When Freedom Calls, But Gristle Doesn't Answer

[LoonyLiberal]

Apologies in advance; I've seen this topic once before, but I'm hoping to find a more technical and precise fix than "Save scum, run the quest, activate a mod, reload, repeat until gamebreaker is found."

 

I'm having the "no hostiles to clear" problem during the "Clear Concord of Hostiles" point of "When Freedom Calls." Console commands such as "completeallobjectives 001A001C" and "completequest 001A001C" can advance or close the quest, but Preston, Sturges, etc. remain in the Museum of Freedom and talk as if they're stuck in the "Clear Concord of Hostiles" phase.

 

I visited the Fallout 4 Wiki to see if I found find a Form ID or similar technical data for Gristle (https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Gristle). Form ID: 00019567; EditorID: EncRaider01Boss. But what struck me as odd is that the Ref ID that the wiki lists doesn't seem to line up with the game proper. Console commands such as "000012E4.moveto player" are either no-ops, or they return an error indicating that the Ref ID is invalid.

 

So I opened up FO4Edit to see if I could find Gristle. I expand "[00] Fallout4.esm (75D3D6CA) \ Non-Player Character (Actor)" and see some named non-boss Raiders such as Tweez and Whiplash, but no Gristle. My thought was that one of the mods was messing with Gristle's generation. My plan: disable all mods, refresh the game files from Steam, verify Gristle's existence, then activate mods one at a time to see which one leads to the missing Gristle.

 

To make a short story long: it didn't work.

 

All of my mods are disabled. The original game files are refreshed. FO4Edit offers and displays only the main game and DLCs. And yet, I can still see some named non-boss raiders such as Tweez and Whiplash, but there's no Gristle.

 

I've read mixed posts that this quest has been broken since launch, which would explain why a quest-relevant character doesn't show up. However, I'm hoping that there's some technical detail (or possibly a head-slapper of a foul-up) that I'm overlooking instead of a fundamental defect that can only be resolved by dumb luck.

 

Does anyone have technical information on how/if the game assigns IDs to characters that don't initially have them? (I did the prerequisite web search before posting here; no luck.) I'm not averse to save scumming until I find the quest-breaking mod, but I'm hoping that there's a more efficient troubleshooting method.

[HeyYou]

I couldn't find Gristle either, but, I have never had a problem in Concord.... Not sure what that is all about. Added by a script maybe??

[LoonyLiberal]

I found one of the causes: the More Spawns mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4253).

 

After uninstalling all of my mods and installing them one at a time, I remembered that the quest requires the Sole Survivor to kill 7 raiders inside of the Museum of Freedom.

 

As a hypothesis, I installed the More Spawns - High mod after six positive install-mod/complete-quest trials. After I eliminated the more-than-7 raiders, Preston refused to open the door.

 

I opened up FO4Edit to see if I could pinpoint a specific conflict, but no luck. With the 6-7 mods currently installed, none of them conflict with the main game file.

 

I did notice something, though: FO4Edit then lists each of the seven vanilla raiders as quest targets.

 

I haven't coded for a game mod yet but have worked as a software developer and certified software tester. My hypothesis is that adding raiders to the Museum of Freedom interferes with the game's ability to track the quest raiders and correctly determine when the quest stage has been cleared.

 

This has not been an issue when I've done "When Freedom Calls" with "No Place is Safe - Hunted Encounters" (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23358) installed. My guess is that it's because of the enemies that the Hunted mod spawns are not raiders.

 

I'm not entirely certain why seven nameless enemies were hard-coded into a quest, and I don't expect any mod author to generate similar quest-tied code for their mods. I did notice that there are two global variables -- MQ102FirstRaiderStart and MQ102FirstRaiderTotal -- used as conditionals to track quest stage completeness. I can't help but wonder if there's a simpler way to detect when all of the raiders have been eliminated, something along the lines of:

recalculate MQ102FirstRaiderTotal to reflect additional raider enemies
increment MQ102FirstRaiderStart when the player eliminates a raider
when MQ102FirstRaiderStart == MQ102FirstRaiderTotal, set the quest stage as complete

I suspect that other mods that increase the number of raider classes and/or raider enemies introduce similar issues. I'll reinstall a few and share my findings.

[LoonyLiberal]

Well, part of my hypothesis was wrong.

 

The only other mods that I have that increase the number of raider enemies are Raider Children and Other Horrors of the Commonwealth - Raider Children (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/16586) and Mortal Youths (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/56224). These mods portray the raiders as even worse than in the vanilla game by having children fight alongside them (among other horrors).

 

I installed the mods and ran through "When Freedom Calls." I eliminated the vanilla raiders first. The quest advanced, but Preston's door remained closed until I eliminated the raider kids.

 

After that, I opened FO4Edit. PallidaCulus, the creator of the former mod, created new EditorIDs for the enemies that the mod introduces. That explains how the presence of raider kids doesn't interfere with the global variables tracking the number of raiders.

 

Having identified the root cause (I hope), I'd still like to know a solution. I increased enemy counts to counterbalance some of the gamebreaking aspects of other mods; raiders are less of a threat after I craft a 10mm gun that shoots cannonballs, after all....

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Would the solution be to install those mods only after "When Freddom Calls"? :)

[LoonyLiberal]

Would the solution be to install those mods only after "When Freddom Calls"? :smile:

 

Possibly, but my fear is that any other quest that has coded a similar body count will break as well.

 

With regards to the vanilla game, I have gotten only as far as the Kellogg confrontation in the main quest. I haven't started any Bethesda DLC yet, and I've only cleared a handful of story-based mods. I don't mind debugging/uninstalling/reinstalling mods in the middle of the game, but the constant start-at-the-beginning playthroughs are wearing me down.

 

Also, if I've managed to narrow down the root cause, perhaps a modder or a Bethesda employee can apply some sort of fix, remedy, or workaround other than "Disable until x."

[363rdChemicalCompany]

 

Would the solution be to install those mods only after "When Freddom Calls"? :smile:

 

Possibly, but my fear is that any other quest that has coded a similar body count will break as well.

 

With regards to the vanilla game, I have gotten only as far as the Kellogg confrontation in the main quest. I haven't started any Bethesda DLC yet, and I've only cleared a handful of story-based mods. I don't mind debugging/uninstalling/reinstalling mods in the middle of the game, but the constant start-at-the-beginning playthroughs are wearing me down.

 

Also, if I've managed to narrow down the root cause, perhaps a modder or a Bethesda employee can apply some sort of fix, remedy, or workaround other than "Disable until x."

 

 

My suggestion would be to play it first time around with the lightest touch mods possible.

Maybe one of those light touch collections on nexus.

 

I definetly get how multiple new starts would be a grind.

DOnt miss out on this incredible experience by trying to mod too much too soon.

(there are also a couple of fast start mods but they dont play well with all other mods, so....)

 

I usually recomend to folks to play vanilla (except maybe for a weather mod and an appearnce mod) until the early mid game so they know what they want/need modded.

 

I could PM you my mods list if you want.

Its been carefully curated to not have conflicts and i have about 250 mods active.

It played fine on a basic machine on low graphics settings ( now I have a much better machine and I cna turn settings up even with a lot of mods)

(But then again not all folks want the same things from the game and some mods are more for 2nd and 3rd playthroughs IMHO, like thuggygverses script heavy quest mods)

[LoonyLiberal]

@363rdChemicalCompany: Thanks for the offer, but my main goal in starting this thread was to identify a root cause for "When Freedom Calls" breaking. Prior to posting, I did some searching and found that issues like these have been happening for almost a decade now.

 

Since I'm a former certified software tester, I wanted to do more than "It don't work ORZ." I'm hoping that my findings and/or studying how the "Hunted" and/or "Raider Children" mods avoided triggering the defect can prevent triggering the bug or, better yet, resolving it (something similar to the "Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch").

[HeyYou]

Probably have to look at the scripts for those quests, and see if anything interesting presents itself. That said, Gristle should be hangin' out outside when you first show up in Concorde...... Not really sure why a more spawns mod would change that... I run PANPC, (By Greslin, not on Nexus anymore, gotta join his discord to get it.) and it works perfectly, and I haven't seen any issues with it yet.

[LoonyLiberal]

Probably have to look at the scripts for those quests, and see if anything interesting presents itself. That said, Gristle should be hangin' out outside when you first show up in Concorde...... Not really sure why a more spawns mod would change that... I run PANPC, (By Greslin, not on Nexus anymore, gotta join his discord to get it.) and it works perfectly, and I haven't seen any issues with it yet.

 

As I previously explained, the way that the mod adds additional raiders interferes with the way Bethesda hard-coded raiders into the quest as a condition to clear the quest stage. Mods that add non-raider-class enemies don't break the quest.

 

I'm not following this thread any longer; I feel like I'm going in circles and that my original intent has been all but lost.