My rant

[niston]

I just recently started a new game, after my first one (almost 1500 hours in) was bugged to death and I couldn't get Sim Settlements working on it, no matter what I tried.

 

Looking back, I think I've experienced each and every single bug the game has to offer: From endless loading screens, to random CTDs; From being unable to progress through the main quest line w/o console, to Sanctuary bugging out so totally and utterly that /scrapall was the only option left. From Liberty Prime just standing dumbfounded at the Airport and doing jack all, to encountering the "can't assign any settlers to anything anymore" bug on multiple occasions (The worst of which was coming back from completing Nuka World, only to discover this bug and finding that the last save before the bug was a save from just before I started Nuka World). And that's not all: After upgrading to a new PC, I started getting new bugs. Like the object fade bug, where textures smear all over the place unless Object Fade ist set to minimum. It's really great having a 1080TI and then needing to set object fade to minimum (Yes, it happens on a new game, too). Yay! Oh, and did I mention I blew up the Institute but it wasn't blown up afterwards?

 

It's been a total shitshow, really. As if nobody ever ran any kind of tests after code has been written.

 

So, I finally started a new game. And lo and behold: Only 72 hours into this new game, my save is already bugged beyond repair. Basically, as I started setting up supply lines for building, I found out that all of Ragoda's settlements, as well as some from the GECK, have stopped working in this particular playthrough. Can't send any settlers (or provisioning robots) there. The only unaffected save is from 71 hours ago. And it's certainly nothing wrong with Ragoda's Mods or the Commonwealth GECK either, as they worked perfectly fine in the first game.

 

I'm extremely tempted to ditch FO4 altogether now. As much as I enjoy settlement building and setting up factories... Where's the fun in building anything, if probably some idiotic bug has already ruined the save tens of hours ago in some twisted way, just waiting for the player to discover the unfortunate fact much later on? Seriously, getting tired of repeatedly reloading and redoing the same stuff all over again, only to find that yet another something else has bugged out a bit later on. A computer game should be fun, but this amounts to work - just without the payday.

 

:mad:

Edited February 9, 2019 by niston

[niston]

So I started yet another new game. This time, Beth decided to actually not waste any time at all and bugged out right in Vault 111, lol.

[taryl80]

It's hard for me to believe that your bugs are just Bethesdas fault.

 

You have probably to fight with some mod conflicts - or something that remains from deleted mods.

 

The best tips I can give you is to let steam check your files and besides that, always to read attentively the mod description page of the mods, you plan to use.

 

Often mod-authors already write in there if their mod potentially conflicts with other mods under certain circumstances and if you delete a mod check if really everything got deleted. Especially scripts.

 

I can understand that it is boring to read always the mod description pages but it safes you a lot of trouble, normally.

Edited February 9, 2019 by taryl80

[SKKmods]

If your having issues with settlement workshop registrations, try the SKK Workshop Ownership utilities and run Detect Workshop ownership issues.

[niston]

Managed to get past the "nora wandering in vault" bug by using console. Went straight for Automatron, so I could have robot provisioners.

 

Aaaaand... stuck with precisely this bug now: https://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/1319961618830070045/?ctp=2 *laughing tears emoji goes here*

 

The only mod loaded so far is UOF4P.

 

EDIT: And the solution to this one is to use console command setstage xx0010F5 1000. Where xx is the Automatron DLC load order number. That fixed it for me (I went the non-combat route using the 3 tapes).

 

EDIT2: While the above command made the quest end, unlocked all robot mods and started Rouge Robot, it didn't give me the map marker for the Mechanist's Lair.

Edited February 10, 2019 by niston

[jones177]

My fallout 4 game is the original from 2015.

 

What I have learned from modding it is to leave the vanilla settlements alone. I use Sim Settlements but that is about it.

 

I have miner issues(bugs) but my game is virtually CTD free. The only time I get them is when I am playing saves that were started before the DLCs and they are all over level 130.

 

All the quests seem to work even though I use Alternate Start.

 

The reason for my success is that I only add mods 1 or 2 at a time and test. I do a console save with a unique name before I add any mods and go back to it if I get issus. I have trashed my game numerous times and some conflicts don't show up right away.

 

CTDs can get into a save even without adding a mod and I have lost many hours because of it.

 

Bloat can get into a save as well. I have one save that got to up to 115mbs before I notices. I run the same mods now but have not gotten bloat since.

 

Most of it is all down to luck.

 

I went 1500 hours in this game before I got a CTD and that was caused by CBBE. I also played through Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Oblivion without mods with no CTDs. Only Fallout NV had them before I started modding.

 

I use powerful hardware and even powerful hardware can be a problem. My GTX 1080 ti would CTD if usage got to 100% in this game. I had to move my saves to my other gaming computer(3440X1440) that had a GTX 1080 in it. My saves are back on my 4k computer because it now has a RTX 2080 ti and it doesn't CTD at 100% usage.

My other computer has a i7 8700k CPU. If I overclock it this game will CTD a lot. My 4k computer has a i7 8086k overclocked to 5ghz on all cores and the game hardly ever crashes. There is not a big difference between my 2 computers. The both use the same motherboard, same ram and same SSD. They both run the game with the same mods and load list.

 

Again luck.

[niston]

 

Most of it is all down to luck.

 

 

This.

 

As I restarted automatron from the beginning after not getting the Map marker, it was totally smooth sailing from there on. Not a single issue. Have since installed the Commonwealth GECK and a bunch of other Settlement Mods and set up supply lines. All is well so far.

 

As I look back, I remember the first thing that popped up (completely vanilla game, zero mods installed) was endless loading screens. Then, when I first got to Cambridge (still far from installing the first mod), CTDs started happening. Was on a Core2Quad w 16GB RAM and Radeon HD6850 at that time; At the lowest possible settings. I remember that everything related BoS was indeed screwed from the get go. First quest, they sent me to clean out some subway station and when I tried leaving the station afterwards, CTD. Going through door -> CTD; Trying coc SanctuaryHillsExt -> CTD. Fix: Advance quest stage. First Vertibird flight to Prydwen: CTD. Very well known issue. Fix: Skip quest by console command. Much later, the same thing in Mulligan's mine (Nuka World): After killing the bloodworms, I couldn't leave the mine without CTDing. Turns out: Well known issue, fix is not to kill the blodwoorms and use console command to advance quest stage instead. Same with Liberty Prime not proceeding from the airport to CIT: Well known issue, fix is console command to advance quest stage, thereby skipping the coolest part of the quest. Yay.

 

It would seem to me that much of the shenanigans are related to the Story Manager that handles quests. Maybe, the most reliable way to avoid any trouble would be not to do any quests at all. :wink:

 

Funny enough, I've never had problems (except for low FPS) in Boston Downtown area. Many people still CTD there. For me, it became unplayable on my old machine (< 1FPS) during combat, but no CTDs. No FPS or CTD issues with new machine there. Weird however that the situation re Cambridge has not improved with the new machine (where the game was freshly installed from steam); I simply avoid most of the area. Also the first Vertibird flight of course CTDs just in the same way as on my old, under-specced machine. What's different is, with the new hardware, I reliably get the weird texture smear bug in certain locations (Bunker Hill being one of them), when facing a certain angle (usually direction South-SouthWest), combined objects are disabled and object fade setting is > min. Others have replaced their video cards with no improvement; Me, I just tone down object fade when it happens. Maybe I could create a mod to automate the process, as its location dependent.

 

An interesting quirk is that, with the new hardware, textures of the models on the loading screens initially appear at high resolution, but after a brief instant, change to low resolution. *shrug*

 

I think almost all of the bugs I've encountered have been experienced by other people, too. The "nora wandering around infront of cryo pod" thing for example first popped up in 2015. The Automatron DLC issue, on the other hand, appears to be more recent. I remember finding workarounds for most of the issues, usually involving console commands. What a total bummer this must be, I imagine, for people on Xbox or PS....

On the bright side, I've *never* had any settler steal power armor from me. Never. :D I did however experience the bug where the power armor gets all wonky and the pip-boy stops working... Which is another well known issue, of course.

My current specs: i8700K @4.6GHz (OC), 64GB RAM (3600MHz, no OC), 2x M2 SSD (RAID 1), 1080TI (11GB VRAM, no OC).

 

Never seen the game use more than 4.something GB RAM and GPU usage on the 1080TI hardly ever tops 30%, even in downtown area. Playing @1080p on ultra settings, no HD texture pack or anything installed. When I load the CK tho... topped 30GB RAM usage the other day. I've not yet had the Creation Kit crash on me. Then again, I've hardly used it for anything but to compile Papyrus and create properties that FO4Edit can't.

Edited February 18, 2019 by niston

[MarkusTay]

Preaching to the choir - I have NEVER made it to the end of a single play-through. At least not on PC (I did a couple times on Xbox).

 

I am testing a BUNCH of settlement mods together right now - I am also have some issues with Ragoda's (I think there is still some old collision going on blocking NPCs from doing stuff). There are quite a few more I really want to try but I just KNOW they'll conflict (mods like Tales form the Commonwealth change stuff EVERYWHERE, so it becomes a crap-shoot). I've also been down the road of "didn't notice there was a problem until many hrs later" routine. And one time it involved Nuka-World as well. I only very recently finally found out what was screwing with Elianora's Marlboro house (some random mod put a unique weapon inside there). I enjoyed using that mod a lot when I was on Xbox, but it never worked on PC... now I know why.

 

Modding is like playing Russian Roulette, and the rules change with every spin of the chamber. I am playing two separate game at the same time right now (using one to troubleshoot the other), and the order of the stuff in my WS menus is different - even though I am using the exact same mods, and started the games right around the same time. The only thing that is different is that in one I'm male, the other, female. Now, knowing how computers work, that should be impossible - given the exact same set of variables I should get the exact same set of results every time. But NOPE... not on a Bethesda game. I even started a third game to try something risky (using CAMP to prep an area for Conquest), and that game became completely ruined almost immediately - once again, with the exact same mods running (Garvey & Co. wouldn't leave the museum, no matter what I did). Fortunately, I didn't need to be in the Minutemen to to do the test I wanted (and NO, you CAN'T do that thing - you can't 'undo' a CAMP settlement once you create it, so now I know).

 

So yeah, we're all in the same boat.