Preston won't give Castle / Taking Independence Quest.

[Militus Immortalis]

Hey guys,

I've googled and it's a quite common problem it seems. I have used 'SetStage 0003a457 0' as suggested elsewhere but that did nothing. He just shifts out of reality briefly and comes back. I've slept 7 days and gone back and he will say "Do you have time for that talk now?" which is his final dialogue line, for the final convo. This is the third time I had this talk with him.

Edit: Tested again, and he is back to that same conversation after six days. So I think that is what's stopping him from talking about the Castle.

Edit: For those looking for help, I tried everything with Preston himself and nothing worked. I ended up going to skip dialogue and doing a certain stage of Taking Independence (meet at the Castle) and then did part by part. I had to skip the last part aswell as again no dialogue..

Now I had to do the same for Old Guns, and this actually triggered all of the dialogue at once, which is awesome. So if anybody has a problem, see if just typing "setstage min03 0" fixes it. That caused Preston to be fixed.

[Bored Peon]

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Taking_Independence

There is no stage 0, so stop spreading that bad information.

SetStage 0003a457 20

That is the command that takes you to the first stage of the quest.

Originally posted by Militus Immortalis:

"Do you have time for that talk now?"

Sounds more like you blew off one of the affinity conversations and he is trying to initiate that.

When you walk up to Preston and talk to him his first part of the conversation is going to be sending you on a radiant quest, then the last part will be talk about retaking The Castle.

Your scripting for Preston is off somewhere probably form before this quest started.

[Militus Immortalis]

It was what was said in the other thread. I've attempted 20 too, and it did nothing more than 0 did.

I did, indeed, blow it off, but I've had that talk now and I even got the perk for it. What else can I do?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Militus Immortalis:

It was what was said in the other thread. I've attempted 20 too, and it did nothing more than 0 did.

I did, indeed, blow it off, but I've had that talk now and I even got the perk for it. What else can I do?

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_4_console_commands

recycleactor
ResetAI

Your guess which one to use next is as good as mine :p

[Militus Immortalis]

Poo. I was hoping to avoid those. Recycle can bring issues later on, ah well-- thanks!

[Militus Immortalis]

Well ♥♥♥♥.. Even that didn't work.

Edit: I did all three commands, as a test, then waited 7 more days.. He goes back to the same dialogue.

[Bored Peon]

The only other thing I can suggest is to mess with the affinity level and maybe that can force the conversation back on track?

Use the console commands to see current affinity, then add affinity to reach the next level to trigger that conversation.

[Militus Immortalis]

I checked online and the affinity conversation apparantly returns incase people want to romance after all, so not sure that's why. I'm at max affinity already. I can try to mess around with it I guess..

[Militus Immortalis]

I'm geting so frustrated! I've tried the console commands, I've tried everything I can think of. I really want to get the Castle quest and the artillery that follows. Sigh.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Militus Immortalis:

I'm geting so frustrated! I've tried the console commands, I've tried everything I can think of. I really want to get the Castle quest and the artillery that follows. Sigh.

Well you dont need the quest to take the Castle. You can just tell Preston you already did it if he asks.

[Militus Immortalis]

Well, I'm assuming he won't ask if the trigger is simply missing.

I can't get artillery without that quest line progressing, can I? I don't seem to recall. The quest lines in console all seem fine, but it just doesn't seem to add up or be added to the quest log.
This is one of those quests I really don't want to skip, this is poo.

I've spend multiple hours trying so many different commands, resetting AI, resetting quests, moving stages.. It even says it's on stage x when I make it so.
I even checked through console if I had enough settlements and it says 14.

[Militus Immortalis]

I've managed to start it by going a bit further and using the 'meet at the castle' stage, even here he would not talk. I went ahead by progressing to the next stage, then it went smoothly until I had to talk to him to finish, which I could not do.

I am now unable to talk to Preston at all, as he just keeps saying we make a good team etc.

[oldrotorhead1]

Have you tried these?
Reset his affinity lower so the conversation resets.
Romance him. (You might not like that he starts calling you "Babe" instead of "General."

[Militus Immortalis]

Not while waiting 7 days, I guess I'll try that. /: Is that related to the 'we make a good team' though? And yeah not a fan of the babe part. xP

[Militus Immortalis]

That didn't work either. He'll keep asking even when we do that.

[Militus Immortalis]

I'm just going to try and play and hope that future quests of the Minutemen will work.