Repeatable quest clearing its aliases and stopping

[SKKmods]

I have a repeatable radiant quest that gets started and stopped and allows for repeated stages.

 

Occasionally if the quest has been running for say (no hard logs) 24 game hours or the game is saved and loaded, the quest just stops and clears its aliases. No log output nothing, just disappears leaving the quest log & objective active for a while. Query a created ObjectRef and it cant be found.

Doesn't matter what iteration, it can affect the very first quest fill or be fine until the 5th. Seems to be active time or save/load.

 

So, quests just shutting down ... is that a thing ?

[scrivener07]

I have no idea why your filled aliases are clearing themselves but I do know that a quest will not start unless all the aliases are filled. No empty aliases are allowed in order to start a quest. You must flag the alias as Optional to allow starting with an empty alias. Its not quite an answer but I hope it gives you some clues.

[SKKmods]

Yes I get that and all my aliases are always marked optional so I can error detect and handle fill failures in script (that's over 50 quests in 30 mods).

 

I may have a lead on the issue. For extra combat immURshun I have been configuring a quest follower NPC (no, not companion) as essential/bleedout rather than the usual protected. Not during, but at some point minutes after bleedout recovery and following resumes the quest *sometimes* falls over. The actor is still close with 3d loaded, so its not like when HC_Manager forces an unloaded companion in bleedout to return home.

 

Edit, nope its not only that. The quest can be fine, make a save, keep going to complete it all fine. Load the save and the damn quest has stopped. Like, WTF ?

Edited August 11, 2018 by SKK50

[NikaCola]

This might be a crazy question, but does it work when you try to restart the quest via console? I'm assuming not if it clears its aliases for good, but I'm curious.

 

Also, does the quest stop every single time you reload a save, like consistently? I know you mentioned something about in-game time but I'm not sure if that's still the case after your last edit.

[SKKmods]

ResetQuest does nothing as the quest is stopped.

 

It only seems to stop if the target created NPC (Create Ref to Object) is 3D unloaded so either before finding them or if they are left somewhere. Its an optional alias so even if that REF was cleared the quest shouldn't stop.

 

On reflection I have had unpredictable issues with corrupt quest fragments. Even though this quest had its fragments and fragment script purged it may have baggage and needs to be recreated under a new form ID. That's gonna be pain, but less than trying to pin this error condition down.

 

EDIT: forgot all the f*#@ing scene voice file names would change, bollox to that. The world will have to live with stopping radiant quests.

Edited August 12, 2018 by SKK50

[SKKmods]

Conclusion this was cauesd by an old unreferenced loose quest fragment script hanging around in the compiled scripts folder being picked up at runtime from the invalidatearchivewhatnot ini setting.

 

The problem was not distributing to mod users as the script was not being listed for packing into the ba2 archive.

 

From this I infer that the loose script detection or linkage is different for CK dev, CK archive build and runtime (and why loose scripts are a cancer).