Loot respawns too fast ? Or is this a bug ?

[Andrius227]

Went to Thicket Excavations, started killing raiders and looting the place. My inventory filled up before i could finish looting the place so i went back to Sanctuary to offload the loot. I came back and found all the loot completelly respawned and containers locked again... Is that supposed to happen ? Because it's dumb. I will just assume it's a bug ?

[Doxxyl]

I found this thread upon googling a similar issue. It seems that I have items frequently respawning in containers as well. However, this happens in settlements, even in containers that I myself have placed. I play survival too, and don't fast travel. Possible survival-related bug?

[Ingenium]

Bethesda fixed it at some point for most of the zones I was having issues with. However, the bug where the red bandana and goggles were duplicating in the first home outside of the Red Rocket in Concord is still there (as of a few months back when I played). At this point I'm waiting for a mod that fixes all spawns. I get that it may be something they were playing around with in game for your settlement (having a lot of scrap that respawns all the time), however, it's not really immersive when I strip mine an area, walk away, come back, it's all respawned. We'll see, planning on firing it back up and modding in a few weeks anyway.

[sortitus]

I just noticed this after coming back for the DLCs and starting a new game in Survival mode. Having to walk back and forth between Concord and Sanctuary because of encumbrance made certain containers and loose items respawn. After some testing, what seems to fix it is entering an interior cell when the area with the respawning items is loaded. The problem happens when you fast travel too, as traveling from Lexington to Sanctuary and back to Lexington had some items and containers respawning every time. Entering any building in northern Lexington caused the bank to stop spawning tons of Pre-War Money every time I traveled to the zone.

You can farm a ton of ammunition and basic scrap early on this way if you're looking to exploit the bug rather than fix it by entering a nearby interior. Starting at the chest on the hill west of Red Rocket, you can go clockwise through Concord's exterior, including the southeast junkyard random encounters if you so choose, straight to Abernathy Farm and following the power lines north until you're level with Vault 111, then loop back through Sanctuary and repeat.

I definitely think it's annoying as someone who likes to clear areas and forget about them, but maybe reframing it as an exploit would make Bethesda more likely to address the problem.

[Ingenium]

Originally posted by sortitus:

I definitely think it's annoying as someone who likes to clear areas and forget about them, but maybe reframing it as an exploit would make Bethesda more likely to address the problem.

Same here, it's 100% immersion breaking for me, unless there are ghouls frantically restocking 100% all containers then vanishing, I'll keep waiting for it to be modded out (doubting Bethsoft will actually fix this as it's deep in the engine related to the scripts for containers from what I've seen in the GECK).

[Rattrap]

Had the exact same thing just happen at Thicket. Worst part was I had a load of stuff in one of the containers, and it had been replaced with the respawns inventory. The one plus side was I found 4 fusion cores in one container after the near instance refresh.

[Ingenium]

It's still happening... fired up a brand new game today, virgin Steam install, still able to go to Ranger Station, take everything, walk away and come back, everything is "virgin" state again. Maybe I'll wait to the GOTY edition, or, just ignore it and keep playing? Biggest fear is that I'll run into an actual main story quest breaking item respawn bug and screw myself!

[Brave Cat]

Originally posted by Ingenium:

It's still happening... fired up a brand new game today, virgin Steam install, still able to go to Ranger Station, take everything, walk away and come back, everything is "virgin" state again. Maybe I'll wait to the GOTY edition, or, just ignore it and keep playing? Biggest fear is that I'll run into an actual main story quest breaking item respawn bug and screw myself!

You're not alone. Just started playing the game and stumbled upon this bug. Thicket and Bedford station respawn 100% of the time.
Being lvl 9 and have effectively unlimited supply of crucial components and neat guns
IS ABSOLUTELY GAME-BREAKING, BETHESDA!
Here. I had to say it.
ver. 1.9.4.0.1

[sdack]

Originally posted by Brave Cat:

Originally posted by Ingenium:

It's still happening... fired up a brand new game today, virgin Steam install, still able to go to Ranger Station, take everything, walk away and come back, everything is "virgin" state again. Maybe I'll wait to the GOTY edition, or, just ignore it and keep playing? Biggest fear is that I'll run into an actual main story quest breaking item respawn bug and screw myself!

You're not alone. Just started playing the game and stumbled upon this bug. Thicket and Bedford station respawn 100% of the time.
Being lvl 9 and have effectively unlimited supply of crucial components and neat guns
IS ABSOLUTELY GAME-BREAKING, BETHESDA!
Here. I had to say it.
ver. 1.9.4.0.1

I can't tell if you're trying to be serious or just being wittingly funny.

Anyway, why necro an old thread?

[mfree]

Originally posted by Brave Cat:

Being lvl 9 and have effectively unlimited supply of crucial components and neat guns
IS ABSOLUTELY GAME-BREAKING, BETHESDA!
Here. I had to say it.
ver. 1.9.4.0.1

Then don't take them.

[sdack]

Originally posted by mfree:

Originally posted by Brave Cat:

Being lvl 9 and have effectively unlimited supply of crucial components and neat guns
IS ABSOLUTELY GAME-BREAKING, BETHESDA!
Here. I had to say it.
ver. 1.9.4.0.1

Then don't take them.

I don't think he is being too serious. You just don't find anything crucial at level 9. You find stuff, but nothing to make you rich or that will max you out. In fact, if you got there and managed to kill all then you will already have good gear or just don't need good gear. Either way, all you find is raider armour and some pipe pistols. One can then find a .44, gold bars and a full set of armour just near sanctuary with little to no fight.

The game then respawns stuff not quite in sync with one's expectations, and it can happen that containers get refilled shortly after a first visit. Anyone trying to exploit this just doesn't realize that the entire Commonwealth is filled with places full of containers waiting to be emptied. So why would anyone want to run back and forth when there is the whole of the Commonwealth to explore? Hence, his comment could be wittingly funny, sarcastic ...

[mfree]

Originally posted by sdack:

Originally posted by mfree:

Then don't take them.

I don't think he is being too serious. You just don't find anything crucial at level 9. You find stuff, but nothing to make you rich or that will max you out. In fact, if you got there and managed to kill all then you will already have good gear or just don't need good gear. Either way, all you find is raider armour and some pipe pistols. One can then find a .44, gold bars and a full set of armour just near sanctuary with little to no fight.

The game then respawns stuff not quite in sync with one's expectations, and it can happen that containers get refilled shortly after a first visit. Anyone trying to exploit this just doesn't realize that the entire Commonwealth is filled with places full of containers waiting to be emptied. So why would anyone want to run back and forth when there is the whole of the Commonwealth to explore? Hence, his comment could be wittingly funny, sarcastic ...

...and I can play straight man.

In *real* seriousness, areas that don't clear aren't subject to the reset wait times and a quest or other event can reset them quickly; areas that *do* clear and are left with one or two mobs will also reset themselves much faster than if cleared.

[Xyzzy]

You soon get sick of it and stop doing it.
Same thing happens with 105 Pre-war money near SD-Mart.

[Nite69]

I never had loot respawn that fast, it ussually takes 5 - 10 days for a area to respawn for me, and you can't go to the area again before that time or it will reset the 5 - 10 days

[Xyzzy]

Some reset as soon as you leave the cell, like SD-Mart Bank area.

[Brave Cat]

Wow. So much feedback.

Originally posted by sdack:

Anyway, why necro an old thread?

Do you have a working solution? If so, I'll be very grateful to hear it. No?
I will answer. I post to an old thread because this bug still exists, and to keep relevant information in one place. I googled for it and found this thread, so others may too.

I'm actually serious. Believe it or not, I only started this game recently in hopes Beth has fixed it to a playable level by now. I immediately realized that Survival is the way I want to play it and loved it very much. Until that moment.

You see, low lvl gameplay is always the most exciting part of progression to me. You can't really experience it twice, as soon as you know the map/quests/game mechanic. When you're one screw short to build your cool new generator or a neat weapon mod, and you're scouring the wasteland for it trying not to die in the process... And you discover an unlimited supply of junk and weapon drops with potentially every tier 2 mod possible... Well, it defeats the purpose of your effort.

========

Ok. The useful part.
After hours of save/reload on different chars and different scenarios, I found out that
1) Bedford station and Thicket always respawn their containers and junk placed in the world if you walk away far enough (Concord, Sanctuary) sleep, come back.
2) If you drag a piece of junk to a distant cell (Bedford -> Concord) and THEN pick it up in a distant cell, it will not respawn.
3) I managed to cease the respawns by fast-travelling OUT of the affected cell. Tested on Bedford and Thicket. Apparently the game only saves those cells states when you fast-travel out of it, but not leave on foot. Upon returning (on foot/FT) the cell remained unchanged and subsequent actions didn't reset it.

Unfortunately this solution is not applicable to Survival, which is my favorite game mode.

Please pardon any lexical errors.
Cheers.

P.S. The "FT out of cell" method seems to corellate with sortitus' observations. I.e., the cell is saved when you "log out" of it but not if you walk away from it.