Cliff Briscoe only offer dialogue for 'goodbye' and playing Caravan

[PipeSmokingRabbit]

It's mostly all in the topic title. After some time around Novac he's stopped offering any dialogue (most critically barter dialogue) except for Caravan and the old 'Goodbye'. My mod setup is pretty limited. I've attached my load order. Anybody else experienced this and might know how to fix it?

Edited March 17, 2019 by PipeSmokingRabbit

[dubiousintent]

Other than selling goods they carry, most vendors don't have much dialog to offer after their initial topics have been queried. If the dialog topic is not marked as "repeatable" it is only available once. If Cliff doesn't have anything to sell (you've bought or stolen his entire inventory) you have wait out the "cell respawn" cycle (default is 3 days) before he restocks. Otherwise once you have completed "Come Fly With Me" and "One for My Baby" he doesn't have anything else to say beyond selling supplies. All of his dialog can be found here.

 

As you say, that's a very short list of mods, and I don't see anything to cause a conflict.

 

I notice you have "FalloutNV_lang.esp" active. That is only used for a "regional language" version of the game. Such versions can have problems we don't encounter on this side of the pond.

 

-Dubious-

[PipeSmokingRabbit]

I might've not properly explained myself. The actual dialogue option to barter with Briscoe at all isn't there -- that's my issue. I can't even enter the barter menu with him. The only options I have in the dialogue menu are 'goodbye' and to play Caravan. After playing through the set number of possible games, the only dialogue option becomes 'goodbye'. The 'let's trade' dialogue option or whatever simply isn't there.

 

Thanks for telling me about the FalloutNV_lang.esp, I wasn't aware of that. Would it be a problem to disable the esp? I'm about 30 hours into my game.

 

EDIT: I've attached an in-game picture to show the exact problem. This is during Briscoe's active trading hours.

 

EDIT 2: After some more testing it turns out that many dialogue options which were originally grayed out have outright disappeared. For instance all of No-Bark's dialogue apart from Caravan and 'goodbye' are gone. Johnson Nash in Primm also no longer offers some dialogue, crucially the barter option, and Ruby Nash no longer offers me the option to make the radscorpion casseroles. My last manual save around five hours back (ugh, but could be worse) doesn't seen to have these issues. Since I can only guess at what other pieces of dialogue have disappeared, I might have to go back to that save and see what happens. Just to clarify, I hadn't fiddled with any mods or my load order since that save. I suppose some bug occurred during my hours after it? All I'd done since I made it was gamble at the Vikki & Vance and complete the quests Wheel of Fortune and That Lucky Old Sun, plus some exploration along the way.

Edited March 17, 2019 by PipeSmokingRabbit

[dubiousintent]

As the problem occurs with other NPCs as well, it does appear to be some bug that has occurred in your current save game. As previously mentioned, I don't see any obvious conflicting mods; but have no direct experience with the last three listed. (Do you have any "HUD-UI-Menu" mods installed that do not appear in your load order? I'm not aware of any but anything is possible.)

 

But I do wonder: do you have either the 4GB Patch installed for the "Steam" version or are you playing with the GOG version (which is already patched to use 4GB of memory)? As the game progresses you increase the number of entries in the "save game" file and consume more memory. Without that patch, it is easy enough to hit the default 2GB memory limit; and "strange things" occur when you do. Which is part of why we ask for details about your hardware in the wiki "How to ask for help" article.

 

I would suggest you fall back to the previous save game; and you should be able to "deactivate" the "FalloutNV_lang.esp" file. Assuming you installed and are playing with the English language version, it will not have come into play. If it should actually be needed, it will quickly become apparent.

 

-Dubious-

[PipeSmokingRabbit]

I'm playing with the GOG version via the NVSE launcher. I do have a couple HUD mods installed that aren't shown in the load order: Vanilla UI Plus and Vanilla HUD Remastered (4K). I fell back to the earlier manual save (also deactivated the FalloutNV_lang.esp file without issues) and I've retraced my steps up to HELIOS One and its quest. Up until now I've had no apparent issues -- all the dialogue is there. It was after That Lucky Old Sun that I started noticing things going wrong before I believe, so I'll make a manual save now and go on ahead with the quest. I'll tell you how it goes.

 

UPDATE: Everything seems fine? I completed the quest and got back to where I was before I had the issue. I no longer see any missing dialogue. Quite strange... I'll still be on the lookout for any further strangeness but for now things look good. Thanks for the help -- much appreciated. :)

Edited March 18, 2019 by PipeSmokingRabbit

[dubiousintent]

Congratulations! Only losing about 5 hours is "getting off cheap" from a mysterious bug like that. Annoying, but livable. Unfortunately they happen from time to time and we never seem to be able to pin down the cause. Just proof of why multiple save files are a good idea.

 

Have fun.

 

-Dubious-

[PipeSmokingRabbit]

Yeah, altogether I definitely didn't lose out on much; had to repeat some stuff but it was by no means a chore. Though I'll be making more frequent manual saves from now. :laugh: Thanks again!