Brig door bug

[Ronimal]

I've talked to Red at the prison, but the logbook never updates. I go back to Ranger Citadel, but the brig door is still closed. I cannot talk to Rick about the +4 rad suits. I'm enjoying this game, but this may make me stop playing as my other save is from hours ago. Anyone have any ideas?

[Ronimal]

I've sunk 26 hours into this game so far, and i'm not starting over.

[Gillsing]

What dialogue options do Red offer then? Maybe you need to get one of the locals to point you in his direction? I've had some problems of my own[forums.inxile-entertainment.com] with Happy Valley dialogues, though nothing that stopped the quest line. It should work to simply ask the pig farmer William Brown about Damonta, then rad suits, then Red (or whichever order those topics appear in). Then you should be able to ask Red about rad suits, and he should tell you about Baychowski.

[Ronimal]

Thanks for the reply!

I did every quest I could at the Prison in the order that I came across them. I talked William Brown, he told me about Damonta and Red. Then i made my way through the caves and talked to Red. I was able to disable the turrets without the use of the code. I picked every dialog option I could with Red and the logbook never updated. If i go back to try and find Red at his scrapyard he's gone, and if I go to Ranger Citadel the door to the brig is still closed, and the guard is too close to the door for me to destroy it. Not sure what to do.

[Ronimal]

I'm playing on PC with mouse and keyboard if that has anything to do with anything.

[Amanoob105]

Have you talked to the jailer yet? I.e. the guy with the jail door keys.

[Gillsing]

Originally posted by Birch:

I talked William Brown, he told me about Damonta and Red. ... I picked every dialog option I could with Red and the logbook never updated.

Sounds to me like Red should have mentioned Baychowski then, and that quest should have received its first update after Vargas' initial order: "Red told us that Rick Baychowski, a Desert Ranger, knows where to find the rad suits that will get us to Damonta. Last Red heard, the Rangers had arrested Rick for going AWOL and were holding him at Ranger Citadel."

Since you apparently didn't get that update, I guess "every dialog option" did not include whichever one mentions Rick Baychowski. Or your logbook is just bugged to begin with? Did you try typing "damonta" and "rad suits" when talking to Red? Do you have a save from when you first set foot in Happy Valley, before doing anything there? Seems like a good idea to have one such save for any area, just to rewind in case something goes seriously wrong.

[Ronimal]

Well this is my first playthrough. So when I talked to Red i didn't know I absolutely needed a logbook update from him to proceed with the main story. Now i know i clicked every dialog option that came up so I would have to assume I spoke with him about Damonta and the Rad Suits, but the log book never updated.

What i'm more curious about is where does he go afterwards? He's not the normal spot at his scrapyard anymore. I would try and talk to him again if I could, but i can't find him anywhere.

Also, I can't even walk into the brig due to the double doors being closed - so i can't talk to the jailor. It says i'm "not authorized personel" when trying to enter the brig doors. I'll try and post a picture of this so you know what i'm talking about.

Unfortunately, I do not have a save file from the very start of Happy Valley. It's my first playthrough and didn't know the game would be buggy so I just do a lot of quicksaves. My last big save was from the start of Rail Nomads Camp. Hindsight proves me to be a baffoon.

[Ronimal]

https://ibb.co/mdOCVm
Here's the image of the brig doors being closed. Vargus doesn't have any dialog options except 'report' and Red is gone from the his scrapyard in Happy Valley.

[Ronimal]

https://ibb.co/dDsEAm
https://ibb.co/mRvZAm
And here's the images of the scrapyard - Red is gone now.

[Gillsing]

Originally posted by Birch:

Well this is my first playthrough. So when I talked to Red i didn't know I absolutely needed a logbook update from him to proceed with the main story. Now i know i clicked every dialog option that came up so I would have to assume I spoke with him about Damonta and the Rad Suits, but the log book never updated.

I just loaded my "Red at last" save and when I clicked on the "Baychowski" dialogue option, my logbook was updated. And I got that option by clicking on "Rad Suits" after "Damonta". One interesting thing though: Red would at first deny knowing anything about Damonta, but I received a second Damonta option: Everyone says, "Red knows about Damonta". So maybe you need to have heard about Red from at least two people (William Brown and Fred Jarvis in my case, and I'm sure Celia Caminada is a third option, maybe only available if one of the others isn't). EDIT: Nope. After a quick test it was enough to have only spoken to William Brown, and without even inquiring about his pigs. No idea why that logbook entry failed to appear now.

Originally posted by Birch:

What i'm more curious about is where does he go afterwards? He's not the normal spot at his scrapyard anymore. I would try and talk to him again if I could, but i can't find him anywhere.

Maybe he's out in the wild, collecting junk, never to be bothered by inquisitive rangers again. The game probably thinks he's done his NPC duty and despawned him. Also, now that I did the unthinkable and killed Red, I discovered that he has a set of +4 Rad Suits. Too bad that is no longer an option for you though. (I expected something like a note saying "Dear Rick Baychowski who knows about rad suits, I hope the Rangers aren't treating you too badly in their brig. - Love, Red." Clearly a too low expectation for this game.)

Originally posted by Birch:

Also, I can't even walk into the brig due to the double doors being closed - so i can't talk to the jailor. It says i'm "not authorized personel" when trying to enter the brig doors.

Yeah, you need that logbook entry to give your team a valid reason to visit the brig. I wonder if there's a way to edit a save file so that logbook entry gets set properly for you?

Originally posted by Birch:

Unfortunately, I do not have a save file from the very start of Happy Valley. It's my first playthrough and didn't know the game would be buggy so I just do a lot of quicksaves. My last big save was from the start of Rail Nomads Camp. Hindsight proves me to be a baffoon.

I usually save at important or interesting occasions, not because I'm expecting a bug, but because I might want to return to a certain point of a playthrough to experiment or investigate stuff. Doesn't cost me more than some space on my hard drive. I was going to settle for only a main save and the quick saves and autosave when I started this third attempt, but I quickly got back into the habit of saving 'all the time'.

[red255]

Sooo.... you went to red, exhausted his dialog options. then shot him and are upset you can no longer progress?

he moves on to damonta after you talk to him would have thought he would stick around until the quest progressed though

[Gillsing]

No, I shot him as an experiment and saw that he had +4 Rad Suits. Birch is the one who didn't get a logbook entry after talking to Red, and therefore can't get to Damonta with only shoddy rad suits. And Red is no longer in his junkyard in Birch's game. And Birch's rangers can't get into the brig, because no logbook entry says they should be allowed there.

If it's not possible to edit a save file to set a logbook entry, might it be possible to force Rick's RV to appear on the world map? That should provide +4 Rad Suits.

[Ronimal]

Yeah, as of right now I have no way of progressing the game. I die trying to get to Damonta because I don't have the +4 rad suits. I didn't kill Red in my game - I talked to him, exhausted all dialog options, and my log book never updated. Now he's gone. Also, i distinctly remember talking to William Brown about him. I even talked to a guy near the truck (i think) that's stuck towards the beginning of town about Damonta.

I'm dissapointed that I won't get to finish this game. I enjoyed my time playing it, but a game that came out years ago should not have such a severe bug that it makes me stop playing.

[Ronimal]

By the way, thanks for trying to help Gillsing. I appreciate it.

[Gillsing]

I did another experiment and managed to blast the brig door open with a carefully thrown TNT in the corner that hit the door but not the guard. However, once inside the Rangers had to get the jailor to wake up Baychowski, and that wasn't a dialogue option without the log book update.

Killing the jailor turned every Ranger hostile, including Rick Baychowski. After hacking the door lock, I found out that it wasn't possible to walk into the cell normally, but by using a pack of cigarettes on Rick one of my Rangers was able to walk inside his cell and shot him with a pulse rifle, leaving only a loot bag. Couldn't loot it directly, but by looting the jailor's corpse I was given access to the nearby bag (as usual when looting corpses). In it was Rick's note, which only said "combo Red". Presumably that's meant to be picked up if he dies on the way to his RV, and it's surely the combo for his safe with the rad suits.

But with Ranger Citadel turned hostile, this is clearly not a way to progress the game. However, you could go to the museum and activate the minute man nuke in there, blowing the whole place up, which counts as ending the game and not just dying. This saves your Rangers as files so you could restart with them at their current levels, which should make it a lot quicker than 26 hours to get to where you are right now. I assume this option is there to allow players to replay the whole AgCenter/Highpool choice to experience the content that they would've missed. Maybe see if skills from reading books stick after death too?