Okay, so I complete the tutorial mission and proceed to talk to Trudy after the altercation between her and the Powder Ganger. I quiz her and she gives me the whole story and even goes so far as to tell me where Ringo is. Everything seems to be going well except that there's no entry in the Quest Log. I figure I need to speak to Ringo to initiate the quest so continue about my business as normal. I fix her Radio and try to swindle her out of a few more caps but she refuses my demands. So now I'm looking everywhere for Ringo and he's just not there. At this point I begin to suspect there might be something wrong. I go online and see that there's another way to begin the Quest through dialogue with Doctor Mitchell. We speak at great length but none of his dialogue options lead to the Powder Ganger problem.
What can I do? I've spent a number of hours exploring and amassing an assortment of weapons, armours and even a few trinkets. I do not want to start again. Is there a console command I can use to set the quest status to active, or is this not a bug at all and I've missed something blatantly obvious?