Long Time Coming - Missing Holotape #8

[Slostenn]

I hate having to ask for help with this, but I've tried every possible thing I could think of and I'm still stuck with this bug. For some reason, the 8th holotape for Nick's quest, "Long Time Coming," is bugged in my game. There's a quest marker pointing to the bench that it's supposed to spawn on (holotape #8 is supposed to be in the police precinct near Diamond City, on a bench in one of the jail cells), and based on screenshots I've seen a few consumable items and clutter should be surrounding it, but when I visit the cell in my game there are no objects inside of it besides the static meshes like the bench and the bed. No consumables, no clutter, and most importantly, no tape. I've looked around and found a common bug with tape #9, which is supposed to spawn at a Natick Banks precinct, but I was able to get that tape just fine. #8 is the only tape I'm missing, because it is bugged and simply does not exist in my game. I know I didn't pick it up before starting the quest, because I never remove holotapes from my inventory (though, I've been meaning to clean them out for a while) and I do not have the holotape, whereas I do have the other 9.

 

The obvious question is, do I have a mod that's editing that cell or worldspace? No. I've gone through every single plugin and master file I have installed in FO4Edit and none of them make any edits to that cell or worldspace. The next step was using the console to add holotape #8 to my inventory; if I do this, I do receive the tape, but it is not treated as a quest item (ie I can drop it) and it does not trigger the objective. As far as the game is concerned, it's just a completely irrelevant holotape. Next, I tried using console commands to complete the current objective; the game marked the objective as complete ("Find the holotapes: 9/10") but did not give me a new objective and Nick still acts as though we have not yet collected all of the tapes.

 

The only solution I have left is to manually place a new copy of the holotape in the Creation Kit, and give it the same flag to trigger the quest objective that the normal tape has, but this is unfortunately above my head. I could probably figure out how to place the holotape, but I have no idea how to add the quest trigger to it, so I would be very grateful for either A) a different solution to the problem, or B) advice on how to spawn a new copy of the holotape including the quest trigger.

 

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

[MightyZ0G]

rather than editing the cell or spawning a new one try using the command movetoplayer

that should move the holotape to your location and because it isn't a copy it should trigger the quest.

[MissingMeshTV]

rather than editing the cell or spawning a new one try using the command movetoplayer

that should move the holotape to your location and because it isn't a copy it should trigger the quest.

I've used this method in a similar occasion and it worked perfectly to restore the "missing" item.

 

It's possible the holotape got dislodged from it's location and has fallen out of sight. This can happen if, for example, you throw a grenade and the force of the explosion knocks the item out of sight. I've had this happen in the Wilson Automatoys Factory with the key card for the Arlen Glass quest and in Northwoord Ridge Quarry in Far Harbor with one of the Islander Almanac magazines. That police Precinct has some radroaches in it. It's possible that the holotape got knocked away from it's placed location during any combat with them. Doubly so if grenades were involved.

 

It would have been really easy for Betehsda to prevent this from happening by disabling the Havok physics for these sorts of items with the default defaultDisablehavokonload script they provide in the CK.

 

EDIT: The F04 Wiki has the base ID codes for all the holotapes in this quest. Try using the above described method with the code for your missing tape 8.

[Slostenn]

I actually considered using movetoplayer, but I thought it only worked for NPCs. I'll definitely give that a try next time I play. I also considered it being knocked around by an explosion or a Radroach (this would also explain the missing consumable and junk items that are supposed to surround it), but I checked the surrounding area pretty thoroughly (including searching under the terrain with the free camera) and didn't see it anywhere. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't put this tape in a container like all of the other tapes. Anyway, I'll give movetoplayer a shot and report back afterwards.

[MissingMeshTV]

I actually considered using movetoplayer, but I thought it only worked for NPCs.

Mmmmm....you might be right about that. Maybe I TCL'd in my case....can't recall now as it in my first playthrough over a year a go. But am now very curious if movetolpalyer works for you because now I'm confused as to what the hell I did to recover the Wilson Automatoys ID card that disappeared on me.

 

EDIT: maybe player.placeatme?

 

EDIT 2: No, that likely wasn't it either because the quest will reference the single specific object in the world based on location. Sorry...now I'm grasping to recall what the hell I did in a similar situation, because I know I resolved it. Maybe soemthign as simple as reverting to an earlier save. Apologies for contributing nothing useful to this thread.

[Slostenn]

Alright, I have good news and bad news. Good news: it turns out both "moveto player" and "player.moveto" work for items as well as NPCs, although you need to use the form ID for the value that places the object, not the form ID for the object itself. Bad news: the tape somehow actually does not exist for me. I used "player.moveto" first and it spawned me on top of the bench, where the quest marker was pointing and where the tape should have spawned. Next I walked away from the cell, used "moveto player," and it moved the quest marker but there was still no tape. I don't know how I managed it but I somehow broke this quest so hard that, again, the original tape does not exist. Keep in mind I'm still playing on my original save from when the game first released and I have modded the absolute hell out of it, so I'm honestly surprised it took me this long to run into such a major bug.

 

Anyway, I finally managed to fix it by using setstage to skip ahead to the next stage, and that seems to have worked. I don't think there's any other way I could have fixed this outside of starting a new game. Still, I greatly appreciate the help.

 

Edit: for future reference, if anyone ever encounters this same issue in the future and finds this thread through a Google search, the way I progressed to the next stage was by using "setstage 229fe 200."

Edited June 22, 2017 by Tukster

[MissingMeshTV]

Cool...glad you got it sorted. I should have thought to suggest trying setstage but think I was so fixated on trying to remember how I fixed my own similar situation (which didn't involve a quest) that I glossed over that option. Still trying to figure out exactly what I did....having a failing memory really sucks.

 

If you're so inclined, you can take a look at the Precinct 8 cell in its default state by COCing into it from the main menu to see if the tape spawns by using this in the console from the main menu, without loading a save:

 

coc FensIntersection01

 

This will spawn you with an unarmed, Lvl 1 character with nothing but a Vault suit. At least this way you will know if the tape actually shows up or not, and will narrow down weather it's your saves that have broken the quest or the possibility of a mod conflict. If the tape doesn't spawn in this default state, then it's not your save causing the problem because you aren't loading from a save. Keep in mind since you'll be unarmed, you should either toggle TGM ot use TFC to look inside the police building to avoid getting killed by those radroaches.