would appear that the presence of Balak is enough to trigger the conversation of him destroying Alliance Assets. Tjkoshy686

Yeah, the page as is is incorrect. It definitely depends on the ending for BDTS that you chose. --Thank you, could you please confirm whether without Balak the human targeting still continues?

Currently the word on the forums is that if Balak was handed over to the Alliance (aka shot and disabled at the cost of the hostages) he focuses on aiding the Batarians vs targeting humans.

At this point I'm tempted to write this off as a bug concerning the save file. When I get a chance I'll run a save editor and see what happens. Tjkoshy686 (talk) 19:18, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

Potential Bug

I have completed the Bring Down the Sky DLC, yet I didn't hear any mention of Batarians using the codes to give them an edge (I spared Balak). Even with Balak alive, I still hear Noles reporting that the codes were used to kill Humans on life support and bring down an Alliance transport.

Does this mission not occur if you kill Balak in Bring Down the Sky, or does someone take his place?

Leviathan

It says that more is added to the conversation if Leviathan is installed, but does it have to be played before this to get the dialogue? Alex T Snow (talk) 02:59, December 18, 2012 (UTC)

No change. Leviathan DLC is concerned with the creators of the Reapers, while the "Leviathan of Dis" was the name for a semi-dead Reaper.

Misleading information in article

I believe that the article contains misleading information. I used the Gibbed Save Editor to change 1. Completed Bring Down the Sky DLC 2. Spared Balak (set 17291 to true or false) 3. Killed Balak (as in actually shot and killed him) (set 17315 to true or false) 4. Completed The Arrival DLC

In none of these above variations that I once hear Noles report the codes used to give the Hegemony an edge. All of them stated that the codes were used to target humans.

I'd straight up change the article, but I'd like some consensus first Tjkoshy686 (talk) 02:23, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

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Arrival is irrelevant and 17315 only determines what the alternate nameless batarian would say at the end of the mission (either "Balak died" or "Balak arrested" - don't ask why there's a choice for arrested, I honestly don't know). Set 17300 == 0 and 17291 == 1 to unlock the "provisions" dialogue before talking to Noles to get the mission. 17300 = 1 if you had an imported playthrough, 0 on a new ME3 game. Or so it would seem.

I found the dialogue structure for this particular mission to be strange since the only check needed for the sabotage lines to appear is 17300=1 (imported game). Failing that, an alternate check for 17291=0 (Balak "not spared") also points to sabotage. And further failing that, there's the default backup line of getting provisions. However, on a normal unimported ME3 game both 17300 and 17291 == 0 and later Balak introduces himself with his full name (not possible if you spared or killed him way back in ME1)

Here are the alternate lines Noles should say if you got it right:

[entry #22]
speaker: citprs_batmil_csec_officer
listener: variable_2
text: I've got a potential security leak. I haven't seen anything major yet, but  better to be safe, right?
+-[reply #19]
listener: variable_3
+-*** see entry #23 ***

[entry #14]
speaker: citprs_batmil_radio_csec
listener: variable_2
text: Looks like someone was trying to requisition medical supplies.
+-[reply #13]
listener: variable_3
+-*** see entry #15 ***

[entry #6]
speaker: citprs_batmil_radio_csec
listener: variable_2
text: Looks like they were tampering with emergency food requests at the refugee center.
+-[reply #6]
listener: variable_3
text: Trying to get more food for themselves?
+-*** see entry #7 ***

It's like BioWare fucked up the decision trees for this one once you delve into the relevant data dumps and files. In a much worse way than Jacob's Gellix dialogue was 91.233.249.42 13:43, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

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So it would seem that importing a ME1 save, is enough to trigger the "sabotage" dialogue? This seems like a bug, especially given what Balak says when he points a gun to you (something about passing intel to his navy in order for them to avoid Reapers).

Would it be apropos to designate the changed dialogue as a bug, or at least include it in the Trivia section?

Also how did you get the dialogue tree? Is there a program for viewing it and such? Tjkoshy686 (talk) 15:11, April 25, 2013 (UTC)

Save Bug Confirmation

Setting 17300 to 0 (or false), gives one the provisions dialogue and Balak still being familiar with Shepard. Given that 17300 refers to an import game, I would argue that this mission is bugged.

Should I wait for confirmation? Or just straight up add it to the article?

Tjkoshy686 (talk) 18:29, August 24, 2013 (UTC)

"Setting 17300" means you're essentially hacking your save file with an external tool of some type (e.g. the Gibbed file editor), and therefore isn't something we cover in the articles. A real "bug" would be something that you can reproduce entirely by doing stuff in the actual game, and in that case would still need 2 additional confirmations. Cattlesquat (talk) 18:32, August 24, 2013 (UTC)

provisions, sabotage, or whatever

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

• 17300==1 + 17291==1 means sabotage + balak alive referencing escape from terra nova.
• 17300==0 + 17291==0 means sabotage + balak first time meet.
• 17300==1 + 17291==0 is redundant with second bullet.
• 17300==0 + 17291==1 + 17315==0 means provisions + balak alive.
• 17300==0 + 17291==1 + 17315==1 means provisions + nameless batarian. dead balak.

17300==1 is the first bool checked for sabotage. ME3-exclusive sheps have this switched to 0.

17291==1 means BDTS is completed. ME3-exclusive sheps have this switched to 0. a proviso exists in the dialogue tree that also points to sabotage if 17291==0, hence why 3rd bullet is redundant with second.

20500==1 means huerta code detected.

20501==1 means normandy docks code detected.

17315==1 means you got nameless batarian instead of balak and you had balak killed on terra nova.

• 17315==0 (default var) says nameless batarian will claim balak got arrested and their operations got thrown into chaos, although interestingly if you did leave 17315==0 balak himself shows up and says you should've killed him on BDTS. there's either a fourth variable that controls provisions, or this is cut content.

what does the first 2 pages mean?

• the IP contributor who initially posted gibbed findings more or less did his/her homework and that everything is more or less logically consistent given a set of initial conditions, except one: nameless batarian never gets to say balak gets arrested because in ME3 apparently balak always shows up if you didn't kill him.
• skipping/not having BDTS = sabotage.
• balak can scrounge for food or sabotage (dialogue ambiguous enough), nameless batarian can only get provisions (flat out stated)
• balak alive from ME = balak in ME3, balak dead in ME = nameless batarian in ME3.

obviously i have something to back this up. 2 ME3-fresh sheps and 4 chained-import ones. however, can't vouch for hostages killed + balak killed/arrested scenario on the imports since all sheps never tried it (think of the hostages). since i know more or less what i'm doing and successfully replicated the conditions for the following (and more), i think any "natural" playthrough with hostages killed + balak arrested will

• get provisions instead of sabotage
• not have a nameless batarian replace balak.

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Balak and the Alliance 3rd Fleet

Accoring to the War assets page killing Balak during the quest results in a war asset value decrease to the alliance 3rd fleet.my question is if you kill Balak in ME1 does this value decrease still occur to the Alliance 3rd fleet?