MinDefeatCastle

[jeandark]

Hello!

I `m gaming FO 4 more than 100 "in-game-days" , reached Lvl 130 and want(ed) to complete the MQ with the faction of the MM.

My Sole Survi had a trip from Sanct.Hills to the Institute (= Instutionalized), met "Shaun", Father and e.g. Dr. Li ..., investigated the very clean rooms, spoke with a lot of persons, gathered some items and-so-on. He wanted to know the ideology behind "Mankind- Redifined". There were some dark mysteries. Then he finished the "Inside Job" with Sturges holotape.

Because returning to Sanct.Hills was not possible, I used the cheat: SetStage MQ207 200

At the next visit, my Sole Survi murdered some Chars inside the Institute and got banished there. His landing was near the CIT Ruins. The result wasn´t notable. The MQ was stagnant. Therefore I cheated  the Miniquest "FormRanks": SetStage Min301 10

(Several alternations were ending in the same way.)

The" Mini"quest "FormRanks" are made to intend the gamer to bild more settlements. Radio Freedom or Preston Garvey will give you the instruktion to help settlements out of dangerous situations. That is an endless loop of missions and repetition at well known places. The Cheat "sqt" shows e.g. "MinRecruit01" to a target.

It`s a joke, because I `ve 35 well built settlements, all together with ~ 220 settlers. The tryout of two dozen missions seemed never to end, then I dispaired and cheated SetStage Min301 50

Nominally a "Trigger" (s. FO 4 Wiki) - but without the expactions, you wait for...

To make it shorter: The Quest "MinDefendCastle" doesn`t start too. The trigger:

SetStage MinDefendCastle 15 has no query  to Form Ranks. sqo showed DORMANT stages.

There is no way for me to aggree to help Father or the Institute. The faction BoS is friendly, but I hate to betray DIMA or Acadia. Mission Impossible? Please help me.

 

[Lonewanderer]

" Because returning to Sanct.Hills was not possible, I used the cheat: SetStage MQ207 200 "

This is an error, I think. You ruined your game with the setstage commands. You should use a save inside the Institute, before you used console commands.

When you have Sturges holo tape you should do what the quest log says - return to Father. Now you can agree to Father during this dialog, or you can be unfriendly and disagree. If you do the latter, you will be banished from the Institute, without the need to murder somebody. So - after you first visit you can get the holotape, AND you can fetch the medicine for Virgil! You can enter the old locked lab and will find it there, but you need to do all that before returning to Father, if you want to be Banished at this point.

If you want to be 'Banished from the Institute', this is possible in more than one way. Without console!!!

First, if you - after looking around in the Institute - return to Father and disagree with him, being rude and unfriendly. I never tried this, but it should work.

Second, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, if you freed the Synths, and killed the Courser who did the mission with you. (If you are friendly with the Railroad and the Brotherhood, you will not need to kill anybody else). After this misson is failed (you did not return the Synths), you have a talk with Father on the roof of the old Institute. If you are rude and unfriendly, you will be banished. This is, what I did.

Third, you can become Banished, when you receive the mission in Mass Fusion. If you report this mission to the Brotherhood, you become Banished, and will do the mission for the Brotherhood. Since this allows more quests it is often the recommended way to do things for the MM ending. But with option 2 it works too, I did this to solve the Main Quest.

All this can vary slightly, depending on which faction you used to get into the Institute. You will always need the Railroad, but you can start it with the Brotherhood or with the Minutemen (Sturges). If you also played with the Railroad (I did), you can report your success, as long as you are not Banished.

Leaving the Insitute after first entering it is AFAIK only possible by visiting Father as he requested from you. If you leave the Institute without being banished, you can use the Institutes teleporter, if you are banished you leave forcibly where you entered, and cannot return. (It is also logical, you entered with your own teleporter, which broke after it worked once).

This is what I know from my play through. There are other ways and options, depending on which faction you support and which faction you use to enter the Institute, but essentially if you become Banished, you are unable to do the Institute ending. But you have other options, and for the MM ending it is best to enter the Institute with the MM (Sturges). But you can start the inside quest from the Railroad, but never finish it (because you are Banished). And becoming 'Banished' is essential for the MM ending, AFAIK.

[Arthmoor]

Indeed, the use of console commands is not supported by us. Doing so inevitably leads to the game being broken in some way, and sure enough, that seems to be what you did. I'd suggest following Lonewanderer's advice. Reload the game and proceed according to what he's told you.

[jeandark]

22 hours ago, Lonewanderer said:

...

"This is an error, I think. You ruined your game with the setstage commands. You should use a save inside the Institute, before you used console commands. ...

If you want to be 'Banished from the Institute', this is possible in more than one way. Without console!!! ...

Leaving the Insitute after first entering it is AFAIK only possible by visiting Father as he requested from you. If you leave the Institute without being banished, you can use the Institutes teleporter, if you are banished you leave forcibly where you entered, and cannot return. (It is also logical, you entered with your own teleporter, which broke after it worked once). ...

And becoming 'Banished' is essential for the MM ending, AFAIK."

@Lonewanderer and Arthmoor

Thank you for your answers. Seeking around two weeks to find some solutions to the problems in FO 4's MQ, I found your Forum and it seems to be the best.

I understand that you don't provide cheats. Imho cheating is the last way when all normal ways fail. Long ago I cheated to get back traider Rylee and later in Nuka Cola's Kiddy Kingdom having trouble with Oscar, the magician. These were successful cheats. Cheats with triggers related to dialogs perhaps won't help.

I wrote some SetStage cheats here, because I think that there are Bugs inside the MQ. And I suppose the severest bug is in "Form Ranks". In my game I built 35 settlements and I cannot build any more! But Preston Garvey has no option to consider it.

Having very many savegames, I will do some other "trial-and-errors" to avoid the problems. Please permit my next posting.

[jeandark]

You should snub Father in his office, if you want to get to be banished immediately. The next door into the Institute is locked(!) and you have to choose the way back to the teleporter room, where you came in. Nearby is the last chance to activate Sturges' holotape in the terminal.

I've tried this procedure, but I don't like it. It is preventing a better knowledge about Father and the area of the Institute.

At last I landed in front of the CIT-ruins and then began just the same troubles in the loop of "Forming Ranks".

Next I decided to remain neutral and to explore the Institute. The stoyline may bring more evidence who is an enemy or not. Therefore the following note in the PipBoy of my Sole Survi: "I've found my son ... accepted his invitation to join the  Institute, and need to intoduce myself to the departement heads."

Quest: "Meet the Division Leaders"

A good reason to explore all interesting things in The Institute. Dr. Madison Li presented me a chip chip to teleport out using FastTravel. But Clayton Holdren was not in the Bioscience lab, stood always beside the entrance of the big lift. He had a green marker on the top of his head, but no option to have a dialog with me.

Time to leave the Institute? But the PipBoy said: "You cannot fast travel from this location." And the teleport room was interrupted.

Perhaps I had to use Sturges holotype not in the beginning but in ending of this quest?

Now I had the idea to try a SetStage cheat: SetStage MQ207 200

Please have a look to the specific bugs here:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Institutionalized

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3si2nc/help_stuck_in_the_institute_pc/

[Lonewanderer]

@jeandark

As far as I understand your problems: If you get 'Banished' immediately, it works. If you try to do it after meeting the section leaders, you receive your chip to fast travel from and to the Institute, but somehow cannot complete talking with Holdren.

If you are Banished (i.e. quest Banished from the Institute), the the MM quest Form Ranks does not work, because you already have more than enough settlements.

Does that sum it up?

I think there are 2 problems here: First the problem with Holdren, which should be small: Just try to wait somewhere outside the Institutes main area, for example in the secret lab (I think this is an extra area). The problem could be connected to the daily schedules, which not always work glitch free. If Holdren is 'in transit' (for example from his lab to his home, or similar) he will not talk to you, at least not always. But if you leave the cell, where he currently is, he will be despawned and if you return, he will be spawned again, and this could fix it. Maybe even waiting in the same cell will help. Waiting/sleeping fixes several small problems.

The other problem is more serious: How did you acquire 35 settlements? (Forget about your settlements in DLC areas, I do not think they count and Prestion never mentions them). Still, to have 35 you must have more than enough in the main Boston area. But how did you acquire them? If you did it 'on your own', that is by talking to the settlers, solving quests for them, or even killing them without doing Prestons quests this may be a problem, if the quest script does not count these settlements as Minutemen settlements. But I am not sure about that. I did several quests for Preston, but also won other settlements by my own. For example it is easy to get Sunshine Tidings and I want to have it, so often I get it before being sent there. Had no troubles with it.

So - did you acquire the Fortress? This is important. Also - if you acquired it by yourself, there are problems, because only with Preston does the questline in the Fortress work correctly. It goes:

Prestons asks you to clean the Fortress, and he an several MM wait for you. Then you kill the Mirelurks, until the Queen appears, and after you kill the Queen, you are asked to build the transmitter. You can kill the Mirelurks on your own, and the Queen appears too, but the transmitter is not built correctly. If you did miss this stage, I do not know what to do, because if you do it as planned, a unnamed MM will take the seat near the microphone, and this does not work, if you do it on your own. Could this be your problem?

This step is important, and it may well be, that the MM  ending is no longer possible, if you ignored Preston so long. On the other hand, you had to talk to Preston to get the hint to talk to Sturges to build the teleporter in the first place...

So - in the case that you have the Fortress, and the Fortress quests are done:

Fortress quests:

1) Acquire the Fortress, kill the Queen, build the transmitter, the MM sits and transmits, and you can receive the transmitter with your radio.

2) After a while a new NPC named Ronny (?), a woman appears and helps you to open the locked area. You are asked to build artillery, and it is tested.

If these things are done, then you have the Fortress, and this should be ok. If not, I have no idea how to fix it.

Then you could try to go around to all settlements in the main Boston area, maybe you can talk to a NPC. Or listen to the Radio (MM sender), there could be a request for help. Normally 8 settlements should be enough. But they need to be MM settlements. That is, while doing a quest you will have the chance to ask them to join the MM, and if you solve the quest, the Questgiver will tell you, that they will join the MM and you have the settlement. I have no idea if this is possible without even interacting with Preston, but probably it is possible. But then the settlement will not be counted as a MM settlement.

So - if you have the Fortress acquired on your own, and no transmitter, or if you have a lot of settlements, but they are not MM settlements, you can only hope, that there are several settlements you do not have. So wait for a quest, by radio or via Preston. (After Preston asked you to help settlements, every action you do is for the MM, AFAIK).

If you have no MM radio, you probably can no longer solve the main quest with the MM. There are a lot of reports, when the MM who sits at the radio transmitter does not appear or does not take his seat in special circumstances. Mostly this seems to happen, when something out of sequence was done, or somebody forgot to talk to Preston.

So please check:

You have the Fortress, the transmitter works and you built the artillery with Ronnies help. This is crucial for the later quest Defend the Fortress. If this all works, maybe it can be fixed, just try to talk to Preston repeatedly (not in a row, travel around your settlements, return, talk to him), and permanently listen to the MM Radio. There should be a quest triggered, and maybe this fixes it.

If nothing of the above works, then the MM ending will be no longer possible, I fear. Sorry, I cannot help more, but I never had such problems, I did it 'in line' and before doing much in the DLC areas (except Automatron). 

Using setstage is always dangerous, because we do not know exactly, what else happens, when you go from one stage to the next. There may other quests stages influenced, variables set or reset, which does not happen with setstage. You have to know exactly what you are doing, for this to work.

If you must use console commands you could try to fix Holdren this way, by disabling and enabling him, or moving him to you. But I would save before that, and be very careful.

But as I said, Holdren is a minor problem. If 'Form Ranks' appears, Preston thinks, you have less than 8 settlements. If you already have more (was the case in my games), then this quest will be skipped.

You need to leave the Institute in a 'normal' way. Otherwise other main quest solutions could be buggy too. If the MM problem is not solvable because you 'used up' all the settlements, then other solutions will still work, but with the consequences, that you must destroy other factions. So - think hard: How did you acquire your first settlement? Did Preston ask you, or did you ignore him? If you ignored him, you have a problem, despite the fact, that Sturges helped you to build the transmitter. (This could be an oversight). If you did not ignore him, you may be (in Prestons count) only one settlement short. This should work, if you talk to him, go to all settlements you do not yet have (only in the main Boston area), and listen permanently to the MM Radio.

That's all I can think of at the moment

EDIT: Just looked at the list of settlements in the WIKI: There are 37 settlements in the game, this includes the DLC settlements. If you do not count DLC settlements, then there are 30. Bunker Hill can be acquired, but only after the Battle of Bunker Hill. So 29 settlements remain. You say, you have 35. If you have all in the DLC areas, this leaves 2 settlements in the main area. If you continue to work with the Institute, you will receive the quest Battle of Bunker Hill - see my description in my previous post - and maybe this triggers Preston and completes the 'Form Ranks' quest, but you need to do quests for the mayor (best before the Battle) of Bunker Hill to gain Bunker Hill. This could work. Also, if any settlement in the main area is missing, this also could complete 'Form Ranks'.

But this can only work, if you did the Fortress quests with the MM!

Here is the list of all settlements:  List of settlements

Good Luck :-)

EDIT: Just one thing more: It should not matter when you use the Scanner for Sturges. I did it immediately after entering the Institute, as far as I remember. But I think, that Father after your initial talk asks you to meet the section leaders, and then to return to him. If you could not talk to Holdren, this quest is not done yet. You need to complete it and talk to Holdren (see my hints above). After this you return to Father, and then you should be able to leave via fast travel. I do not know if you can become Banished at this point without killing somebody. But this does not matter, since you should talk to the other factions and before you do that, give the holotape to Sturges. The Brotherhood will later ask you to give it to them, and you can fetch it back from Sturges. Also talk to the Railroad, if you did quests for them. Then, from the Institute you will receive a quest (catch a rogue synth who works with Raiders), and the next quest will be the Battle at Bunker Hill. After this you can acquire Bunker Hill as a settlement, and then you will meet Father outside on the roof, and can be unfriendly and will be Banished. This is different to your plan, but not by much. And it may work better...

 

[jeandark]

@Lonewanderer

What an excellent filigree you presented here, Lonewanderer! :-)

On ‎06‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 8:51 PM, Lonewanderer said:

As far as I understand your problems: If you get 'Banished' immediately, it works. If you try to do it after meeting the section leaders, you receive your chip to fast travel from and to the Institute, but somehow cannot complete talking with Holdren.

If you are Banished (i.e. quest Banished from the Institute), the the MM quest Form Ranks does not work, because you already have more than enough Settlements.

Does that sum it up?

Yes, it does.

Perhaps it's more complicated than I thought: the quantity of Settlements. I thought, being the Genereal of the MM should be enough, when I got a Workshop/workbench anywhere. In Sanctuary Hills are 5 MM, Mama Murphy, Sturges, Preston ... in the Castle (Fortress is a better name) are Ronny Shaw and 4 or 5 no-named MM, I recruited to work there. Imo this Settlement is o.k. i can hear Radio Freedom. The artillery is tested. There are Strong, Nick Valentine and some settlers with big weapons and armour; there is fusion energy, there are very big walls with turrets on top ...

Please see my uploaded file and my red notes.

I reloaded a ~ 2 weeks old savegame (Institute 98d6h54m) Lvl 127, no cheats included. Starting in the teleport room. And now I was exploring the Institute again.

Clayton Holdren is always the same. I can't leave without his dialog.

If I take a stealth Boy and kill him, I shall be banished from the Institute, but perhaps there is another way. Usually I avoid murder in the game; eliminating the Institute shall be a big bang. And this is named as good ending. 

You suggested to wait.. There is a question how long I should wait. At last, there are lighter cheats like prid, disable, enable, moveto Player - but this shall be cheating again.

Back in the Commonwealth I shall power-on the recruiting beacons again. My best recruiting is in Nuka-World-Red-Rocket. I can move more settlers into other Settlements of the Commonwealth.

 

 

 

FO4_settl.xlsx

Edited October 8, 2017 by jeandark
Errors in typing

[Lonewanderer]

5 minutes ago, jeandark said:

@Lonewanderer

What an excellent filigree you presented here, Lonewanderer! :-)

Yes, it does.

Perhaps it's more complicatet than I thought: the quantity of Settlements. I thought, beeing the Genereal of the MM should be enough, when I got a Workshop/workbench anywhere. In Sanctuary Hills are 5 MM, Mama Murphy, Sturges, Preston ... in the Castle (Fortress is a better Name) are Ronny Shaw and 4 or 5 no-named MM, I recruited to work there. Imo this Settlement is o.k. i can hear Radio Freedom. The artillery is tested. There are Strong, Nick Valentine and some settlers with big weapons and armour; there is fusion energy, there are very big walls with turrets on top ...

Please see my uploaded file an my red notes.

I reloaded a ~ 2 weeks old savegame (Institute 99d...) Lvl 127, no cheats included. Starting in the teleport room. And now I was exploring the Institute again.

Clayton Holdren is always the same. I can't leave without his dilog.

If take a stealth Boy and kill him, I shall be banished from the Institute, but perhaps there is another way. Usually I avoid murder in the game; elminating the Institute shall be a big bang. And this is named as good ending. 

You suggested to wait.. There is a question how lon I should wait. At last, there are lighter cheats like prid, disable, enable, moveto Player - but this shall be cheating again.

Back in the Commonwealth I shall power-on the recruiting beacons again. My best recruiting is in Nuka-World-Red-Rocket. I can move more settlers into other Settlements of the Commonwealth.

 

 

Hmmm - so if you are the General of the MM, and have the Fortress (Castle) for the MM (Ronny and the artillery), then all your settlements must be counted as MM settlements. This is how it works, sometimes I came into a settlement and settlers asked me to do something for them, I did, and afterwards the questlog sent me to Preston ('Talk to Preston'). I never saw the 'Form Ranks' quest. I was around level 48 when I did the Main Quest and entered the Institute. I was with the Brotherhood, did quests for them, and I was with the Railroad, did all the quests you can do without entering the Institute. There are radiant quests, you can always do, but the main quest line stops until you enter the Institute. At this point I had done nothing for any DLC!

I am quite sure, that settlements which were added with a DLC do not count. But you already have most settlements in the original content, except Bunker Hill. So the quest 'Form Ranks' should be skipped.

Clayton Holdren: I have no idea what is wrong with him, I cannot remember talking to him, but I did, since all went normal in the Institute. If you stand in the Institute for a while and watch the people there, you see them walk around. They have schedules in a way. I meant for you to wait several hours (in game time), best in a extra cell, the secret lab, for example. This has no effect - except on timed quests, and the quest to talk to the leaders is not timed. So you could wait for days, but if it is a schedule problem, several hours should be enough. If the NPC despawns (which all do if you not in the same cell, AFAIK) he will spawn in again, when you enter the cell, but not always in the same location. Schedule problems should go away this way. (I do not know if the Institute is one cell, but I think there are several cells. If Holdren is in the central area, then entering any lab should be a different cell).

Try to wait several hours, and see if Clayton Holdren is elsewhere. (You will have to find a seat somewhere). Murdering him should be the last resort, if you do not want to do it.

Otherwise you could try to teleport him to you (only a small distance) and see what happens. If he does not move away and still cannot be talked to, he is somehow busy, but the game normally tells you, that a character is busy if you try to talk to him. Maybe he tried to enter the elevator and it hangs somehow. You could also try to teleport him to the Biolab (the room with the Gorillas), where he normally is. (Go there and teleport him to you). Just experiment a bit, but make a hard save before this. If it does not help, restore and try something else. I think teleporting Holdren around in the area where he normally is anyway should not destroy anything. You also could try to disable and enable him, this sometimes fixes problems too. Disabling/enabling a quest target could be a problem. I would try this last.

If you manage to leave the Institute normally (quest Institutionalized ends normally), the next question is, how to proceed. If you manage to solve the Holdren problem, you can proceed normally, and your next chance to become Banished is the quest in Bunker Hill. Father will ask you to do a quest for him at the end of 'Institutionalized', collect a rogue synth. You could do this (you will have a Courser as companion), and then you will be sent to Bunker Hill. The Bunker Hill quest is important, since it allows to have Bunker Hill as a settlement. After this you can be unfriendly to Father, this happens outside on the roof of the old CIT, and you will not need to enter the Institute, and will be unable to do so afterwards if you are Banished.

At this point, after you talk to Preston the quest 'Form Ranks' should not start. If it does, I think it is a bug. Because if you are the General, all settlements should be Minutemen settlements.

The beacons do not work AFAIK, if you switched them off, there are reports. But they also do not matter. If Preston (or the quest log) asked you to build one, and if you built it at this time, the quest concludes and you do not need it, you can store it. With this trick you can avoid to overflow your settlements at the start, where resources are scarce. But taking the beacon out of the workbench and enabling it again does not work, some say. I never tried it myself. But this should be of no consequence anyway. You have a settlement as soon as you have the workbench. It does not matter if there are settlers or not, AFAIK.

So - you may have two bugs: Clayton Holdren is one of them.

Question: Do you use mods? If yes, a mod could be responsible, even if you deleted it in the meantime! If no (except the UFO4P), then you should report both bugs. If you have a save with Holdren hanging and your game is clean (no mods, no console commands used before that) you could submit the save, so people here can have a look at Holdren.

The same goes with your second problem: If you manage to leave the Institute without the console and despite your huge list of settlements the quest Form Ranks starts (and is unsolvable), this also is a bug.

The people here do not want console commands, since they always do something, which is not reflected in the scripts and can do something bad, which nobody will find, since it is sort of a 'outside force'. But if you did not use console in your game before, and have saves, and even no or only a few mods, then you may have found one or two bugs and should report them. I am not one of the people who do the patching, I just report and learn. So you should make a new post, if you think that you really have a bug. I do not know if your situation is special but it is unusual, since you ignored the main quest for so long, you even did a lot of thinks in the DLCs obviously. Theoretically this should not matter, but I doubt this was tested by Bethesda.

So - concentrate on Holdren. If you have mods, try to disable them and see if this fixes Holdren. And make a save before using console commands. This save can be used to locate the problem with Holdren.

If you manage to solve the Holdren problem, continue to play normally until Bunker Hill. After the Battle ofBunker Hill you can become Banished, and then you will see if 'Form Ranks' does start. If it does, something is wrong, I think. You should report this also. (Disabling mods at this point is also something you should try). But if the quest 'Form Ranks' has started, it is too late. It should never start. So save before you talk to Preston.

You did report your problems, and mentioned solving part of them (Holdren) with console commands. So most of the experienced people here disregarded your report, because you used console commands. If you did not use mods (or only 'harmless' mods) and if you have the UFO4P, then Holdren not moving is not your fault - it is a bug. But if you did use console commands before, you should mention it. And also you should mention if you use (or used) mods, since several of them are known to make problems, even if you delete them later. If you have a 'clean' game up to this point, say so and report the Holdren problem, maybe somebody here can help better them I can.

The same goes for the problem 'Form Ranks' starting despite you having a lot of settlements.

Good Luck!

[jeandark]

Hello,

1. The "Clayton-Holdren- bug" is a stubborn problem. I've no active mods, disabled the "Unofficial Patch", gamed vanilla game as usual. But it wasn't simple; all of our solutions (above) failed. Killing Holdren was no good idea, teleporting him or to disable/enable him, too. But you, Lonewanderer, had the best idea: waiting in an area outside the center.

And here it is, a very strange operation: I had to get Holdren away from the central lift, and did it in this manner: bumping him foreward with my belly (soft violence), step by step, in line to the bioscience lab. He was waiting at the door, but made nothing to enter. There are several seats close by, where I waited for 24 hours.

Holdrens green marker had disappeared; on screen I got the order to use the networkscanner and then to leave the Institute. Wonderful news, to go out without killing somebody.

(It seems that Father was disappointed.)

An escort of Synth soldiers waited along the way from Father's office  up to the teleport area. Nevertheless peaceful.

Landing in front of the CIT-ruins, my hero got EPs and the quest "Form Ranks" began. The next challenge with open end.

2. Please later.

Edit:

Last results, last Saves: Returned to Commonwealth:

sqo (shows current quest objectives):

Institutionalized; sqo MQ207; Stages 10 COMPL. ;  Talk to the leaders 150 DORM.; 160 DISPL.; 180 DISPL.

 

Form Ranks; sqo Min301; Stages 10 COMPL.; 20 Recruit new Settlements for the MM DISPL.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2017 by jeandark
Last informations

[jeandark]

On ‎08‎.‎10‎.‎2017 at 6:37 PM, Lonewanderer said:

...

So - concentrate on Holdren. If you have mods, try to disable them and see if this fixes Holdren. And make a save before using console commands. This save can be used to locate the problem with Holdren.

If you manage to solve the Holdren problem, continue to play normally until Bunker Hill. After the Battle ofBunker Hill you can become Banished, and then you will see if 'Form Ranks' does start. If it does, something is wrong, I think. You should report this also. (Disabling mods at this point is also something you should try). But if the quest 'Form Ranks' has started, it is too late. It should never start. So save before you talk to Preston.

You did report your problems, and mentioned solving part of them (Holdren) with console commands. So most of the experienced people here disregarded your report, because you used console commands. If you did not use mods (or only 'harmless' mods) and if you have the UFO4P, then Holdren not moving is not your fault - it is a bug. But if you did use console commands before, you should mention it. And also you should mention if you use (or used) mods, since several of them are known to make problems, even if you delete them later. If you have a 'clean' game up to this point, say so and report the Holdren problem, maybe somebody here can help better them I can.

The same goes for the problem 'Form Ranks' starting despite you having a lot of settlements.

Good Luck!

Sorry, there is no evil intention, and didn't want to break your rules.  The first time I saw this WEB-site was last week and then I joined to these Forums, because I read much and saw the cognizance of the experienced people here. My use of  two console commands happened more than 3 weeks ago, seeing no chance to leave the Institute and although none to accomplish "Form Ranks". I never made console commands just for fun.

At Sunday I reloaded an old savegame with no setstage commands inside. My last postings are related to this clean savegame. The sqo commands don't change something; there is "Read Only" to receive important informations.

The best information in this moment shall be how to find out my real (registered) number of MM settlements. My Sole Survi is in the Loop of "Form Ranks" again. How many rescue-actions are normal? Just waiting without helping the settlers is no good idea, but endless actions ...?

[Lonewanderer]

23 minutes ago, jeandark said:

Sorry, there is no evil intention, and didn't want to break your rules.  The first time I saw this WEB-site was last week and then I joined to these Forums, because I read much and saw the cognizance of the experienced people here. My use of  two console commands happened more than 3 weeks ago, seeing no chance to leave the Institute and although none to accomplish "Form Ranks". I never made console commands just for fun.

At Sunday I reloaded an old savegame with no setstage commands inside. My last postings are related to this clean savegame. The sqo commands don't change something; there is "Read Only" to receive important informations.

The best information in this moment shall be how to find out my real (registered) number of MM settlements. My Sole Survi is in the Loop of "Form Ranks" again. How many rescue-actions are normal? Just waiting without helping the settlers is no good idea, but endless actions ...?

Your last paragraph is a bit unclear? 'Form Ranks' - should ask you to acquire more settlements, true? What do you mean with endless loop of rescue operations? (I never saw this quest because I always had enough settlements).

Wiki - Form Ranks

In the entry above, under Notes, please read. How did you build your teleporter, and which faction helped you? Did you not mention 'Inside Job' was finished? This seems to be important, so did you give the result to Sturges yet? If you gave it to the Brotherhood, you can get it back from them, I think. But since it was Sturges request, you should give it to him.  If you already gave it to Sturges, then Inside Job should be successful and finished. The Brotherhood may ask later for this Holotape, you can get it from Sturges, but Inside Job is and remains done. Sturges - as far as I remember - say he needs to decode it. If you gave it to him, just continue to play several in game days, maybe it is timed? At a certain point 'Form Ranks' should conclude, without you acquiring new settlements.

Or did you simply talk to Preston _before_ you gave the result to Sturges? Then this bit was missing, maybe?

If it continues to ask you for more settlements, despite Inside Job successful, then I do not know how to fix this.

I would recommend that you report it with all details, with your setup (mods you may use, and so on) in the bug tracker. You should describe every step, what you did, waht lead to it, and what the quest description asked for at this point. This will be needed if there is a problem in the quest logic.

Also look through the bugs there, maybe somebody had similar problems. But this would be clearly a bug, or an oversight. Because Bethesda did think of this - it cancels the quest entirely if the player has enough settlements. If it is started anyway, because of a bug somewhere, it may be unsolvable.

[jeandark]

You are very kind and patient, thank you, Lonewanderer. :-)

"Throughout this questline, the Sole Survivor will be asked to lead the Minutemen and complete tasks to align more settlements with the Minutemen. Eventually, this will lead to Taking Independence, in which the Minutemen take back their former headquarters, The Castle. With all the Minutemen quests completed, new quests assigned by Preston Garvey will begin to cycle back through previously completed quests. This entails completing the same quests again. "

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Commonwealth_Minutemen

In my game there is only the "Silver-Shroud" Quest (of the MM) open.

Perhaps I've to cycle back some settlements. But I never saw  closed workbenchs.

Preston's frequently ordered indirect quests I named "loop".

Maybe the reaseon why. Or because I have a big lot of savegames and STEAM's synchronization  became shorter and shorter.

I think I did no mistake with the series/jobs of quests, the "Inside Job" and so on.

 

P.S. I played Morrowind + all DLCs, Oblivion + DLC SI and Skyrim + all DLCs, FO NewVegas + all DLCs and FO 3 + all DLCs. There were some minor bugs; nevertheless I finished all final tasks.

Edit: It's good when gamers try to help themselves in unsolvable(?) situations, better should be a good update or support by Bethesda. Anything else? The last update was indeed bigger, but one of the Creation Club promoted by Beth. - and is disputed. I bought a Modular Military Backpack for my Sole Survi. Then I saw UOF4P in the list of mods.

Now I am on the way to resign. I shall stop gaming FO 4 and change to The Witcher III.

 

Edited October 12, 2017 by jeandark
Without prospects.

[jeandark]

I never was a high-end cheater e.g. on porpuse to get higher values. I accept the reality in vanilla games. And I do the best I can do to the settlers  in the postnuclear world. But sometimes, I cheated when I was angry about impossible situations. Several months ago I resurrected a dead settler near County Crossing. Maybe he was an accidental victim. Although Doc Weathers is missing, but his brahmin exists. In another case I found my dead trade-liner near the lighthouse at the coast - and resurrected her character, sent it into the settlement and deleted the trade line. It seemed she was a victim of mines in the street or hostile robots. Imo there is a logical antagonism between immortal settlers in the settlements and the same settlers being mortal in the street, particulary when they are well armored.

Imho these cheats can't destroy the storyline of the mainquest and I disagree to go back to a savegame many months ago. The bug in "Form Ranks" is enough.

[Lonewanderer]

One short hint: Many NPCs which interact with the player are 'protected', this means they cannot be killed, except by the player. If the go to zero hits, they will cower and they will not be attacked. When the fight ends, they will stand up.

Settlers cannot be killed, this includes supply line walkers (Provisioners). They can be attacked only if the player is near, since the cell must be loaded. If the cell is not loaded no fights will happen. A Provisioner can walk through really deadly zones without trouble, as long as the cell is not loaded. If the cell loads, the fight begins. Often the Provisioner will cower and be mortally wounded. But if the player ignores this, the Provisioner will get up and continue normally.

So if a Settler or a Provisioner is dead, it is always your fault. I had this one or two times: In every case it was my fault. I did not see the NPC cowering, threw a grenade and the explosion killed the NPC, or I hit him accidentally. I think Doc Weathers is also protected, as is his Brahmin.

They will always come back. Excepot when the player kills him - then he will be dead.

You are right, resurrecting should not hit the story. But - every NPC has a record, and is supervised in a form by scripts. I do not know what happens, when you use the console to reanimate. So - even in this thing nobody can be sure, mostly it may be harmless, but in some cases it may be introduce problems.

[jeandark]

Tanks for the short hint  and your different explanation. Supply line walker = provisioner, is a good term and better than my "trade-liners". Sorry; my German-English (= Denglish); I hope that our conversation is not tooooo bad. :-)

Really, I often thought the dead persons near County Crossing are my fault; but I worried along the dead body of the settler never disappearing since months ago. Truly, I have 3 murders in my statistics in the PipBoy. Two times  "Kollateralschaden" (German term) in battle with enemies where the innocent settler is in the midst of them, but one time unknown. Doc Weathers never returned, but I saw a similiar Doc in Bunker Hill. Later on: My last murder is well done: Shank, the gangster in Nuka World, had to die. I intended to free all slaves. This was the trigger to kill all raiders in Nuka World. As usual: killing enemies did no murder in FO. The last corpse of the provisioner (fem.) is not my fault. I found a strange hightech mine in the street and several bodies of hostile robots. But there was no addition to the noted murders in my PipBoy.

I think the no-named settlers didn't hit the story. To kill Shank was a sign that turned the whole story, but a normal absolved quest in Nuka World.

Edit:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- Hamlet to Horatio

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quickquotes/quickquotehamletdreamt.html

Edited October 12, 2017 by jeandark
Impossible?

[jeandark]

Hello, Lonewanderer, hello, Admin,

please help me with your Know How to make the reports to the bug tracker in the AFK platform.

How can I find it?  How to satisfy the requirements?

I 've good savegames, how to transfer them?

(In the Commonwealth - not in NukaWorld - all setstage free)

 

In this thread you can find the whole controversy.

1. likely the "Clayton Holdren"-bug

2. likely the "Form Ranks"-bug    It continues to ask me for more settlements, despite Inside Job is successful and despite I 've 29 settlements in the Commonwealth.

 

Yours truly,

j

 

 

[Lonewanderer]

Hello,

just look through this thread. There are other also, but this is the latest, I think:

Account in the Bug Tracker, Problem solving

So - you have to create an account in the bug tracker, complete with verification email, then you can enter bug descriptions. The bug tracker link is on the main forum page.

Also read this post about reporting bugs!

 

[jeandark]

The "Form-Ranks-quest" idea(s) is/are as silly as FO 4 MM's solutions to battle against the Institute.

The MM arn't too weak to defend their settlements or the Castle! My Sole Survi went in an endless loop again, three times to help the Slog, three times to help the Finch-Farm, a farm already belonging to the MM.

Therefore I remembered it, and in possession of Doc Li's runner-chip, I returned to the Institute. The center, was a dangerous place, because  I got into cross-fire. The most characters of the Institute had changed to antagonists.

It did'nt matter to my LVl.-128-hero - he is too strong now.  He was able to kill (massacre ) all aggressors, about 20 characters or more, and I spared all peacefull persons. And it's good to have more than 1000 stimpaks  in your bag. I took 2 or 3 of them.

I believe that the Institute can't win against my Survi, not with 99 aggressors or more; with the little defense of my friends or not,  without MM or within, without my companion or within.

I didn't want to kill all the hidden persons, e.g. the peacefull Doc Li, or my own(?) son, named "Father" - or his man of straw.

"Father" is a victim of a crime - and there is no police to clear up the true facts.

 

It's not good that Bethesda didn't support their customers with regular and effective patches: and it seemes there is no hope for better times. It's too expensive - and there is no quick profit.

Bye, bye Beth.

 

 

 

[jeandark]

The alternation to fight against a lot of the Institute inhabitants (= massacre) endet just like the peaceful way: in "Form Ranks", endless Trial-and-Error, = Radiant quests given by Preston ... but no success to trigger "Form Ranks".

An other alternation to get Covenant as the 30th settlement could succeed, with the result that all inhabitants died there ... although no trigger of "Form Ranks" was switched on.

My MM General can conduct the workbenches of 29 settlements; enough to satisfy the number of required MM-settlements. = The "Form-Ranks" bug = never reaching the quest "Defend the Castle".

The result:

1. My Sole Survi cannot do the end with the Institute, because one of the section leaders, Clayton Holdren, isn't able to offer a dialogue when the Survi wants to speak with him. (Maybe a Holdren bug.)

2. Without dialog to all the division leaders there was no way to leave the Institute - except you kill one or more scientist/s there. Or you find a tricky way like my experience in Oktober 9, please look at this posting above.

3. Then, before leaving the Institute in the transmission-room,  I made a savegame! Perhaps the best I could do in this situation. Then I  downloaded the secret contents to Struges' network holotape, left the Institute, landing near the CIT ruins. Now the Form-Ranks-quest began to start.

4. Lonewanderer suggested to stay in the Institute until the "Battle of Bunker Hill". But my Holdren bug doesn't allow this  solution (e.g. without a cheat like SetStage MQ207 200), and I didn't try to cheat and took only savegames with no SetStage commands  handled inside the Instute or outside, in the Commonwealth.

5. It seems that the "Battle of Bunker Hill" will end to fight either against the Synths, or the RR or the BoS.  Maybe there are some other  solutions.

 

6. I tried to use the bug-tracker here in the AFK platform, but I coudn`t login there, couldn't create "Open New Issue" or to begin a report. I think that  I did a fault, but I don't know the details.

 

7. After three weeks with disappointments, I never intended to help the Institute. The first degree murder of human beeings and to replace them with Synths is a strange conception of "Mankind Redifined".

8. I don't admire the section of the BoS and its military courtesy; but my Survi is a member of all factions, MM, RR and BoS. At last a strong alternation to the conception of the Institute.

9. My last trial and  error: I gave the holotape to Proktor Ingram, received a copy and gave it to Sturges. "Liberty Reprimed" will come now.

 

[jeandark]

ad victoriam

My main quest is over now.   For God's sake!

The leaders of the RR are all liquidated. I regret this part of the game! I hate the bugs which let no choice. Liberty Prime (= Liberty Reprimed) was better than ever. Then much action: The "Nuclear Option (BoS)". The Institute blown up in an atomic explosion.

Little Synth Shaun is now a visitor of the Prydwen.