Can I change quest rewards in xEdit?

[STR4NGERxD4NGER]

I am working on a replacer so that all the MM will have the Service Rifle instead of the laser musket, and I want to change the quest reward for When Freedom Calls so that it gives 5.56 ammo instead of Fusion Cells to reflect the new weapon being used.

**I am not familiar or comfortable with the Creation Kit, which is why I am trying to do this in xEdit. Unless the process is ridiculously simple do not bring up CK.

[KikiVelika]

That depends how the quest rewards are distributed. BGS doesn't seem to have had good practices for this sort of thing in Fallout 4.

 

Simple case:

You can look at the leveled lists that are referenced by the quests in xEdit. Most of them are typically the quest rewards or items the NPCs give to the player. Editing those is fairly straight forward, but be warned, it can screw around with you current savegame. Better start fresh after your done and happy with your modifications.

 

Annoying case:

Quest rewards are directly rewarded via scripting. That usually means that you have to look at the quest script, the quest fragments (where stages are changed) and into the fragments of each topic info (where things are done during dialogue) to figure out what is rewarded when and how. Since you get all the source files including the DLCs with the CK, you have to unzip them to so the code is visible in the CK. If you use an editor with code intelligence (like VS Code), you can open them directly and search for the items that are rewarded. Keep in mind that especially older/earlier quests are very messy.

If you want to go down this rabbit whole, be warned that you might break UFO4P and other mods that might hook into those quests, if you re-compile the code with certain quest and fragment changes. It's also a pain to debug, if you aren't really experienced with papyrus scripting in Fo4.

 

If you just want to completely replace laser muskets and don't care about each individual fusion cell that is scripted, you can also just edit the leveled lists that are used to distribute the weapons in general. It needs a bit trial and error since your replacement probably has a different amount of OMODs or the replacement weapon doesn't have enough templates, but it can usually be done.

IIRC, in case you are thinking about the old F4/NV Service Rifle mod, you will get a nice a mount of templates and they already inject some flavors in the MM leveled lists anyway via script.

 

You might also need to manually edit some placed references like the one in front of the museum in Concorde, but from my experience with SMGs and Combat Shotguns, the laser musket isn't nearly placed as often as those in the world.