I decided to finish the main quest and move on as 3 Dogs talk of the Enclave being driven off, clean water, and clean water caravans is ruining the immersion. Problem is I'm stuck in Lamplight caverns. I can't get the gate to Murder Pass or the Vault door to open. The last time I played was about two years ago. I remember Joseph powering up the terminal so I could hack it. I also opened the gate, but don't remember how I got it active. I looked at wiki's walk through and it said talk to Princess or McCready. It is a no go. The dialogue options haven't changed. What am I doing wrong?

Keep talking to MacCready. After about three attempts, magically the speech options show up. I talk to everyone, including Biwwy, and then I can get in. I hate LL, friggin confusing place.

Thanks. I'll give it another go and talk to everyone again. I too hate LL. Almost makes me want to play a mod that will let me off some of the little jerks.

If you're are on assignment for Eulogy, you can get one of them for him.... and a prize. And a strange prize indeed.... no matter what kind of high-end gear I give to Jericho, he always chooses this to wear.

Can't happen even if I wanted it too. This character is good and he just wiped out Paradise Falls. I decided to do the save the kids from the slavers quest in hopes it would open new things up. It has, which opened new dialogue options. Unfortunately I still can't get into Vault 87. I'm really getting annoyed. I talked to all the named kids at least three times; McCready and Princess at least ten times. I've even traded lots of Buffout and Strange Meat in hopes of doing something.

The dialogue option of McCready about getting into the vault didn't light up for me, it stayed greyed out. But if you click it, there should be a new option after all you've suffered through for the little bastards.

Alternately, if you're playing on PC, hit the console and "tcl" your way through their stupid gate.

I may have to use that command. I've picked every dialogue option there is to click for McCready and every other Lamplighter.

Five frickin days and still no dialogue to get in. I'm sick of this crap. I'm consoling the damned door. I hate this.

Used the command "activate" on the terminal by the vault 87 backdoor. That allowed me to hack the terminal and get in. I'd still like to know why I couldn't get McCready or Joseph to work. I found no bugs about it in the wiki.

It's listed under "Bugs" on this http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Picking_up_the_Trail

None of those bugs applied. The only main quest paths I didn't follow were talking to Moriarity, and 3 Dog. I found my way to Rivet City without seeing either of them.