Finding a 'prisoner' without quest - and the problems: Curious case

[Lonewanderer]

Hello,

this is not a bug report in itself, only want to report it, could fix it myself. If a bug report is needed I can write one, with saves too.

What happened: In my current game I had focused to do side quests and DLC quests before having a lot of settlements, because often you are disturbed by settlement attacks while being elsewhere and busy. So I received the first two quests from Preston, which lead to two new settlements, Ten Pines Bluff and Starlight Drive In. I also made Sunshine Tidings Coop a settlement, with only a few settlers. I postponed reporting the second quest (Starlight Drive In) to Preston, then did a lot of other things, freeing and healing Cait, freeing Curie, freeing Nick and do all until the BoS arrived, and so on. I also did the full Automatron DLC and the full Far Harbor DLC (with all side quests and all settlements there). Hence Preston now (still have not talked to him) wants to free the Castle (more than 4 settlements triggers this).

So in the last few days I planned two more settlements, building them up a bit as a preparation for the Castle. I went to Taffington Boathouse, killed the insects, activated the workshop, build defenses and a few new beds, but have no settlers yet. Next I went to Country Crossing - and there it happened:

Count Crossing was completely empty! No settlers at all, but the workshop could not be used (not allied to this settlement). What happened? Settlers can only be killed by player actions, and I know I did not fight even near County Crossing. I also checked my quest list - no open quest at all for this.

But I remembered, that in a side quest I entered BADTFL just for one thing, and did not clean it, but while fighting I found a prisoner. Since I had no quest, I did not kill all the raiders and did not free him. So I went to BADTFL and freed the prisoner. All worked normal, but there is no way to find out where the prisoner is from. The prisoner follows you to the outside, but then, if you walk away at some point he stops following and starts to walk (very slow). I still followed him, and he walked to County Crossing! He entered the settlement and started his work routine. But he could not be talked to, he had only standard answers. Settlement now had one settler and was still blocked.

To find out what really happened I had to load a very old save from a time long before, and go to County Crossing. And there was just ONE settler, who reported a kidnapping and asked for help. So this 'job' is running for a long time now.

Next I noted down the ID of the prisoner (0009b1d3). In the old save the prisoner was already at BADTFL (I checked with player.moveto) and the I noted the ID of the settler who WOULD/SHOULD give me the quest, but never did (0009b1d2). I did not change anything in the old save.

Next I loaded the save with the prisoner now at the settlement, and using the other ID I found out I looked for the missing settler (0009b1d2). And with player,moveto I found him. At GREENTOP NURSERY!! There he was idling away, and when I talked to him, he gave the quest, it resolved itself, and I received County Crossing. I think (did not wait, it was late) the missing settler moved back to County Crossing. I did not save this - now that I know where the guy is, I will run to Greentop Nursery and talk with him normally.

Interesting fact is, that this quest resolved with 'Talk to Preston' in my quest list! So the game thought I received the quest from Preston, but I never did and it was not in my list. Also, since more than 3 in game DAYS have passed, the quest would have timed out long before and failed. It did not.

The question is: Why does the settler with his unresolved quest open walk to another settlement? This was the entire problem. Had I found the settler where he belongs, all this doings would never have been necessary. I did NOT teleport the missing settler back, or change anything, I just used console to find out what happened.

If you are interested in this problem I can report it on the tracker, and provide saves.

Has anybody seen similar problems? As I tried to find out what happened I also googled it and there where no identical reports, but settlers 'migrating' from County Crossing to Greentop Nursery where reported several times.

EDIT:

Did load a save just before finding County Crossing empty and went to Greentop Nursery directly, since I know now that the NPC is there. He was there, and immediately started to complain about the kidnapping - but while talking to him, he started to walk away! He even canceled the dialog by walking away! I followed and manged to receive the quest: Kidnapping at County Crossing, target BADTFL. I suspect the settler continued to walk toward his 'home' at Country Crossing. So somehow he got teleported, and by talking to him he was triggered to walk back to Country Crossing.

Edited December 12, 2024 by Lonewanderer

[Scythe Bearer]

Hmmmm ... interesting. 

I ran into a similar situation with Oberland Station on my first attempt at "just don't talk to Preston".  I never resolved the issue, so congratulations on your successful detective work (Nick would be proud 😜).  I won't weigh in on the necessity for a "ticket" as that ain't my bailiwick. 

But ... The whole "don't talk to Preston" approach is not new; I don't talk to him, I just learned the hard way to start ignoring him a lot earlier.  I leave the vault, talk to Cogsworth, search Sanctuary, adopt Dogmeat, and then skip off to other parts of the Commonwealth and ignore Concord like it's a festering, disease ridden cesspit (which isn't all that far off, actually).  By this route, I can still talk to settlers and make settlements and do nice things for wastelanders without having to worry about "report to Preston".   Preston be damned. 

The only issue I have with my route is that there are some quest triggers (not unlike your experience) which don't quite work correctly (more hard won expeiences).  So, until Momma Murphy points me to "the great green jewel", I don't rescue Nick, I avoid the NE portion of the map and the Nikano residence, I eschew the front door of Valentine's Detective Agency, Fort Hagan remains un-investigated (save for the top floor for the skill book therein) and Vincent stays safely ensconced in his cave (but I snag his skill book).  There are a few other things I avoid (like two of the Bobblehead dolls which are in quest locations, and the Museum of Witchcraft and the two quests therein), and others I can't remember at the moment (I only remember them while playing with a "whoops, you don't wanna go there yet").  Of course that path also keeps the Bags of Sh ... ah ... Brotherhood of Steal ... I mean Steel ... safely out of the Commonwealth, which is fine by me (mumble faxing bullies in power armor).

Past those, everything else if fair game, even Nuka World, Vault 88, and the quests in the RR up to getting the Ballistic Armor. 

[Lonewanderer]

46 minutes ago, Scythe Bearer said:

Hmmmm ... interesting. 

I ran into a similar situation with Oberland Station on my first attempt at "just don't talk to Preston".  I never resolved the issue, so congratulations on your successful detective work (Nick would be proud 😜).  I won't weigh in on the necessity for a "ticket" as that ain't my bailiwick. 

But ... The whole "don't talk to Preston" approach is not new; I don't talk to him, I just learned the hard way to start ignoring him a lot earlier.  I leave the vault, talk to Cogsworth, search Sanctuary, adopt Dogmeat, and then skip off to other parts of the Commonwealth and ignore Concord like it's a festering, disease ridden cesspit (which isn't all that far off, actually).  By this route, I can still talk to settlers and make settlements and do nice things for wastelanders without having to worry about "report to Preston".   Preston be damned. 

<...>

I play it a bit differently, but you are probably right.The Story Manager is a bit overzealous with these Settlement quests.

I have it now resolved in a clear way, with one console command: I loaded a save just before my visit to County Crossing, went there again, and the settlement was empty, as before. But since I know the ID of the missing NPC, I just used in the console prid 0009b1d2 and moveto player, this while standing outside of the settlement, but near. The NPC appeared and immediately talked to me, and gave the quest 'Kidnapped Settler at BADTFL'. I watched the settler after this, and the bug seems to be fixed, because he walks into the correct settlement (County Crossing) and starts his farmer routine.

Next I walked over to BADTFL and freed the prisoner, who first followed me for a while, but if you are too far ahead he stops following and walks toward Country Crossing. I had a fight with 3 Supermutants, so I arrived around the same time, talked to the questgiver NPC, received a reward, and the Settlement joined the Minuteman. The freed prisoner even thanked me himself - and the quest closed. No more 'Talk to Preston', so I am quite happy with this outcome, since it fixed the problem (the missing NPC) and worked fine afterwards. I hope this small console command does nothing evil, but I don't think so.

[Lonewanderer]

Problem seems to continue, also, searching with Google shows, that a lot of players seem to have problems with this settlement, always somehow related to the two original NPCs, which are unnamed but present.

First - after building a few assets (house with 4 beds, two more water pumps and several machine gun turrets) to prepare for more settlers, happiness does not improve from 50, it always is around 50. Never more.

So - there are two existing beds for the two NPCs: Step 1, I manually assigned the two NPCs to the beds (which they used before). This was possible and made the beds 'assigned', so they were not assigned obviously before. Happiness did not improve. There are now 24 defense, 12 food and 9 water shown. Happiness is around 50, despite the bed action.

Step 2: Delete both preexisting beds and replace them with new beds in the same place, manually assign settlers. Happiness around 50.

Step 3: Scrap beds in the original shack and assign settlers to two of the new beds in the house. Happiness now below 50...

When I returned to the settlement County Crossing, one of the two NPCs was missing. Again. Talking to the other brought up no quest dialog, only default answers. Missing settler was still counted as present.

Since I know now the IDs of the two original settlers, I went looking. It was the same settler, who was missing before, only this time the other one was not kidnapped and present. I used player.moveto <Settler-ID> - guess where I ended up: BADTFL, in the cell, but the missing settler was just standing there, not kneeing and not bound.

Strange - I restored to a point before the console command and again fixed it via console: prid ID, moveto player in the settlement. The settler went to his routine. Since then he remains - but happiness still around 50.

Please look at Issue #25780 in the bug tracker - old, but I think still unfixed, it is very similar. At the time this happened to me I did not know the settlers IDs - I am sure I would have found the kidnapped settler elsewhere. There seems to be something, which changes the 'home' for the settlers or teleports them around, probably kidnapping quest related, but buggy.

There seems to be a teleporting issue with this settlement, and other things seem to be fishy too. Since both settlers are unnamed, next I will try to move them both to another (empty, but prepared) settlement. Maybe County Crossing I unhealthy for them...

[Lonewanderer]

Okay - just to conclude this:
I did now a detailed test, what and when it happened. Since I have all full saves from the start, this was possible.

In level 7, just at the start of the game, not much done, all things are normal. I use console commands to teleport to the settlement, since in low level County Crossing can be hard to reach.

Level 7: Both settlers present, one of them walks near me and gives a Minutemen quest (Ghouls, Raiders, Super Mutants...)

So to make it short: This happens up to a certain point. The last bigger quest I did was a Railroad quest (High Rise), after this all things normal.

I think I continued then with Railroad quests, one is in my quest log and open. The last save, which is okay, had the same situation.

The next save is damaged: Arriving at the settlement, only ONE of the Settlers is there, and gives a normal Minutemen quest. The other one is missing. It is always the same NPC which is missing.

Teleporting to his ID brings up the following locations:

Greentop Nursery, standing inside.
BADTFL, standing in the cell, but not bound. Does not act as prisoner
Near Greenetech Genetics, at the river in the Raider Camp. Not fighting.

Sometimes the game reports the ID as missing, probably because the NPC is not spawned in?

This problem can be temporarily solved by teleporting the NPC into the settlement, he seems to stay there, especially if you receive the settlement by doing the quest.When I found the problem, the quest was a kidnapping, and since the NPC is not there, the other NPC was kidnapped, and therefore no quest could be given. When I found the other NPC (Greentop Nursery), he gave the quest.

But this is NOT a solution, this is only the symptom! In continuing the game the settlement is somehow unstable in happiness, even if you put more settlers to it. The Happiness always goes down, never over 60, and the it goes down again. Also the game starts to crash inside all settlements, often by opening or closing the settlement menu. Sometimes also outside of settlements, but distinctly much more often that before. Having the settlement made it much worse. Before that the game ran normally, despite the settler missing and buggy.

I suspect, that between two saves, i clearly identified as 'before' the problem and 'after' the problem something happened. I did not add or delete mods. But since this happened 2 years before (2022) I cannot remember details. I think, that the 'defect' save was generated, and since then retains the error. Also important: In all the mentioned saves I never once was even NEAR the County Crossing settlement! It was not on my map, I could not have Fast traveled there, I needed to use console 'coc' or had to run to it.So it was not something I did, aborted dialog or something like this.

So - if you see something like this, you probably cannot fix it - just go back to another save. I have no idea what went wrong, it may have happened during or before a save, some data corruption.

Trouble is, you will not see it immediately. I did not see it for a long play time...

Game Version 1.10.163 (GOG).

Mods: Better Companions, Previsibines Repair Pack, Flacon Oil Textures and UFO4P

The standard esl files coming with this release.

Will start a new game now