Instantaneous Cell Reset Bug

[hobopav]

ohhh, and one other thing I forgot to mention - this doesn't affect respawning enemies - so if in any of these Encounter Zones you kill something, that kill will stay dead for 7 game days before respawning. It only affects items. Whicked Shipping is a good example (and again, don't fast travel in or out of the area if you want to test this) - kill the 3 ghouls and take some random items from the area. Walk away far enough to unload the areas cells (going over to Robotics Disposal Ground is far enough for sure). Now walk back and you'll see the ghouls are still dead but all the items you took have respawned.

 

Now, had you done the above test by fast travelling, upon returning you'll find the ghouls still dead, but more importantly the items you took would NOT have respawned.

 

Again, I want to point out that this will happen on all game modes (easy, normal, hard, survival, etc). It just seems like survival mode is the culprit only because you can't fast travel and so naturally you'll encounter this issue more often.

Edited February 26, 2019 by hobopav

[SKKmods]

Of course the simplest fix is to go into the Creation Kit and create a mod which turns on all those 'Never Resets' flags.

 

Don't do that otherwise the dungeon bosses and boss containers will not respawn so radiant quests will struggle to fill. Plus it may well cause other indirect or consequential issues.

 

The actual solution is to unlink exterior cells from locations that have interior reset zones, but that would be a serious stack of engineering and testing. I would like to do this, only I never (ever) directly modify base game assets.

[hobopav]

 

The actual solution is to unlink exterior cells from locations that have interior reset zones, but that would be a serious stack of engineering and testing. I would like to do this, only I never (ever) directly modify base game assets.

 

 

I highly doubt this would have any effect - unless you're thinking in terms of radiant quest working correctly because most bosses/chests happen to be in interior cells. But by entering an interior cell you're already 'fixing' the bug anyway. It's the act of forcing the loading screen (and whatever Bethesda does code wise during the loading process) which makes the item respawn timer work correctly throughout the entire encounter zone.

 

The real fix is to do the same but not only during the loading screen but as soon as the cells from an affected encounter zone unload from memory because the player has reached some distance threshold as he/she is moving away from that zone.

[Ablaze666]

Of course the simplest fix is to go into the Creation Kit and create a mod which turns on all those 'Never Resets' flags.

I've done that and the cells won't reset for sure. I almost thought that this could work out well because I didn't encountered any problems (except one*) in my last survival playthrough. Today I was testing a mod and noticed that Scribe Haylen won't give me any radiant quests. And that was the only problem in my last playthrough. Now again... Unfortunately my own bug fix (flagging all EZ to never reset) caused this. I scratched my head how the hell the cell reset bug can be fixed without breaking other aspects of the game.

 

 

The actual solution is to unlink exterior cells from locations that have interior reset zones.

After reading this I thought why not giving it a try. I followed the steps in hobopav's earlier post and the baseball bat was there again after returning to the house (difficulty Very Easy). Then I made a plugin where I unlinked the 2 cells that are linked to the RedRocketCaveLocation and instead linked them to the RedRocketTruckStopLocation. Did the test again, ran from Vault 111 to the house, grabbed the bat, ran back to Vault 111, ran back to the house and BOOM this time the door was still open and the bat was gone. :smile:

 

SKK50, you have no clue how much you helped me here! :thumbsup: I'm willing to make the needed changes to all affected exterior cells to finally fix this long lasting bug. I know it's a lot of work (393 locations that needs to be checked for linked INT and EXT cells and that's only for the base game) but something needs to be done about that and this solution is the most promising.

[Ablaze666]

Guys, I fixed it! :sweat:

 

Respawning raiders and loot at Thicket Excavations are a thing of the past. :teehee:

 

SKK550 was absolutely right with his advice. Here's how I did it:

 

For example ConcordLocation is linked to ConcordZone (an Encounter Zone that is set to reset) and this is casuing the cell reset bug. I've made a new Location (ConcordLocationExterior) and linked it to ConcordExt, ConcordExt02 - ConcordExt05, ConcordMuseumExt, ConcordMuseumExt02 and ConcordUndergroundExt. The vanilla Location (ConcordLocation) is still linked to ConcordSpeakeasy and ConcordFactory.

 

Because ConcordLocationExterior would have no Encounter Zone and therefore not the correct min and max levels, I duplicated the vanilla Encounter Zone (ConcordZone), renamed it ConcordZoneExterior and copied the level values into it (min 0 and max 10). Then I linked it to ConcordLocationExterior.

 

And all this needed to be done 55 more times. :unsure:

 

56 Locations are affected and got an exterior counter part. 146 exterior and 5 interior cells needed to be linked to their new Loactions. Only the base game yet. I'll work on the DLCs later on.

 

 

 

The reason why I'm writing this is I'm not sure how I should aproach a public release. On one hand, my initial test went complete positive. I've loaded a vanilla save inside Vault 111 and taken the elevator. Then I did the test with the baseball bat in the house in Concord and it didn't respawned. Next was Thicket Excavations. I went there, completed Pull the Plug, came back after some ingame days and cleaned the exterior location. I took every piece of loot, ran to Vault 111 and ran straight back to Thicket Excavations. No raiders, no loot. After 7 ingame days the bloodbug at the entrance to Concord respawned correcty so that works too.

 

On the other hand, my mod is pretty much incompatible with everything that edits the same worldspace cells. Should I simply link to an FO4Edit guide so users can solve any mod conflict by themself? I can imagine how this would work out... :turned:

The other downside is way more serious. To be honest, I have no clue how Location records works in detail and how quests and scenes would be affected. The last thing I want is to release a mod that can destroy save games. But I can't test all quests Fallout 4 has to offer by myself. Any ideas? Should I write in big red letters that the mod is potentially harmful?

 

Anyone here who want to give it a try and look if something breaks while playing and if the mod works at all?

[SKKmods]

Its pleasing that my understanding of the game systems can help deliver the right outcomes.

 

I have a similar issue with SKKEncounterZonePlayerLevelNoResetNoRespawn which hacks every base game encounter zone. As it conflicts with all sorts of stuff it is only published as an optional file with one of my overhauls for hard core SKK mod users who know what they are doing.

 

As long as you explain what your mod does, changes your mod makes to base game forms and how it may conflict its fine to publish. Naturally there will be users who do not RTFM and then b&@*$ endlessly about conflicts, that's just people.

[Ablaze666]

As long as you explain what your mod does, changes your mod makes to base game forms and how it may conflict its fine to publish.

 

That's what I did. Let's hope for the best....... :sweat: