Showstopper: What causes Viktor Novikov to get a call behind the runway?

[NebbyOtt]

I have been spending the last 3 hours in Showstopper trying to find out what causes Viktor to get or not get a call after he talks to the stylist behind the runway roughly 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the mission. There's no pattern to it, except that, EXTREMELY CONSISTANTLY, when i'm by him (or whenever I DON'T want him to get the call), he ALWAYS gets the call, and when i'm a distance away from him (or whenever I DO want him to get the call), he NEVER gets the call, but I can't find a SINGLE thing I'm doing in game that could be changing this. I've been throwing myself at this trying to discover what is causing him to get or not get this call but i can never make him get the call when i'm up by Dalia (Who he is apperently speaking too.) so i can't see what changed in her routine to make her call so i can make it consistant. Anybody know what is going on here? How to make him get the call every time perhaps?

[Kunovega]

It's literally caused by you being near him. It's meant for you to overhear.

Many events are triggered by you either directly or indirectly by proximity

[NebbyOtt]

Omg, you know i kinda put that together but i figured that CAN'T be the case because that doesn't make any sence in universe. Thank you so much!

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by TennoHack:

Omg, you know i kinda put that together but i figured that CAN'T be the case because that doesn't make any sence in universe. Thank you so much!

The game is clockwork with triggered events. There's only two cycles that work without you.

Opening Event ~ Will happen no matter where you are, only happens once, does not repeat

Main Loop ~ Will happen no matter where you are, repeats forever until broken

Either of those can be interrupted with:

Proximity Triggers ~ Events that occur because you are nearby

Physical Triggers ~ Events that happen because you changed something or moved something

Paris as example:

Victors Opening Event is him coming down the stairs, he actually starts the mission without his bodyguard. This happens only one time and the bodyguard joins him once it's complete and he enters the main loop. If you started in a position that can effect him before he completes this you can isolate him without the bodyguard who will stay forever in his opening event location on the stairs waiting for Victor.

Main Loop, Victor does the same circuit around the party having the same basic conversations forever until you do something to effect it.

Proximity Triggers, conversations you are meant to overhear such as the staff talking about what drink Victor likes or the politician who is upset about having to wait for his meeting, etc, these conversations will not happen until you are nearby.

Physical Triggers, events like the fireworks will not occur unless you actually take the remote and trigger it.

There's many more examples of proximity and physical; but bottom line there's only the Opening Event and Main Loop that will occur without you.

Every mission you can identify these if you look for them, some are longer than others (such as the race event in Miami is a very long opening event, but it does eventually end and the targets enter their Main Loop, unless you intervene and end the race early with a physical trigger in which case you create a tangent loop depending on who you cause to win and so on.

But everything is clockwork in the Main Loop after the Opening Event until it's you that triggers a proximity (typically a conversation) or physical (usually a character going/doing something because of it) trigger.

There's tons more examples with phone calls, switches, etc, all caused by you.

[NebbyOtt]

Beautiful! Thank you for all this information! I'll put it to good use ;)