Not getting Tradecraft

[Johto Gunner]

Okay so I've played this games more times than I care to admit and this is the first time I've ever had this happen to me.

Doing the game like always, running around killing ghouls, synths and yelling at Dogmeat everytime he walks in front of my barrel as I'm looting. Got to the Railroad, handed them the Courser Chip for them to do analyze and listen to them pretend to be spies. Cool. Desdemona goes on her rant about synths are slavers, got it.

But then we get to the point where she tells me to speak to Deacon for the start of Tradecraft. The quest The Road to Freedom completes but Tradecraft doesn't start. I try talking to Deacon and he just gives me a blank stare every time. Like he's jealous of my X-01 Power Armor. Deacon, buddy, I have a spare set you can wear once you give me the Tradecraft quest. Please let me do this quest!

But seriously, the damn quest won't trigger and I haven't had this happen before. Please help me.

[The Inept European]

Don't you need to talk to Des first and then she says talk to Deacon?

[Johto Gunner]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Don't you need to talk to Des first and then she says talk to Deacon?

I have spoken to her and that completes the first railroad quest. She tells me to talk to Deacon and... nothing. I keep talking to her and she keeps saying "Talk to Deacon, talk to Deacon." I have no idea what's going on.

[The Inept European]

Ah OK. I think Tradecraft is locked out if you don't approach the Railroad until you need them to decrypt the chip. Check the wiki for Tradecraft. But from memory this is the issue.

[Johto Gunner]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Ah OK. I think Tradecraft is locked out if you don't approach the Railroad until you need them to decrypt the chip. Check the wiki for Tradecraft. But from memory this is the issue.

I honestly don't remember this being an issue before. I've been able to join them this way every time I've played the game like this before. I don't know why this is an issue now. And I've played this game since 2015.

[The Inept European]

Maybe you never met the RR this late before?

[The Inept European]

Yeah it's all documented in the wiki. Once you have progressed Molecular Level there is a different route to start Tradecraft. The normal route is unavailable. You get it from Des instead. Looks like you have to complete Molecular Level first? Idk check the wiki.

[Death Approaches]

nah just did that route... if you haven't met BoS nor RR yet, go to Virg and get told what to do, take out Courser and go back, he sends you to Amari, who sends you to her friends in the RR... proceeds as normal. Deacon can't really do his whole recounting of all your deeds so the only thing they talk about is you being a badass who took out a courser... but completes as expected, and Deac wants you to meet by the broken highway.

you could always try manually starting it; 'startquest 6fa37' or just exit completely and restart. if you're running uncapped frames who knows what out-of-sync things are happening, the game hates that.

you don't get offered to join them til AFTER Switchboard and the ending of Tradecraft, where he makes up one of his famous lies, and she welcomes you in and has you pick your code name...

[Johto Gunner]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

nah just did that route... if you haven't met BoS nor RR yet, go to Virg and get told what to do, take out Courser and go back, he sends you to Amari, who sends you to her friends in the RR... proceeds as normal. Deacon can't really do his whole recounting of all your deeds so the only thing they talk about is you being a badass who took out a courser... but completes as expected, and Deac wants you to meet by the broken highway.

you could always try manually starting it; 'startquest 6fa37' or just exit completely and restart. if you're running uncapped frames who knows what out-of-sync things are happening, the game hates that.

you don't get offered to join them til AFTER Switchboard and the ending of Tradecraft, where he makes up one of his famous lies, and she welcomes you in and has you pick your code name...

The console command didn't work for some reason... Bah. Thanks for the suggestions at least. I'll keep toying with it and see what happens. Might have to start shutting down mods and seeing if it's too many mods ruining my fun.

[Johto Gunner]

Still bugged sadly. Tried many fixes but I have no idea what the issue could be.

[The Inept European]

In future: check the wiki for solutions first before borking your game with console commands. In this case it looks like there was just a slightly different route you could have taken to progress the quest.

[Max Drechsler (Казанцев)]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

In future: check the wiki for solutions first before borking your game with console commands. In this case it looks like there was just a slightly different route you could have taken to progress the quest.

They wrote just to write and did not get acquainted with the details. The bug does not depend on the sequence of quests. 2024 - there has been no such problem since 2016. Mods have nothing to do with it, it's the same for a clean game.