Save edit mission "Raymond Chandler Evening"

[Shinigami]

Hi all

Playing the game I've come to discover that some missions have a soft 'fail'. For example, if you don't choose the first options when speaking to Pepe's wife in the mission "Raymond Chandler Evening", she will later call you and tell you that Pepe kicked her out of the house. This only become obvious later on as she calls you a few days later in the game. By then, you might have several hours of game time under your belt, and it will be annoying to come back to an older save in order to get this right.

I used the Nexus hosted CyberCat save editor to export and then compare save info on failed, and successful mission progress. In case the following helps someone to try again (only proceed at your own risk! Always backup your saves), a successful save contains the following:

This entry is the only one when you begin the mission:
"Key": "mq040_mission_info",
"Value": 3

If you get the unhappy ending, you will also have these entries:
"Key": "mq040_active",
"Value": 0
"Key": "mq040_arr_top_left",
"Value": 1
"Key": "mq040_scanning_ongoing",
"Value": 0

After a few hours of game play, the wife calls, and you will have this:
"Key": "mq040_done",
"Value": 1

If instead you want the happy ending, you will also need these two:
"Key": "mq040_situation_defused",
"Value": 1
"Key": "mq040_wife_story_heard",
"Value": 1

To summarize, you'll need all seven entries seen above, with the value indicated. As CyberCat GUI doesn't let you remove entries, if you want to try the mission again, you will probably need to set "mq040_active" back to a value of 1, and set everything else below it to a zero.

I have a few other missions I realized I could do 'better'. I'll publish the results if I figure them out. Hope this helps someone. Happy to get some Steak cred/awards if you liked this :)

[Shinigami]

In addition, I had an interesting observation with this mission.
The following entry will have a value of 1 prior to starting the mission, and after finishing it:
"Key": "elcoyote_barman_default_on",
"Value": 1

During the mission, this one switches to a value of 0. You may need to do the same if attempting to reset the mission.

Also, the following entries all seem to disappear when playing the mission. They're there prior to starting, and after completing them. Some of these values like "holo_v_calls_pepe_start_count" and "holo_v_calls_pepe_end_count" will increase from a 1 to a 2 if you call Pepe more than once:
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_end_activate",
"Value": 0
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_end",
"Value": 0
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_interrupted",
"Value": 0
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_start_count",
"Value": 1
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_start_activate",
"Value": 0
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_start",
"Value": 0
"Key": "holo_v_calls_pepe_end_count",
"Value": 1

You may need to check that you have them all once the mission is completed if you were to attempt this one again.
And finally, for some reason, this one pops up as well, I don't know what it's linked to, but it seems to be there if you started and completed this mission and the value at some point may change from a 1 to a 0:
"Key": "ma_hey_rey_05_start",
"Value": 1

[Bogmore]

Or you could just do it right in the first place.

[Shinigami]

For sure, however unless one knows the correct answers in advance, the second option of asking Cynthia to discuss it with Pepe, also sounds like a normal response. Unfortunately it means that Cynthia gets kicked out of the house, and you only find this out much later.

[dmartineze]

Do you know how can I reset the quest after it has failed?, I missed this quest and it was the last one that I needed to do

[Shinigami]

Originally posted by dmartineze:

Do you know how can I reset the quest after it has failed?, I missed this quest and it was the last one that I needed to do

CyberCat doesn't let you delete quest entries (I haven't tried other ones), so what I would do is the following:
1) Find an older save game where you did not yet play this mission.
2) Enjoy the mission and try to get the happier ending.
3) Once you're satisfied having played and witnessed the happier ending, edit your final save game (the one where you got the unhappy ending) to include the following:
"Key": "mq040_situation_defused",
"Value": 1
"Key": "mq040_wife_story_heard",
"Value": 1

That's it, that's the only difference between a happy and an unhappy ending if you want your final save game file to have the 'intended' details.
You may get a bit of extra cash with the happier ending, so might as well gift yourself a few hundred extra eddies in that case if you've come so far as to use a save editor.