9th Company: Roots of Terror

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Most of the game's data are in a ".PAK" file format, if this could be unpacked somehow, there may be more cut content inside such as more leftovers of the PPSH-41.

9th Company: Roots of Terror is a licensed movie tie-in RTS for the PC. The game half-follows the events of the movie, with the first half of the game being a prequel with original missions, then the second half loosely adapting some scenes from the film with original missions.

The game has received highly mixed reviews on Steam, due to decent Men of War-like tactical gameplay but suffering from a highly buggy nature.

Unused PPSH-41 leftovers#

In the game's files there are references to a cut PPSH-41 weapon. (such as text in "GameParams.xml" where it's listed alongside other player-usable weapons)

PKM Oddity#

The PKM weapon also lists 8 available box magazines per soldier in the inventory menu (like most weapons), but the player will always be overencumbered trying to take that many. This may be a leftover from development where either soldiers could carry more or the PKM and it's ammo weighed less, this is the only weapon to list more magazines than the player can take, as the game's other "heavy" weapon, the RPG-7, actually only has 3 available rockets per character. (Instead of listing 8 that the player would be can't all select.)

Unused Units#

A debug function mistakenly left enabled is the ability to spawn units via Holding Alt and pressing the number keys. Notably, this includes three completely unused unit types:

A Russian Pilot who functions like a regular soldier, while this does technically appear as an NPC inside Helicopters, this is the only way to see a pilot outside of a Hind as well as control a pilot directly, notably the pilot actually has a unique unit portrait that's normally unseen.

A controllable Mujahideen soldier.

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Normally, Hinds are only AI controlled support called in by radiomen; however, the cheat Hind is actually directly controllable by the player and is a fully functional unit aside from missing icons for its rockets.

Debug Vehicle Behavior#

Normally vehicles require a driver and other crew members to operate; however, there is a debug setting that can be enabled in the game's code to allow vehicles (And Turrets) to move/aim without a driver. By opening the game's Data folder then "config.ai" with notepad, the player can change many of the game's settings and one of them is "TankIgnoreDrivers", enabling this allows vehicles to move even if the occupants get out or are killed.

Notably in at least the Steam English release, this setting is mistakenly enabled by default, requiring the player to manually disable it to have the game function as intended. (This negatively impacts the game's bonus mission as that is reliant on the player stealing enemy tanks that will start moving on their own with this function enabled as well as making stealing enemy vehicles more awkward as they'll often try to drive off even if the player has a sniper take out the vehicle's driver and gunner.)