Settlement visitor gifts disappearing

[gwelty]

I've never noticed this before, but when I have a visitor to my settlement who says he will give me a gift, I always accept, but then when I check all my inventories, it's nowhere to be found. This time it was a gift of 3 living pearl.

Is this something other people experience as well?

[AmberAnvil]

Yes, unfortunately, none of us have ever received the gifts. The only things I've ever received from the settlement are the regular production and nanites from a successful expedition. Lots of bugs with settlements, but they serve as staging for "A Trace of Metal" and I still visit mine regularly. Maybe someday they'll get a little more attention.

[gwelty]

Thanks!

But "A Trace of Metal" would only be completed once per save, correct? Are you simply saying that on any new save you make, you do "A Trace of Metal" and therefore have a settlement?

[AmberAnvil]

I'd probably have a settlement even without "A Trace of Metal" just because of the way I play. The quest came about half-a-year after settlements were introduced. But it seems that a lot of players pretty much ignore them after the quest now.

[gwelty]

Yeah, I've been slaving away trying to upgrade my one and only settlement to S-status on a radioactive planet. I chose the location prematurely, and then stuck with it. I think I've gone there at least 100 times! I have happiness over 100% (even when it gets lowered, it stays at 100%), and production is at max (full circle). But there's only 70 residents or something, and not even half the circle is full. Of course, no guarantee it will be S-class even with max residents.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by gwelty:

Yeah, I've been slaving away trying to upgrade my one and only settlement to S-status on a radioactive planet. I chose the location prematurely, and then stuck with it. I think I've gone there at least 100 times! I have happiness over 100% (even when it gets lowered, it stays at 100%), and production is at max (full circle). But there's only 70 residents or something, and not even half the circle is full. Of course, no guarantee it will be S-class even with max residents.

Well....we should talk...

S-class is bugged for settlements. Which I think you're aware of, based on that last sentence. But I mean, it is really, really bugged. Not sure if you ever saw the thread I made, probably around a year, year-and-half ago, where I shared a screenshot of a settlement that I got to S-class in one of my saves. I mentioned in that thread that I had 2 other saves where the settlement also got to S-class.

Thing is, even if somehow you work around that bug and get a real, honest to goodness S-class settlement. That bug related to settlement class is nasty.

At this point, none of my saves have S-class settlements any longer. One-by-one, each of the ones that was there have lost it, reverted down to A-class. No idea why either, because for all but one of them the settlement decision event which preceded them stepping down in class wasn't even a negative result.

I gave up at this point. I have actually (archived and then) deleted all of my NMS saves except for one Main save. The only real reason I had been keeping them around was to try to understand the whole settlement-class bug in hopes that I could give HG enough details that they could fix it. I know there's a reddit thread where someone claims to have it figured out, but that thread is entirely simplistic, it nails part of the issue, but it's not the whole issue.

[gwelty]

I have a dim recollection of a past thread (perhaps by you) in which it was mentioned that it was impossible to get settlements to S-class. But in the end, I just go there for role-playing, really.

But I've never heard of a 'nasty' bug that would lead someone to delete their saves? Are you saying that getting an S-class settlement can ruin your existing saves or something?

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by gwelty:

I have a dim recollection of a past thread (perhaps by you) in which it was mentioned that it was impossible to get settlements to S-class. But in the end, I just go there for role-playing, really.

But I've never heard of a 'nasty' bug that would lead someone to delete their saves? Are you saying that getting an S-class settlement can ruin your existing saves or something?

No, no, not at all. I didn't delete 'my save', just all the extra ones I had where I was visiting them regularly just to visit the settlement and make decisions.

I had (and kept) every save for every expedition up to expedition 11, as well as 2 regular ones that I was logging into regularly. Having just given up on ever fully understanding what's going on with the settlement bug, I just deleted all the excess. Can only actually 'play' one at a time. (And I archived them before deleting them, so I do actually have them available in a zip file should I ever want to dust one off).

[gwelty]

OK, so what you're saying is that there's an inexplicable bug that keeps most settlements from becoming S-class, no matter what you do, though it's still possible that *some* settlements can get to S-class. Is that it?

[AmberAnvil]

Yes, that's what @Jaggid is saying. I've never had a settlement reach S-Class, even though I've reached full population five times. My current settlement is also on a radioactive planet and the population is up to 164. This'll take a while.

[Jaggid Edje]

Yes, and that even if you do get to S-class, it might not stay at S-class.

There was never any real point to getting a settlement to S-class in the first place. But knowing even if you do, it might not stay that way, sort of takes the wind out of my sails regarding paying attention to settlements at all.

[gwelty]

All right, thanks both of you for your help. I agree there's not much point going for S-class. I guess I wanted to be pleasantly surprised if I ever saw it happen!

[AmberAnvil]

Just know that S-Class is not guaranteed, but it's possible. Don't let us stop you!

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by gwelty:

All right, thanks both of you for your help. I agree there's not much point going for S-class. I guess I wanted to be pleasantly surprised if I ever saw it happen!

LOL, trust me, I get it. The amount of time I spent, every single day-multiple times, logging in to multiple different saves just to resolve settlement decisions, for well over a year is testament to just how much I get it.

And I was pleasantly surprised when the first one actually hit S. I had multiple settlements with everything capped that did not hit S, so it was a real surprise. I sort of feel all that time I spent was wasted, but on the other hand...playing games in and of itself is pretty much time-wasting, so no big deal really.

[gwelty]

I only have 280 hours in this game, since I got it four months ago. I think I've done every mission except for the living ship one.

So every day when I log in, I collect and store my farm resources, then check on my settlement, then collect from my frigate expedition and send out a new one, and then do a Nexus mission. And then I log out. I like visiting new planets, but... I need more missions, so this is basically the loop.

Part of that is hoping the settlement goes S-class. If there's a new expedition, I definitely do that.

[lurkathon]

My A class settlement is about the same as gwelty, max happiness and income, little to no maintenance, 70 population.. although mine is on an Overgrown planet (safe and nice weather).

Its sad to read here and find that it may never get to S class, and when it does there isn't a decent reward. The current rewards aren't worth the time I put into it, and I was hoping that the "better settlement means better rewards" might be meaningful when I got to S class.

If settlements are meant to give a return on investment, its poorly done. If they are only meant to add RPing element, again it's poorly done. Like they tried to have it do both and it ended up doing neither.

Actually glad I read this thread before wasting a lot more time.