This mod / patch attempts to resolve problems & glitches pertaining to Fallout 3's quests. Initially, I will attempt to fix certain quest objectives which do not update properly upon completion, and from there I will eventually branch out to fix some of the bigger problems with Fallout 3's quests, once I have learned some more about modding the game. The most recent version of the patch can be found in the link below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?5wzxrvjo4yv

Thus far the patch fixes the following:

- A few minor quest-related problems fixed in the Unofficial Patch (the fixes are identical, so no conflict will take place if you also use the UF3P)
- All new objectives will now only be displayed after the preceding objectives have been marked as completed.
- Objectives for the following quests not updating properly in certain situations or being generally wonky:

¤ Growing Up Fast
++ Shoot all three targets with the BB Gun.
+++ You must now shoot each of the 3 targets; shooting one of them 3 times won't suffice. (UF3P Fix)

¤ Head of State
++ Kill all the slavers near the Lincoln Memorial.
+++ Objective now completes properly. (UF3P Fix)

¤ Oasis
++ (Optional) Kill Harold by burning him.
+++ Objective no longer gets completed automatically upon completion of the quest, even if the player didn't burn Harold.

¤ Reilly's Rangers
+++ Fixed Donovan's Wrench still being marked as a(n undroppable) quest item after completion of the quest. (UF3P Fix)

¤ Scientific Pursuits
++ Look for Dad in Project Purity's Control Room.
+++ Objective now updates and completes properly.
++ Search Dad’s holotapes for clues to his location.
+++ Objective now updates and completes properly.
++ Listen to Dad's personal journal entry 10.
+++ Objective now updates properly - this objective never even showed up in the vanilla game due to a broken condition.

¤ Stealing Independence
+++ Fixed Sydney's ammo case so it will now only appear when she has arrived at The Ninth Circle. (UF3P Fix)

¤ Tenpenny Tower
++ Help the Ghouls get into Tenpenny Tower.
+++ Fixed the bypass terminal and generator quest markers. (UF3P Fix)

¤ The Power of the Atom
++ (Optional) Meet Leo Stahl at the water treatment plant for Mentats.
+++ Objective now completes after the player asks Leo to "hook him up".
++ (Optional) Loot Leo Stahl's stash at the water treatment plant for Mentats.
+++ Objective now completes if the player has looted Leo's locked desk.

¤ The Replicated Man
++ Learn more about the escaped android.
+++ Objective now updates and completes properly.
++ Search for clues about Zimmer's missing android.
+++ Objective now updates and completes properly.
++ (Optional) Discover what Dr. Preston knows about the android.
+++ You no longer receive this objective if you have already found the final clue from another source. In vanilla, this objective is received regardless, making it impossible to complete. Also implemented a check which completes the objective automatically if the player already spoke to Preston before getting the objective from Zimmer.
++ Continue to search for clues to the android's identity OR tell Zimmer he's dead.
+++ Objective now completes properly.
++ Report to Zimmer OR warn Harkness about Zimmer.
+++ Objective now completes if the player warns Harkness.

Take a look at http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1082364-relz-error-correction/page__p__15768196__hl__error%20correction__fromsearch__1&#entry15768196...

Well, I looked at that mod but it's no good.. Too many subjective alterations which don't qualify as "fixes" in my book. Well, since nobody seems interested it looks like I'm going to do exactly contrary to what I said and begin working on this project myself.

So far I've fixed the BB Gun targets that UF3P fixed (I just copy/pasted the fix into my patch) but I've also done one not-done-before fix: namely, I made the Scientific Pursuits quest's objectives update properly, and I also made it display certain objectives which were left out of the original game because the devs apparently couldn't figure out how to check if the player had listened to the Project Purity #10 holotape... I don't know what they were thinking, but in any case, I have now fixed the quest so that all objectives are updated properly even if the player goes to PP before talking with Li, regardless of whether the player actually listens to holotape #10 before talking with Li. If anyone is interested in giving it a shot, I've uploaded the patch here:

Note: I have personally tested all possible scenarios of the Scientific Pursuits quest so I can confirm that it works 100%. However, with that said, I haven't tested the BB target fix yet, nor have I made any other alterations to any quests, and judging by how long it took me to figure out the fix for the Scientific Pursuits quest, it's going to be a long time before I'm ready to upload anything to Fallout 3 Nexus.

EDIT: OK, I've now tested and confirmed that the UF3P BB target fix also works. I kinda knew that it would already (it wasn't a very complex fix, after all) but I aim to test everything I fix for myself, just to be sure.

EDIT: Testers are welcome, BTW. I'll probably release a new version after every quest I fix, but the releases will not happen often. My exams are still going (although I've got a week's break during which I'll have a few days free) and perhaps I'll install Fallout 3 and the G.E.C.K. on my old PC during summer vacation so that I can work on this project. Would be nice to be done with it once New Vegas is released, but no guarantees at this point.

Progress

I've managed to fix both optional objectives pertaining to Leo Stahl's chem habit in Megaton. The fix I came up with is slightly more primitive than I would have hoped, but at least it works: now whenever the player opens Leo's locked desk at the water treatment plant, the quest objective will automatically complete (assuming, of course, that the player has received the objective in the first place). Note that this fix means that the player doesn't actually need to take anything from the stash for the quest to complete. I would have wanted to make the quest only complete if the chem count in the stash were reduced, but unfortunately, everything I tried to do via script failed to work properly in-game, so this solution is not possible at this time.

All the fixes I've implemented thus far:

+ Fixed "Growing Up Fast" quest's BB Gun targets not all being displayed as objectives.+ Fixed "Scientific Pursuits" quest's objectives not updating upon their completion if the player visited Jefferson Memorial before talking to Dr. Madison.+ Fixed "The Power of the Atom" quest's optional objectives not updating until after completion of the core quest.+ Removed references to "Mentats" from "The Power of the Atom" quest's optional objetive descriptions since there is no in-game dialog reference to them:   ¤ [Optional] Loot Leo Stahl's chem stash at the water treatment plant.   ¤ [Optional] Meet Leo Stahl at the water treatment plant for chems.

And a download:

NOTE: These fixes probably will not work for an existing savegame where the objectives have failed to update properly. There are ways I can make them work with existing savegames where stuff is broken, but doing that is not a priority for me at the moment.

I'm inclined to agree with Decane's comment on patch subjectivity, after giving the other patch mod's list of fixes a quick read.

Another update

OK, three things:

(1) I added one tiny condition to the Scientific Pursuits script; I noticed that there was one method of completing the objectives which would make them not update quite properly (they would still update eventually once the player went through and did one stage again, but I don't settle for anything less than perfection so I made a minor tweak).

(2) I went ahead and fixed the Oasis quest objective for setting Harold on fire being marked as completed automatically upon the player completing the quest by other means (e.g. by applying the liniment or sap), but I haven't been able to test because I have no savegame...

(3) I just got done fixing The Replicated Man, and while I have tested most scenarios, I couldn't find a savegame from so far back that I would have been able to redo the quest the "normal" / "intended" way, i.e. by gathering fewer than 4 clues, going to Rivet City and talking to Zimmer, and then finding out more from Preston. So, having said that, if anyone wants to test, here's a great chance to do so:

PS: I also changed the objective descriptions of some quests slightly. For instance, the square brackets around some [Optional] tags were inconsistent with the curly brackets used in the majority of quests. At first I thought this was the devs' way of distinguishing main quest optionals from side quest optionals, but when I discovered that they had mixed and matched, I decided to make all the brackets curly. These are very minor changes, but I mention them here in case someone opens up FOEdit and goes ohmygawdwhatswithalltheconflicts!!11!1

Actually I'm just about to go to rivet city in my savegame, so I'll check out the fixes.

Fallout Wikia http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mentats this is alluding to their importance for indirectly raising Explosives skill:

Also, Mr. Burke implies that you could pop some chems if you were nervous.

OK, fair enough. I'll change it back right away then.

EDIT: OK, I've changed the descriptions back to what they were, bar the curly brackets instead of the square ones, and in addition, I altered the condition of the Scientific Pursuits quest yet again, to make it even less likely that the quest will not update itself properly. Basically, the reason why I've gone back and forth with this one condition is this: in a situation where the player finds Rivet City but goes immediately to Project Purity, there are three ways he can proceed:

(1) Enter PP cell 02 (the Gift Shop) but not go any further.
(2) Enter PP cell 01 (Rotunda) but not take holotape 10.
(3) Enter PP cell 01 and take holotape 10.

The player can then do one of two things:

(1) Listen to the holotape, making talking to Dr. Li redundant, OR
(2) Go talk to Dr. Li without listening to the holotape.

Now: if the player goes to PP cell 02 only and then returns to Dr. Li, then the player SHOULD still receive the objective to search for Dad in PP even though he has already been there. This is because the player hasn't yet been in the Rotunda / control room where Dad's holotape is located. However, if the player has already been to the Rotunda, but has not picked up the holotape, then the player should NOT receive the objective to search for Dad there, as the player has already been there. However, the player SHOULD still receive the objective to search for the holotape.

In the previous version of the patch, I made it so that the "Search for Dad in PP" objective updates only if the player is a certain distance from the control room marker OR if the player already has the tape; but this implementation still made for the possibility that the player went to Rotunda but neglected to pick up the tape. Thus, I changed the condition by adding an extra variable to update itself immediately when the player is in cell 01, regardless of anything else that the player has done regarding the quest. Now it works exactly as it should; I tested it (for the third time haha) so I know it works.

OK, so here is the (yet again) updated version of the patch:

PS: In this version I improved the formatting and commenting of the scripts. I realize that some of the stuff I did in there may be quite confusing for those seeking to implement these fixes in their own mods, so I made them a bit easier to understand (hopefully).

Also: If you have already downloaded the previous version, please re-download. The Scientific Pursuits quest will automatically update itself properly in the new version regardless of what you have done so far in the quest.

EDIT: OK I managed to make a new savegame which I used to check if the Dr. Preston fix worked and it didn't, as I had predicted. So, I set up a new variable in the quest script, implemented a dialog fix, checked again and voila, it works now. Here is the new link:

Sorry for uploading new files so frequently; I'm pretty much posting links as I make progress here because I'm going to be short on time very soon and I don't want people to be stuck with an old version of the patch which doesn't work correctly. This update *should* be the last one for now.. Unless the Oasis fix doesn't work as intended, though I have little doubt about it working as it should since it was such a simple fix.

I think it's awesome that someone actually does this.
And I hope this doesn't have any unwanted side effects like crashes or other bugs.

But by reading your post above, i can understand why Bethesda didn't do this, looks like alot of work to think about every possibility.

Can some upload the latest esp to another mirror, megaupload doesn't want to cooperate today, keeps saying file is unavailable.

There's nothing in this patch that will crash your game. As for other bugs... Well, that's precisely why I've been testing this so vigorously for the past few days. I'm hoping that the latest version works 100% for sorting out the quest objective display bugs because I need to halt progress on this project for a week or two. Having said that, I've still got a couple hours tonight to test some more and confirm that everything works as it should.




EDIT: OK, I tested the Replicated Man quest in every way I could (I made a save before taking the quest at all and then gathering a certain amount of clues before going to Zimmer / Preston / Pinkerton at Rivet City) and I am glad to report that it has worked just fine in every scenario so far. There is one minor issue which I've fixed -- notably, that I changed the 'find out what Pinkerton knows' quest to (Optional), which of course is completely wrong (somehow I forgot that finding out what Pinkerton knows is actually necessary to finish the quest, unless the player lies to Zimmer and gives him the android component). So, I changed that back to the way it was.

In addition, I took the opportunity to further enhance the commenting of my scripts for those of you who want to tear them apart and see what I've done. Here is the file:

As side effect of a script error? You never know.

Well, the G.E.C.K. usually complains if there's a script error, but you're right: you never know for sure.

The geck complains about syntax errors and the more mechanical errors of scripting, but there can still be logic errors, that decrease performance, leaks, crashes, and other bugs.

UPDATE

OK I've made some progress since the last version: I have now fixed (hopefully) all instances where a new quest objective gets displayed on-screen before the preceding objective is shown as completed. Minor problem, I know, but it bothered me to no end so I decided to do a comprehensive check of all the quest scripts and appropriate quest dialogs in the game. I also disabled quest-related achievements since you shouldn't be using LIVE to begin with (just makes the game more unstable) and incorporated a few more UF3P quest fixes.

I made two versions of this patch: one which is meant to be used with the vanilla game and maybe a few small, minor mods that don't change the game's existing quests. Mods which introduce new quests will work fine with this version. It should be loaded first in the mod list.

I also made a second version, which is compatible with at least the following 'big' mods: FWE, MMM, EVE, PB, WMK, UPP. Note that this version requires both FWE and UPP - Quest Perks! I will perhaps make a version later which doesn't require UPP. This version of the plugin should be loaded last, but before your merged patch (if applicable).

Note: Use only one of the two!

Link:

Nice. I was actually going to mention sometime that the last time I had checked this out I saw all the addachievement stuff in the scripts... I know that a lot of people cannot or will not use the achievements stuff, so I was actually going to suggest its removal some time.

Very nice to hear about the "big mod" support. I use all of them except for UPP, but I wasn't aware that UPP had a Quest Perks-only plugin, so I'll just go ahead and install it so that I can get this Quest Patch up and running before my New Game. I assume we just need to have the ONE "UPP - Quest Perks" plugin? None of UPP really appealed to me, but I think I can live with the Quest Perks add-on.

Also, what do you think about upgrading your patch mid-game? Crash-inducing, corrupting? Or safe? I'm looking to the future, as I have a save still sitting at the end of Vault 101... But it would be nice to update your plug-in as you patch quests, hoping you get things patched before I initiate or complete that quest of course... That's why I have stalled for a while before starting, and I'm glad I did! I ran into the Leo Stahl one just while play testing so I don't know how many I'd run into over the course of a 200-hour game...

Actually, your post made me change my mind: I'll go and make that UPP-less version right now... I'm not going to be using the Quest Perks module in the future, so I can't expect others to. It's kinda useless and conflicts with anything that alters the main quest, and if I ever release this on Nexus people will want a version that doesn't rely on UPP anyway. So I'm going to post back in about an hour or so with an FWE-friendly version which doesn't require UPP. However, before I do, let me answer your questions...


Safe. Because that's what I do as I make progress; just continue playing from where I left off. I don't have the patience to start afresh each time unlike some of the other modders on these forums, so I wouldn't make any changes which would break an existing game that isn't already broken. Some of the quests this patch fixes will remain unfixed if they have already been marked as incomplete by the game, and though I could instate checks which would make sure that this didn't happen, those checks would have to run at game-time both before and after the quest script is active, consuming resources and probably inducing instability. And besides, with a heavily afflicted savegame you'd want to start afresh anyway.


Well the version I had posted prior to today already fixed pretty much all of the major ones (aside from those fixes in UF3P -- those I included into the version I posted earlier today), so if you start afresh with the one I'm going to post very soon, you should get all the fixes necessary to make the game's quests update and complete properly. If you discover any that don't, please let me know ASAP so I can get them fixed -- I tend to work pretty quickly when I do, so there's a good chance I'd get 'em fixed in time for when you load up your save again.

But anyway, as I said, I'm gonna go make that FWE-compatible version now which doesn't include anything from UPP. Be right back.

UPDATE: OK, here it is as promised: http://www.mediafire.com/?5wzxrvjo4yv

In addition to removing UPP - Quest Perks dependency (and subsequently, compatibility) I removed some unnecessary references related to quests which I had not altered in any way as part of the patch per se; these references existed only because I had systematically deleted all quest-related achievements from the mod, but I then realized that keeping these references would worsen compatibility with other mods, and since FWE and many other mods delete the achievements anyway, it's better to only keep references essential for the functioning of the core mod. This also had the effect of reducing the size of the esp slightly.

I'm currently playing FO3 for the first time. I have the unofficial patch and I believe I've hit a game-breaking bug. Perhaps you can fix it:

Are you using the Fallout 3 Quest Patch or the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch? They are two different mods.


Sorry, can't help you -- I don't have the DLC, and this issue doesn't seem to be related to this patch in any way. If you are using the UF3P, you should report a bug like this to its author, Quarn (although he's been MIA for quite some time).

I have the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch.



I thought the purpose of your patch was fixing quest bugs still left that others haven't fixed. The very description of this thread mentions how no one is updated the Unofficial Fallout 3 Patch anymore. I could report it to them, but no one would do anything because it isn't being updated.

You can upload your savegame somewhere and post a link to it here so that I can test what's wrong once I get the Anchorage DLC. However, I won't be getting the DLC for a while yet, so it may take some time before I discover what's wrong (if I discover what's wrong at all).

Please look into the Waters of Life quest if you have the will and patience. I'm currently dealing with an infuriating bug where Dr. Li does not follow me to the ladder leading to the Citadel to complete the quest. This bug occurs when zoning into the Taft Tunnels. I believe you're supposed to be confronted by Dr. Li about Garza's heart problem and prompted to make a choice. This exchange never took place, and now I'm stuck on this quest with my closest hard-save being 5 hours back.

Decane,

Before I start playing with this... What DLC do you have? I was just browsing through the ESP to see if anything stuck out as "off".

In MS11 - The Power of the Atom, it seems to undo something that Broken Steel adds, hence my DLC question. It is a Log Entry, and it is ever-so-slightly spoilery, so Spoiler Tags, Go!:



... Is the script content. Whereas it is blank in Vanilla FO3 and in your Quest Patch

I also found a few more that override the DLC: "Take it Back!", and "Project Impurity" have Scripts attached to Log Entries that clear out BS additions. These conflicts seem more serious. Basically in all cases your conflict with Broken Steel seems to just be undoing the BS changes, as the scripts in your patch are identical to Fallout3.esm (either that they are blank like Fallout3.esm or have the same content).

So I assume you have none of the DLC? And I guess my question is how can we solve this if you don't yet have the DLC? I saw you reference getting OA *sometime*, so do you know when that will be?

Also if you would like I could try to upload a version with the BS changes, but I don't think I could keep up with providing a BS version each time you come out with a new patch release.