Help? Nick Valentine has fallen out of the world.

[cathteg]

Nick Valentine is missing. While it sounds like the beginning of the latest pulp noir novel Piper is trying to write, it's some really wretched bug that I could use some help with.

(tl;dr version: Companion missing, can't summon with console, below is list of stuff I've tried.)

I picked up FO4 the other day after having not played in almost a year, so my memories on where I left people are vague, but last I saw Nick, I think he was at the Starlite Drive-In fretting over Eddie Winter. When I went to look for him to invite him along on a quest, I didn't see him. Fine, maybe he's gone home - I checked all over Diamond City, his agency, and all the other settlements I ever dismiss companions to.

Some things to note:

1. Playing on PC, original Steam version, no DLCs. It's updated to current version. So is F4SE.

2. Yes, I have mods. The only one to have been changed between last time I saw him and now is Sim Settlements. (I can list them if it will help, but this is long enough.)

3. I did, however, finally switch to Vortex when I loaded it up.

By this point the trail was cold, and I thought more dramatic tactics were called for. So I opened the console and tried to summon him.

Nothing.

Tried player.moveto, to go find him, instead. Here's where things get even weirder. (These attempts weren't all at once - I tried closing down, waiting and rebooting at various points, but that didn't help. It's been a few days of trying different things.)

Attempt 1: Nick was talking to Nat in the middle of DC. I couldn't invite him along because he was still going on about Eddie's holotapes, but it doesn't matter because the game crashed right then. Restarted and thought I'd get the same again.

Attempt 2: I appeared high above...Hangman's Alley, maybe? in the middle of some glitchy buildings. I heard Nick say 'there has to be an easier way down' as I fell several stories. I could see him hanging in the air, and turned off clipping to try to get up to wherever he was. It didn't work.

Attempt 3: Same as 2, except I managed to get close. I couldn't interact with him; clicking on him did nothing.

Attempt 4: In the middle of some buildings again, but this time, Nick is gone. From this point I never see him again.

Attempt 5: Appeared in the middle of the Charles River, soaking up rads and next to a mirelurk. No Nick.

Attempt 6: Further down the river, soaking up rads and being shot at by raiders. At this point I entertain the mistaken assumption that possibly he is moving somewhere, and if I wait a while, he'll get to wherever that is. (I mean, he could be at the bottom of the river. He's a synth, I need to breathe.)

I check around some settlements again. I strike on the idea that as he's still listed as available to be a leader in Sim Settlements, that perhaps if I assign him to one, he'll make his way there. I appoint him mayor of Oberland Station. The settlers carry on building, but he never appears.

At this point, I start trying some different things on the console. (I have a feeling it is futile, but try anyway.) 00002f25.moveto player (and variations, like prid first, etc) still do nothing.

I tried to enable, and then to disable and re-enable, but just got a 'compiled script not saved' from the console. Usually this means you've typed something wrong, but I've double-checked everything multiple times.

Attempt 7 to player.moveto: I tried this in Home Plate, where I reappeared moments later.

Attempt 8: Endless loading screen that sat there being black and not loading anything while I took out the bins and put the laundry in. Nearly ten minutes later, closed game.

I downloaded a mod that is supposed to summon your companions. (I realise that it uses the same functionality as the console but I'm getting desperate.) Build a 'summon Nick' tool, use it, the screen says 'moving companion to you' but nothing happens.

Obviously things are getting worse rather than better. Has anyone encountered this and had any kind of solution at all? I've already done the quests where he turns up at Piper's and in Goodneighbor, so advancing those won't help. If I keep finding Eddie Winter tapes will he eventually make an appearance?

As it took a while of doing quests before I realised he was gone, I don't know how far I'd have to go back to get a working save. So it might be time to resign myself to playing the rest of the game without him, but I thought I'd ask here anyway. And if not I hope some of this was at least entertaining. TIA.

ETA: I checked a much older save, and it didn't make any difference, so that's apparently not an option anyway. Either it happened much earlier than I realised or it's just corrupted in general.

[♥ Barney ♥]

Not running any mods, but In my game there is an option on a terminal you build in your setllements that says 'locate VIP tracker' or something, and it gives you a marker on the map where your follower or ex-follower is located. I use it alot as my companions often go missing and I can easily find them again. Found Curie standing 200 foot on top of a bridge over Graygarden once, how she got up there I'll never know.

edit- the terminal may be an added item from one of the dlc's come to think of it, but maybe the terminal you can build in the base game has the track VIP option too.

[DouglasGrave]

It sounds like he's pretty thoroughly messed up, which could be the result of leftover mod changes even if you're not currently using them. I suppose you could check his companion quest with SQS to see if it's something to do with that, but it's almost certainly not going to be from that alone. I usually don't see NPCs lost all over the map unless they're provisioners with a weird route.

You could see if it's possible to force dialogue with him to have him join you or otherwise make him your current companion, since that typically overrides quest orders (but only as long as the NPC is your active companion). It might at least give you a way to access him at all.

Apart from moveto and enable, you could also try other commands just to see if he's still working vaguely normally as an NPC. Something like showinventory or getdistance, for example. The fact the game is still willing to move you to him suggests he's still considered to exist and have a location, but not appearing often means something has disabled him (and continues to disable him if a single enable doesn't make him reappear).

The other thing that sometimes happens is that an NPC can get weirdly disassociated from their visible location, so they're invisibly somewhere while looking like they're somewhere else. I think I've mostly seen that happen with killable NPCs, though, particularly when reloading or resurrecting them.

♥ Barney ♥ eredeti hozzászólása:

Not running any mods, but In my game there is an option on a terminal you build in your setllements that says 'locate VIP tracker' or something, and it gives you a marker on the map where your follower or ex-follower is located. I use it alot as my companions often go missing and I can easily find them again. Found Curie standing 200 foot on top of a bridge over Graygarden once, how she got up there I'll never know.

If I remember correctly, the overpass can be accessed by a yellow gantry lift further along, towards Lexington after crossing the road east of Graygarden. But the game probably just dropped Curie up there. I frequently build some scaffolding stairs for access.

♥ Barney ♥ eredeti hozzászólása:

edit- the terminal may be an added item from one of the dlc's come to think of it, but maybe the terminal you can build in the base game has the track VIP option too.

It should be from the Vault-Tec Workshop, but I don't recall offhand if that also changes regular terminals. Since you said you had no DLCs, maybe a mod you're using has a similar function.

[cathteg]

Thanks for this. It does sound pretty buggered, doesn't it? Mods are a possible culprit, though the only one I've disabled is an animation framework that I got, gave up on and disabled all in a very short span since the last time I saw poor old Nick. (It sounded like fun at the time, but made the game load SO SLOWLY that I couldn't be bothered.) I have a multiple companion mod, but have had that since the beginning and it still works on everyone else. So it's hard to say.

I tried some of your suggestions. Show Inventory lists his equipment as normal, and Get Distance claims the distance is 0.0. The game clearly seems to think he is right there with me. Tried recycling actor, resetting AI, and disable/enable again (I'm on a separate save at this point anyway, so hopefully nothing will get more messed up than it is) but this seems to be where we are now. Maybe invisible and silent, but that's basically the same as not being there. (Accompanied by a ghost synth? Creepy....!)

Suppose I'll try manipulating his quests a bit next and see if I can make him reappear, but any other ideas you or anyone else have and I'll be grateful! Running out of stuff to try.

And yeah, I think the terminal is from the Vault-Tec add-on. I don't have that or anything that works similarly (I found one mod that is supposed to summon your companions to you, but it's just a fancy version of moveto player and doesn't solve this problem anyway - I only got it yesterday after days of trying to fix this, in case I could trick the game. Turns out I could not).

[CruelAsAnAngel]

have you an alternate start in your mod file?

i had it once,i went to talk to elli about nick gone missing, i accepted, and when i went to loot the house i just found him standing on a chair... i was sooo bafled xD
he just started his normal dialogue saying'' u must have a good reason to went for all this trouble to find me. let get out of there and well talk'' but was bugged here and wouldnt say anything else, dint move ether
i tried console, reload and alot of stuff that dint work.

the only solution was to remove this mod and get a fresh new game

[cathteg]

No, I'm afraid I don't! Most of my mods are to do with settlement-building, or else purely aesthetic. Sorry you didn't figure out what was wrong either!