[Sucha84]

I like to know what are possible reasons for disappearing Mothership's paint job. I found a factor but don't know whether exactly it's correct. I had saved Everything proof Camper with having Mothership paint job in Verdant Medows Garage and Everything proof Maverick in Hanger. When I check first Camper, it had its unique paintjob. Then I checked Maverick's explosion proof ability by firing rockets via Heat seeker. After it had been checked and put once again in Hanger, I checked about Camper once again. Strangely its paintjob had been vanished although it had proofings. So I have a doubt whether Explosions near Mothership cause to vanish its paintjob.

[sonnyBlack]

It's just an annoying glitch where garages fail to save unique paintjobs if you save at them too often. A way around it is to store the vehicle at one safehouse and save your game at another location. It works for me and I play it on Xbox.

[Sucha84]

I think you may be correct. I had saved the game in Airstrip which Camper was there. When I save at another place, it didn't happen to me.

[OrionSR]

Where you save, or how often you save, doesn't matter except that at some safehouses it is much easier to avoid opening the garage door when entering the safehouse. The game has a difficult time applying paintjobs to the vehicles it spawns, and even more trouble saving the paintjobs. The quicker the garage door is opened and closed the more likely it is that the paintjob will be lost.

Here's a long story that describes my frustration with saving paintjobs. If you get bored then skip to the next paragraph for a simple solution to the mothership problem.

In the early versions of the modified Chain Game saves we used custom game scripts to create our starter saves. We had a long routine that stuffed special vehicles into some of the garages by warping CJ to the area near the garage (so the ground would be solid), unlock the garage, open the door, spawn the desired vehicle, close the door, and wait until the door was closed before warping CJ to the next garage. We had a great deal of trouble with the few cars we created that had paintjobs. We tried increasing the wait time before the door was closed to give the game a better chance of remembering the paintjob - didn't help. We tried placing CJ closer to the garage so we could make sure the paintjob was applied before moving away and allowing the door to close - still didn't help. We finally had to resort to editing the save with a hex editor or external patch to make sure the paintjob was applied. One observation of note is that frequently the paintjob can be seen being added to the car well after the door was starting to open. Our conclusion is that the paintjob routine doesn't work right. However, I have never had a paintjob disappear from a car in a garage that never opens - in one case, the garage is locked and can't be opened until LV is unlocked.

Okay, so here's an easy solution. Unfortunately it requires a simple mod to the carmod.dat file, and some people don't want to use any mods on their game. If you use this mod then the Transfender mod garages will open for campers (and many other vehicles) so the mothership paintjob can be reapplied to your prized vehicle. Download the Transfender Fix from GTAGarage and follow the directions in the Readme file to install the modification - it's pretty simple; rename your original file to use as a backup, and then copy the file to the correct folder.

BTW, if you use the Transfender Fix then be sure to avoid taking motorcycles into the Transfenders in SF and LV. The game script don't quite work right with the bikes and when exiting the garage interior the bikes respawn on top of the garage ceiling. In SF you can fall through gray hell to get out, but frequently the bike is lost in the process. In LV CJ will be stuck inside the building and won't be able to get out.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Monday, Jan 9 2012, 08:02

[Sucha84]

Thanks for ur ideas. Anyway, I am not good for using modding tools. I think Garages have problem against only mothership's paintjob. Other unique colour vehicles like Light blue pony, Chrome yellow Burrito and Green Pizzaboy will never vanish their unique colour if they are safely in garages. No doubt Camper with having mothership paintjob is the most beautiful vehicle in entire game with added everything proof ability. Anyway, thanks for the modding tool and I will try to use it whenever possible.

Next problem is, There is a Leviathan with having a magnet. It is listed as unobtainable in SE uide because Hanger eats its magnet. I saw in one guide, it can be obtained if it is saved in a normal garage except hanger so that magnet doesn't vanish. Is that true or a wrong info?

[OrionSR]

You are confusing paintjobs with colors. It might be easier to think of the paintjobs as a vinyl skin wrapped around the car. Of the proofed and other collectible vehicles the Mothership is the only one with a paintjob - usually applied over a white on white camper I believe. The garages also have problems with Lowrider and Tuner cars that have paintjobs applied.

The magnet attached to the Leviathan used in the Up, Up and Away mission cannot be saved. It would be cool of the magnet was a mod part like a custom bumper or hood, but it isn't so there is no way for a garage to save the attachment.

The airstrip hangar is a normal save garage. It behaves exactly like all the other save garages. The only things that are unique about the hangar is the unusually large size, and the way the door moves.

[Sucha84]

Of course, I was a bit of confusion with colour and paintjob. Yes. Once Camper's paintjob got vanished, it became white colour. However, Pony with off road wheels in mission "Life is a beach" is somewhat amazing because it keeps soundtrack even after saving garage. But BP walton and Picador in "Catalysit" mission don't keep crates at back after saving garage.

[OrionSR]

Yes. the off-road wheels are mod parts like bumpers and hoods. The sound system is a body "variation" and can be found in other Ponies in random traffic or parking spots. Other examples of a variation are motorcycles that sometimes have a windshield, or a pop-top camper. I think the Mothership always has the peace symbol variation. The crates in the Walton or Picador are objects attached by the mission, and can't be saved.

And as long as we a being technical about the vehicle properties; proofs, hydraulics, and bass boost are flags. There's also a nitrous flag, which really doesn't do much, and a nitrous count. The garage can also save the radio station and bomb type, but bomb type doesn't come up much in SA unless you mod some of the garages to include the bomb types from GTAIII and VC.

For even more details about the vehicle properties saved in a garage check out the garage section of the SA Save Wiki.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Monday, Jan 9 2012, 19:41

[GTA_Loco]

Hi OrionSR.

Since we're on the subject of vehicle colors here, when you find the time, could you please share your own tests and analysis of the Camper's seemingly "hidden extra colors" discussed here?

Just ignore about the Rockstar secret theory about them, and I'm just curious if it's a case of color glitch as what pd suggested, or there indeed exist those extra colors that can only be obtained by performing the methods I suggested.

I shared this discovery with SE a very long time ago and never saw it published in his guide.

[OrionSR]

I ran a few tests and was unable to recreate your hidden colors observations on PC, which isn't too surprising since PD couldn't get it to work on Xbox and all reports indicate that Xbox and PC versions behave in pretty much the same way.

What PD and I have learned since that discussion is that car generators that spawn random models have a method to remember the model (random ID = 0 - model ID, just figured this out), and the primary and secondary colors of the cars that spawn. There's also a timer that records when the vehicle is spawned so after a while a different model and colors can spawn.

Anyway, I was able to get the same random camper to spawn with a different tertiary color, but it was always a color identified as a tertiary color in the carcol.dat file. The car generator records also don't have a method to store variations, so as expected, the camper's top might pop and the peace hood might come and go each time I returned to the vehicle.