Minutemen quest dry up at the end

[Lonewanderer]

Hello,

I looked in the bug data base and in the already fixed item list, and nothing directly connected turned up - so I report it here:

My last play through: I selected the Minutemen ending, doing all quests for the Railroad many quests for the BOS, and some Institute quests up to the Battle of Bunker Hill. While not strictly necessary I ended with the Battle of Bunker Hill and was Banished from the Institute. After talking to the Railroad (they send you to the Minutemen) I blew up the Institute with the Minutemen ending the main quest line. At this point I had fully played Automatron, but not yet started Far Harbour, Vault-Tec and Nuka-World.

After I was Banished from the Institute the usual attack on the castle happened and run normally. At this point I had around 10-12 settlements. After the Institute was destroyed I received two more quests from Preston and the astle was attacked once more. And then - nothing...

I searched on the Internet and I seem not to be the only one having this problem. Usually the Minutemen quests are slightly different each playthrough: They always start with Ten Pines, and the Corvega Plant. The next settlements are different every time, sometimes Sunshine Tidings - for example - come late or even never. This is intentional and actually quite nice, since every game is slightly different. In this last game Somerville Place was either very late or somehow not included. Still I should be able to win it as settlement, but the settlers there refuse to cooperate - they give no quests.

Looking at this game, I never once had a settlement problem, no kidnappings, no Synths in the settlement, just settlement attack (rather rarely) and once or twice the call for help (via Preston and the radio) where they tell you of a threatening visit by a faction (Supermutants or Gunners) where you must build defenses and then defend the settlement. The radio gave out one quest - since then nothing. 

So in the end Preston only has standard companion dialogue, the radio has nothing, unaligned settlements give no quests, only settlement attacks (standard) occur from time to time. I am unsure if this is intended this way - radiant quests should be available, but except attacks there is nothing. Unaligned settlements give no quests and cannot be won (except by killing all), empty settlements can be won by killing the monsters. Is this the way it should be? Others report, that they still receive quests from the radio, or even from Preston. I never had any kidnappings. I am unsure if this is normal...

A bit off topic - your posts about radiant quests and about Spawn triggers: I can see that too: There should be merchants (like the Vault Rep) which you can hire - I met a Brotherhood Scribe once in around 5 different games, I met Doc Anderson, but only in very early stages, where I could not try to hire her, and the rest of the people I never once saw in the game! I had a game where I met the dog seller several times, and I my current game I met him just once, but the Cow seller stands in the same place since weeks because I do not talk to her and do not buy. It is actually similar to the Minutemen quests, they simply dry up and stop. This is why I mention it here...

In my current game several game days after the near total dryup of Minutemen quests all the Vertibird flights stopped too. I still can call a Vertibird and use it, but the BOS seems to have stopped flying around at all. In another game I had just once an attack from a non BOS Vertibird, but this happened just once, never again.

Also I see drastically longer load times when changing from a internal cell to the exterior. With drastically I mean up to 2 Minutes! The size of my saves is between 18 MB and 14 MB now, compared to 4-5 MB at the start - this seems normal to me. I also have never more than around 20-30 saves in the save folder, because I move them away. The load times even with full saves are around 20-30 seconds on my computer, but sometimes this goes up to 2 Minutes. I enabled the Papyrus log, and there are no special error messages, when it takes so long. Disc activity is nearly zero for one minute or more, then it seems to normally load the exterior cells. But it is not a crash - it runs normally.

So I suspect something hangs somehow in a state the devs had not planned. Maybe - see my other post below - it has to do with the peculiar non-end to the Battle of Bunker Hill. At this time I am playing Far Harbour, which seems to work normal. Before that I played the Vault-Tec-Workshop in full. Nuka-World I did not start yet.

I have now around 5 new starts (often when a big official patch came out) and I saw kidnappings, but other settlement quests did not come up, until my current game, where no kidnappings ever happened (actually no settlement ever had problems except attacks). Is this intentional, or is it a bug similar to the random encounters? The total stop of BOS Vertibird flights also is a bit peculiar.

All in all the progressing game seems to be even more dead every day. While to open quests are still solvable and work, the radiant quests seem to work only partially. The Railroad gave out the 'Save the Synth' quests and Desdemonas Raider quests normally. PAMs quests I cannot touch, since she always wants me to kill a BOS patrol, despite me being friendly with the BOS. So I don't talk to PAM. (This should be fixed and made dependent on players status with the BOS).

I am interested to her from you with very high levels and far into the game, with most quests done if you see the same...

LW

[Sclerocephalus]

Vertibird flights are all random encounter quests, so it's not surprising that they will stop occurring eventually.

[Lonewanderer]

2 minutes ago, Sclerocephalus said:

Vertibird flights are all random encounter quests, so it's not surprising that they will stop occurring eventually.

Ah - thank you - I read your threads about RE quests and the problems there. This fix alone will make the game much better even in the medium range, and in games where the main quest is long done.

Could it be, that kidnappings are also implemented as a sort of random encounters? Once I saw an obviously 'kidnapped' settler kneeling in Camp Kendall (unmarked location near one of the bridges, is used in Weathervane quests), while I attacked the location (without a quest). I aborted and tried to find out if anybody was kidnapped, but had very few settlements at this time, and no Castle, hence no Radio. But I could not find a settlement with a kidnapping. What would have happened, if I had killed the Raiders and talked to the settler? I did load an earlier save (just to avoid a bug and did not attack), but could not find the kidnapping, and later the settler was not there. Mysterious. But this was the game before my current game.

[Lonewanderer]

Here is additional information for MM radiant quests: I do not know, if Preston stopping give quests at some point is intentional.

But Radio Freedom does give quests - I was impatient...

After looking at the scripts I found the radio loop script, and this gives radiant quests, but only if the player is listening to the radio, either with the Pipboy or by being present in the Castle.

The chance for a quest is 25%, rolled every time a song ends and the voice announcements are played. I only waited for one announcement to see if anything happened, and this was not enough. After looking at the script I kept listening and after around 3-4 announcements the standard was replaced by - a kidnapping! The first in this game, and the quest worked fine. So obviously at this late stage you need to listen to the radio to receive quests. Maybe settlers should also give quests - but this could be dysfunctional because of problems in the radiant system. I thought, that quests were generated in the background and reported by radio or by visit of the settlement (or even by Preston, if you talk to him). But from the radio loop it seems so, that the radio loop itself can trigger quests.

So - MM radiant quests at the end consist of settlement attacks and - if you keep listening to the radio, and only then - of radio settlement quests. Since the MM main script also mentions (I am not yet versed in the scripting language) the REscript I suspect, that possible bugs with the radiant system also influence MM quests. MM radiant quests are the only faction radiant quests which are triggered randomly, all other faction radiant quests are triggered by ending the previous quest, sometimes with a time delay. All RR quests for example are strictly chained together, there are several quest givers, and they all can give quest lines, but the next quest in the chain is started by handing in the previous quest. The same goes for the BoS. But the MM have (at the start) only one quest giver (Preston). The settlers at settlement can also give out quests, but this seems no longer working in my game - there are never any quests except attacks.

The radiant quests at Far Harbor seem to work - I received one radiant quest from my settlers (Hermit Crab) and another (Fix the Fog Condensers) from another settlement. There is no other quest giver than the settlers in FH, no radio and no Preston.