Various issues with HQ rooms

[Ninja2dan]

So far I'm enjoying my first play-through of Chapter 2 (finally), and I really like the new HQ system. I'm still not sure yet what "benefits" the HQ will actually provide to my settlements or to the rest of my game in general, but it's still a fun little mini-game. But I've encountered several problems while trying to build up the HQ, many of which have already been mentioned by others on the forums, but sadly there haven't been any real replies from the SS staff on how to correct the issues or if they are even being looked into. So hopefully to assist in progress of getting the issues fixed, I'll dump the ones I've noticed here.

Main level (lobby):
Many have already reported that the Infirmary simply refuses to build, regardless of which spot you try to place it. I've tried placing it one each of the other spots, no luck. I've tried refreshing plots, going to Sanctuary and sleeping for a day or two and then going back to HQ, nothing works. The Infirmary plot simply refuses to provide a build option. Even though that spot has been selected as Infirmary, the command menu is only giving the option to build another Chemistry lab.

2nd level:
Theresa's private quarters were only available in a small square room, which has 2 doorways. It's not one of the semi-circular rooms that the other department heads get. I could build her basic room, but the option to build her upgraded room gives an error. If it helps diagnose the problem, the command menu shows her room upgrade with the semi-circular room layout, not the square room layout that her room is actually using. This has been brought up in another thread, including screenshots of the error message.

Office level:
Ok, lots of issues so far on the office level. First up, there's a common cafeteria room that has a jacked-up door. The door works, but it's not aligned with the doorframe. You can still enter the room, but it looks ugly.

The men's restroom near the bar/lounge uses 2 doors at the same doorframe, each door opening in opposite directions. This happens even after several refreshes of the room.

I also built the Security Central Office, and it too is getting 2 doors placed, although for this room both doors open in the same direction.

The Armor Lab is not showing any items except for a lone workbench and a chain-link fence. I've already maxed out the upgrades for that room, but even after each upgrade, nothing would show. I attempted multiple room refreshes and remote waiting in between each upgrade to see if the room would properly refresh, but nada. Currently a maxed out room, with nothing in it except that lonely bench.

Near the Armor Lab is also a room that can be used as a living quarters. I built the room up (think it's a 4-person housing), but there's literally nothing there even after multiple refreshes. Maybe the room won't populate with furniture until I have more staff members, but that doesn't make sense. So for now, I'll assume that room is also bugged.

I've tried placing the Player Quarters and the extension, neither of them will build up into anything. I've tried swapping them out, so for example the regular quarters on the left and the extension on the right, and visa versa, but nothing shows up. Forgot to get screenshots.


There are also odd things in the command menu, such as options for upgrading the basement area to catwalks. If I choose that option, it seems to remove/replace the other option to upgrade the central room. Once the catwalks option is complete, the command menu then shows the option to upgrade back to the standard room option. Just keeps going back and forth. For the room that has been designated as Theresa's Private Quarters, the command menu shows the option to upgrade to a 4-person quarters, which will then build additional beds/clutter in her room. But the option to actually upgrade her room continues to give errors. It's like two room designations are fighting with each other, and the room can't decide what it's supposed to be. Sort of like the Infirmary/Chemistry room on the bottom level.

Overall, it's interesting to see all of the upgrades and cleaning up everything, but it's still a bit wonky and bugged. It would be nice to see an option to repair some of the walls, such as replacing that large hole in the Armor Lab with a proper doorway or something. And my personal quarters in the main level has some holes in the wall that can be seen through, kind of kills the "privacy" factor. Several spots do seem to have poor placement or clipping, I can see through gaps in spots, etc. Definitely needs some TLC and QA to clean up, but overall it's looking good so far, has potential.

 

[Midian]

It would be nice to see an option to repair some of the walls

Personally I would like the one in the player's room on the main floor patched without having to add the extension. The extension worked fine for me on the main floor. Was mainly just a couch and a bar didn't really seem to be worth losing that 6 people bedroom though. I built the Armor Lab in the basement. Doesn't seem to have issues there.

I have also had the same issues as you with the Office Area, the Catwalks replacing/removing the build on the Control Room, Theresa's room and the Infirmary. Here's a few more I ran into, be interested if others have these as well.

Large(?) woman's restroom missing wall.

It's the little things... These are backwards. No photo of kid Jake and his father don't think there was in Concord either though.

Office floor. I found the tiniest light.

Basement. Yikes! Refreshing doesn't help. Rebuilding to the other version just causes the new sink and mirror to be on the opposite side.

It could just be disabled. I know.
Problem areas aside I have completed (currently) HQ and when it's built up with the areas that do work (there are many) it looks great and the potential is huge.

 

[Ninja2dan]

Personally I would like the one in the player's room on the main floor patched without having to add the extension. The extension worked fine for me on the main floor. Was mainly just a couch and a bar didn't really seem to be worth losing that 6 people bedroom though. I built the Armor Lab in the basement. Doesn't seem to have issues there.

Problem areas aside I have completed (currently) HQ and when it's built up with the areas that do work (there are many) it looks great and the potential is huge.

I'm not sure how much development and testing went into the HQ system before it made its way into live release. There are obviously a LOT of details and bugs in various rooms across multiple floors, and these issues are being reported by several people each with different mod load and system specs. So I'm going to assume at this point that the issues are within the mod itself, and not generally down to user error or tato systems. I understand it's a process, and further QA and patches will be necessary before it's considered "complete" and fully working as intended.

You mentioned something that I had noticed earlier tonight after unlocking the office level. The office level has those larger semi-circular rooms near where you build the cubicle barracks and gym/library, and those rooms can be designated as either an office head's office or their personal quarters. I thought to myself "Hey, it's an OFFICE level, might as well move some of their offices downstairs, and use their old office spaces upstairs as something else". That caused a huge problem though. I designated one of those rooms as Mansfield's office, but it wouldn't let me build his office there. So I thought, ok maybe he can't have 2 offices at once and I need to change his current upstairs office to something else, then go back down and try to build his office again downstairs. Nope, still can't build his office downstairs even though that room was designated as his office. Okay, so I went back upstairs and tried to rebuild his office in the old spot. Oops! Won't let me rebuild his office upstairs either. So then Mansfield was without a head office. I had to restore a previous save.

I thought the ability to build a player quarters on the office level would essentially give you two quarters, and they would somehow be different. But instead, I'm now just using those office level rooms as 6-person quarters. I'm going to check each of the semi-circular offices upstairs that are currently being used by other office heads as private quarters, and see if Theresa can be assigned to one of those rooms. If so, maybe I can move one of the others downstairs, and it will allow me to upgrade her room properly. I already tried moving Aiden's private quarters downstairs and it worked, but that was before I moved Mansfield's office and screwed up my save. I'll keep messing around with it.

But it would be nice for room assignments to actually work. If I am able to designate a room as a quarters, it should allow me to construct a quarters for that room. So far, in several locations that's not the case. You can assign a room a specific role, but when it comes time to actually build that room, you have no options available and end up having to reassign that room to another use until you actually find something that will build there. This is something that really needs more QA testing, and making sure it works.

 

[Midian]

From my own experience I always build the department head's quarters and any associated rooms like Aiden's Security department on the main and second floors and they stay there. On a previous playthrough any time I changed them (office area for example) either they didn't build right, if at all or the person wouldn't acknowledge that they had their own room and would make a comment about wanting one. The Office Floor, for me is used essentially as the worker's area, the laundromat and gym are down there and the majority of Living Quarters are there. I keep the players room and the 6 bed Living Quarters where they are on the main/upper floor.

The Office Floor in general seems to be the most broken of all the floors as far as stuff not building right or at all. Especially if you start to change rooms around. In both my playthroughs completing HQ I have had the same areas not working in there. The shower won't build. The Dining Hall/Cafeteria is borked on both floors, Dining Hall seems to work for both areas, but selecting them as Cafeterias do not. Logistics supplying and/or Admin deco work for cafeterias though. Multiple door issues. Deco issues (only half of the area will decorate). A big hole in the closet is patched on one side but not the other. Etc. The Office Area just seems like it wasn't set up to have the department heads down there, even though it says otherwise. I get having all these options to build, but in certain cases it might not be a bad idea to have certain rooms as just that room, in just that location, with maybe other deco and/or upgrade options specifically for it.

One thing I hope is fixed is removing room alternates (if a room is already built) out of build in Command Mode, and just designate room alternatives for rooms that have already been built to the wall widget. I've played enough to know that I have already built those rooms, but going in new it's a confusing mess and you end up breaking a room that you already built or waste supplies because you think it's another room you can build. Also my own gripe but I would like Lupe's Logistics people out of the Comm Room, they can get in the way and push around characters during scenes or just conversations.

Yeah. Room assignment doesn't seem work for me either. Aiden and Theresa both have their own room, but they keep using the 6 bedroom next to the players room.

 

[Ninja2dan]

I went to every other room, and Theresa's room is ONLY available in that one spot. Admin private quarters is restricted to the smaller square 2-door room, not one of the semi-circular rooms upstairs, and not one of the rooms on office level. So the bug that's not allowing her room to be upgraded, combined with the fact that you can't assign her room to another location, means she gets the short stick.

I did some flipping around of room assignments. As seen in one of your pics, the closet space as a shower is for some reason missing a wall. And the former armor lab on the office level still has a hole in the wall after being converted into a restroom, and now there are a couple of sinks magically attached to nothingness where the hole is. Stuff like that should have been noticed during QA or even simple testing. Not sure what's going on there, either someone just totally blanked out and missed a bunch of stuff, or there's components that are just not enabling properly. It's small cosmetic stuff like that, not a big deal right now, but hopefully it'll be fixed before the next chapter.

And I definitely agree about the command menu problems with seeing multiple upgrades for the same room. I keep trying to clear out everything, only to find out that I've been hopping back and forth between two upgrades for the same damn room. The problem with using the wall terminals, half the time they don't even work. I know damn well I have everything needed to upgrade or construct something, the wall terminal gives me the option, when then it tells me I'm lacking resources or personnel. Bullshit, because I can immediately enter command menu and build it that way. What's the point in having wall terminals that offer construction/upgrade options if that option doesn't work most of the time? Again, just something that needs to have better QA and testing, and is hopefully fixed soon.

I'm building up a collection of screenshots of various issues, things like static deco objects just floating or items that shouldn't be there. There's a small GNN wallpaper-like image the size of a magazine cover that's just floating near the ground in one of the living quarters, a single kid's letter block floating above a railing next to I think it's my med lab or robotics. Hundreds of items get spawned in that can be picked up by the player, meaning they can also get kicked around by the NPCs and start causing all sorts of problems.

 

[Midian]

Absolutely have the same issues with the wall terminals saying I don't have the resources when I can go directly to Command Mode and build them. Also same issues with Theresa. I especially dislike when you get multiple options on a room type for living quarters and you'll get multiple location options. Do you want it in SW lower left hall, or upstairs in SW upper floor corner, and I'm like "Where the hell is that!" Or small bathroom (men's) or small bathroom (woman's) when you have already set up one. The only option I want is whichever one I didn't build the last time.

I'm building up a collection of screenshots of various issues, things like static deco objects just floating or items that shouldn't be there

There is quite a bit of that. I think it's a good idea, especially so people can see it's an issue with the mod and not something on their end. This is why I like to post screenshots and try to have a place where players can see if they are experiencing the same issues. It's not to cap on the mod. Though I do get frustrated with it at times. I also have some screenshots of rooms that are fine (for that room selection) or fully upgraded. I could post them but I feel it's kind of a spoiler for those who want to see it first in their own game.

 

[Ninja2dan]

I think the "proper" method for testing everything out should have been to look at each room individually. Clean it, make sure nothing "ghosts" behind. Then add each phase of a construction and its upgrade, one at a time, fully inspecting the room at each step to make sure it looks right. This will help make sure that every room has been checked with each optional construction choice. Double-check the doors, make sure they aren't opening the wrong direction or clipping through objects. Make sure that holes that are supposed to be covered are actually covered. Make sure that holes or doorways that shouldn't be covered are still open or accessible with each step of a room's upgrade for each optional room style. And if you're going to add a ton of "decorative" items like beer bottles or books, make sure those items are static with physics and interaction disabled. I mean, I've gathered up over 3000 items just looting various loose items and stuff from spawned containers in rooms. And that's maybe only half of what's in the HQ right now.

I think it's nice to have options for where you want to build stuff. If you have 5 closets on one floor, and you can give me the option to build a shower in any of those 5, that's cool. It means I have some choice in where/how I want to build things up. But if I've already built a shower in closet 4, don't keep showing me the option to build more showers in the other closets. It's fine if that option is still available from their wall terminals, but the command menu needs to remove duplicate or conflicting items. Once something has been built in a room's space, any other build options that replace the current room should only be visible on wall terminals. If you think that shower should be a supply closet, then use the wall terminal to change it. Don't spam the command menu with those additional choices because it just confuses people, especially when they have a hard time just trying to figure out where in the hell that room even is.

I will also point out that I haven't completed Ch2 yet, so maybe there's something in the story that I don't know about. Maybe some of those empty rooms that can't be built in yet will become options later on. So maybe there's a good reason Theresa's room can only be built in that one location while the rest of the office heads can have private quarters in multiple locations. Or maybe it's just an oversight of the dev team that is on the "to-do" fix list.


I definitely do like what I see so far in regards to the mechanics of it and what's possible with this new system. It's far from perfect right now, but it is showing a lot of potential. It's a very creative method of using the settlement building system in a whole new way, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. But I also see a lot of issues, some of them big enough to cause quest conflicts/delays or even might cause people to require a roll-back if they make a mistake. I'd consider this beta stage for the HQ. It's getting there, but still has a ways to go.

 

[VanCrio]

I am having the same problems. Rooms being empty even tho they are built. Double doors stacked in each other. Some wird tiny objecst suspended in midair. I can confirm that the main floor that I have the most issues is the office floor.

 

[Papa Freakin' Smurf]

Has anyone seen the persistent landmine (possibly frag mine) outside the player room over the cafeteria on the main level? It's under a sideboard table closest to the staff living quarters. Changed GNN back to vanilla to see if there was one in that instance but nope...none there. Has been there in both my plays throughs.

 

[LeapinL]

Has anyone seen the persistent landmine (possibly frag mine) outside the player room over the cafeteria on the main level? It's under a sideboard table closest to the staff living quarters. Changed GNN back to vanilla to see if there was one in that instance but nope...none there. Has been there in both my plays throughs.

Yea, you need to make sure to remove it during the takeover before you start building HQ. It is a left over from the vanilla.