Regarding The HQ

[Deleted member 10215]

I've spent the evening tinkering with the new HQ System and taking notes, and I have some questions on the matter.
This will include a lot of "not sure if that's a bug or just me not grasping how to use this system". Ordinarily I'd just sit on a list of my own questions and cross them off as other people ask (just look at my own post history to see how many of my own threads get 0 responses), but I'm getting out in front on this one.

1. When the construction of a room costs materials that match the categories of the Virtual Storage (I'm on Category level difficulty there), is it meant to actually deduct them out of there? It never has. Alright it just did that time, for the first time ever, once I'm past the point of having completed "Commonwealth Rising" and was doing all the upgrades to the Labs - but it ONLY did it that one time. Along those lines, what's the "Scrap" resource it keeps citing on those costs that I now only have 9 of? Looks to have been a non-repeatable glitch. And why does it sometimes say I have, for example, 0 Rare Materials despite there being about 1000 showing on the Supply Agreements HUD element?
2. Are settlers meant to be 'reassigned' to the HQ 'settlement' from where they were or not? Sometimes they are, sometimes they still keep counting as a resident of the settlement they were at before being sent to HQ.
3. All of the "unique settlers" I've moved there are repeatedly saying only their "happiness below 50" type lines as they wander around. Even after having built almost everything in the lists (with by my estimate enough bathrooms for one each) and there being enough Food and Water resources showing up for 2+ each of those too. This is literally the nicest building in all of Massachusetts at this point, if not the entirety of Post War USA, and they're still whining about it being crap. Should be fixed as of 2.0.0g version (but not retroactively to existing saves) - needs reverifying (isn't working for me as of 2.0.0L)
4. I noticed that sometimes on the Pipboy Map the HQ shows as a settlement (with the population/happiness indicators underneath) but sometimes it doesn't. Related, only one of the two 'supply agreements' I have in place is actually drawing a line to HQ - the one that's required by the quest. What benefit even IS there to setting up multiple supply agreements, if it's just pulling out of the Virtual Storage on the entire network of the target settlement? More Supply Agreements increases the amount of "Scrap Logistics" you have available to build with, at a rate of 500 per Agreement. This feels unnecessarily complex to me, like it's a whole extra step that probably doesn't need to exist, things could just cost "Logistics Energy" instead and achieve the same thing.
5. Despite having two people now working in "Administration" for over an ingame week, I still have 0 "Admin Energy". What did I miss here? It turns out Theresa hadn't auto-assigned to Head of Admin like the dialog implied she was doing.
6. Who actually shows up in the "assignment" thing seems very temperamental; more than once I've seen 3 instances of the same person in the list but someone I am looking directly at is not in the list. Supposedly clicking left and right in that "trade window" should resolve this according to kinggath, but that has never done anything whatsoever for me (nervous habit to do that anyway).
7. A lot of the rooms in here only have one choice for what goes in there; is that by design, is this a system that Addon Packs can hook into? Looks like that's the intent.
8. I was able to build and assign "Science" jobs before the questline thought I would, and the HUD element for that job didn't show up until I recruited Cassandra - I could build her personal quarters before then too, which names her even though the quest seems to go out of its way to not tell you WHICH Nightingale you'll be recruiting otherwise.
9. Is Algernon supposed to just be chilling out front with only 'greet' dialog? The Gunner-owned Turrets out front also keep on respawning.
10. Being able to Fast Travel into the place but not out is getting annoying. On that note, is there an equivalent to the Caravan Fast Travel for Survival players, given the rest of the questline just kind of assumes (going by how characters talk) we're still up in the Concord region? If there is, I can't find it.
11. On a semi related note, is it intended that most of the questline assumes you're up near Concord, but HQ is far enough away that nothing in that quadrant of the map will be within Hospital range? HQ gets its own Infirmary later in the questline that appears to count for Hospital services.
12. Do the handful of rooms that look like 'training' rooms (Gym, Library, etc) actually do any "training" in the SS2 SPECIAL Improvement sense? This feels like something that could be used for future content, with that "project" thing that only came up once in the questline where it was optional to even use it.
13. Does HQ's "Population" cap at 25 no matter how many bedrooms you have? No, the scripts are just getting slower and slower to process once I'm at this level of progress.
14. A lot of the "just chilling in HQ" idle-dialog appears to have the volume set to about 1/10 what it should be. This has been a recurring thing for about 50% of lines in Chapter 2 for me.
15. Do the "Supply Agreements" still use the base-mod's range for Caravans to actually link? This APPEARS to be a no, those work over any distance, at least within The Commonwealth - haven't tested any further away yet.
16. It APPEARS that sometimes people reassigned to HQ are having their SPECIAL stats reset to all 1s. This is probably the root cause of a lot of why people keep getting stuck unable to even finish the "Tutorial" section. Robots in particular seem especially prone to it; Mister Handsy reset to all 1s for me when I sent him there.
17. The Vit-o-matic reports everyone working at HQ as being "unemployed" - could it be adjusted to show what Department they work for or something?
18. It seems that 'scrapping' the Blue Man Markers the HQ System uses as part of its processes, before that particular 'order' completes, permanently breaks that particular order (room clean, room build, etc) from ever being doable.
19. Balance-wise, are the costs on everything meant to be so high that you basically can't do HQ until you have "completed" all of the SS2 Plot Tech Tree? And even then it's another month plus of ingame time to get it all built and upgraded... by which time the game world has long since run out of other things to do.
20. The options for the HQ HUD ignore what they're set to in MCM and always behave in the "hide everything when you leave Build Mode" manner.
21. Food and Water? Do the people at HQ rely purely on pulling food/water items out of the Workbenches via the Caravan Link, or do they not even need to eat/drink any more, or what's the story? On closer examination, Food and Water Production is being auto-distributed via the Caravan Link to HQ too.
22. NEEDS MORE TESTING - it appears the 'unique voiced setters' from mod "Settlers of the Commonwealth" have issues with being assigned to HQ - some sort of quantum state of both being in HQ departments and not being assigned to the 'HQ settlement', and losing all their 'player walked nearby' dialog.
23. Impassable something invisible in the way on trying to exit the elevator onto the "Office Level" - but not on trying to walk into the elevator?
24. NEEDS MORE TESTING - Trying to build a room from the not-ASAM by the door when not in 'build mode' always fails for me, saying lack of resources, regardless of how many are available.
25. The "perk bypass" functionality that makes up a large portion of the purpose of even building the Science Department seems very temperamental as to whether or not it actually works.
26. Changing a room's "purpose" via the not-ASAM seems to do something odd behind the scenes - the previous 'purpose' stays in the list of rooms you can build too, making it even more of a confusing mess.
27. Which Diseases I can "research" keeps on changing every time I open "command mode". Chicken Pox is only there about 1/3 of the time, and some diseases I already know exist in my settlements - have had the Vitomatic see them - don't show up at all. Is this time-gated or something?
28. The "Catwalks" upgrade and one of the rooms in the basement (not sure which) seem to mutually erase each other's progress - building one puts the other back in the list of things to build.

I'll keep on editing this post as I think of more stuff and/or get answers.

 

[Tarkkh]

Ya i m still lost

I even relied on use of god mod for free construction. Got all the bedrooms built
Then resorted to cheating Settlers with 15 on all specials(wonder I should give them 100). Got along a little more but now I m stuck on the part where I need to assign more people to the Engineering!

It says 1000.....



also having an odd bug with multiple of the same settler being there but stacked x2 and 1 aside....
And How to HQ keeps telling me to build more Living quarters when I already build all of them....and on top of that, why is the plaza center not clearable? »_»

 

[Deleted member 10215]

The 1000 it wants is one of the details on the HUD that it isn't showing for you for some reason. I believe it's equal to another 10x the "max engineering energy" - which in your screenshots there, is 35, so you'd want to get that to 100 (if I'm right about how that calculates) - and that 35 is the combined total of the work-stat (Perception for Engineering dept) of everyone working there.

The section around the globe thing isn't cleanable until after you complete "How to HQ" - the next quest will have you going to find someone to start a Science Department, if you've been poking around in the building options you'll have seen rooms for that but you might've noticed there's no HUD element on the top bar for that department yet. I believe this to be a deliberate choice to make SURE you have room to put at least some Science Department no matter how much other stuff you did before then.

 

[Tarkkh]

The 1000 it wants is one of the details on the HUD that it isn't showing for you for some reason. I believe it's equal to another 10x the "max engineering energy" - which in your screenshots there, is 35, so you'd want to get that to 100 (if I'm right about how that calculates) - and that 35 is the combined total of the work-stat (Perception for Engineering dept) of everyone working there.

The section around the globe thing isn't cleanable until after you complete "How to HQ" - the next quest will have you going to find someone to start a Science Department, if you've been poking around in the building options you'll have seen rooms for that but you might've noticed there's no HUD element on the top bar for that department yet. I believe this to be a deliberate choice to make SURE you have room to put at least some Science Department no matter how much other stuff you did before then.

ye i just went around and changed all settlers to 15 special
ended up with
even with 112 it didn't complete so rip... damn you
You should put a spoiler alert kkkkk

 

[Deleted member 10215]

From memory you also had to upgrade one of the rooms using Engineering->Upgrades, I forget which but it was under the Engineering Dept and had something to do with power in the name, and the description text thingo said it added "power capacity" or somesuch.

Like, this is that snip out of my own last screenshot back up there:

The "1160" in the second-last column is that 10x[total Perception of Engineering Dept] value. The 1050 in the last column is the total amount of Power the HQ itself can handle. (The 180 is how much is being used, I believe)

 

[Midian]

I had this going on too. Had 10 people assigned to engineering all with 10 or higher in perception, the power management(?) room in the basement was built up to level 5 and it still wouldn't complete. It wasn't until I read that I needed a power transfer plot built on a settlement with excess power that I finally got it to complete.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I had this going on too. Had 10 people assigned to engineering all with 10 or higher in perception, the power management(?) room in the basement was built up to level 5 and it still wouldn't complete. It wasn't until I read that I needed a power transfer plot built on a settlement with excess power that I finally got it to complete.

Yeah, once you get to that point that's the next step. It auto-unlocks Power Transfer Plots for you when you get to there if you didn't already have them, too, which is nice. Finding 1000 excess electricity is the real challenge.

 

[Midian]

Yeah, once you get to that point that's the next step. It auto-unlocks Power Transfer Plots for you when you get to there if you didn't already have them, too, which is nice. Finding 1000 excess electricity is the real challenge.

They were already unlocked for me, I just never built one. So I just made some robots with high intelligence, built 3 plutonium wells, and power transfer plots at 2 different settlements hoping it would be enough.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

They were already unlocked for me, I just never built one. So I just made some robots with high intelligence, built 3 plutonium wells, and power transfer plots at 2 different settlements hoping it would be enough.

I basically do the same thing myself, that is definitely a reasonably easily solvable problem. There's just some odd quirks with Power Transfer Plots that I've only ever seen one other person mention having had happen, but I suspect that's due to very few people having even known they existed until HQ made them mandatory.
(the way it calculates the distribution of Power between multiple settlements that have one does some very bizarre things, like exporting so much power that the settlement producing it no longer has enough to even run itself, and sending it to a settlement that has enough on its own anyway - but again, any bug I find myself doesn't count until someone else finds it)

 

[Midian]

I suspect that's due to very few people having even known they existed until HQ made them mandatory.

That's my only reason. Kind of feel forced into it, building more plots (that I wouldn't need), plus assigning them just seems like more unnecessary time and script load when all that work at HQ should be plenty.

but again, any bug I find myself doesn't count until someone else finds it

That's not right. Your post here has over 4k views if somebody on high isn't paying attention to the reports and giving you props for taking the time and effort to do it then that doesn't bode well.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I know, I'm being overly whiny and melodramatic. It's just that "real life" is dragging my mood down again lately, and having to convert my virtual life into being an Alpha Tester in the hopes that maybe sometime in the future I might be able to enjoy this HQ thing for what it looks like it's meant to be isn't helping. I get enough thankless toil in my day job.

 

[Midian]

I know, I'm being overly whiny and melodramatic. It's just that "real life" is dragging my mood down again lately, and having to convert my virtual life into being an Alpha Tester in the hopes that maybe sometime in the future I might be able to enjoy this HQ thing for what it looks like it's meant to be isn't helping. I get enough thankless toil in my day job.

No you're not. Whether it's real life or virtual life feeling like you're appreciated goes a long way. Feeling like the right people aren't listening while you're shouting into a vacuum can be frustrating. And I get it about the HQ thing, there is so much potential there, but there's a whole lot of head pounding, confusion and questions. Maybe it doesn't seem like it from higher ups, but from down here, I can tell you that your work on this site has helped many and is appreciated.

On a side note: You use The Settlers of the Commonwealth mod, correct? When they are assigned to HQ they have their "do you have settlement work" dialogue, and I'm wondering for whatever reason they don't seem to recognize that they are assigned to a settlement (HQ) already. Trying to look into a fix. It's a shame they don't have their idle barks or dialogue while at HQ (my experience, anyway).

 

[Deleted member 10215]

On a side note: You use The Settlers of the Commonwealth mod, correct? When they are assigned to HQ they have their "do you have settlement work" dialogue, and I'm wondering for whatever reason they don't seem to recognize that they are assigned to a settlement (HQ) already.

Yep, I have noticed that too. Cant see any reason why, from my own poking at it.

 

[Tarkkh]

Yep, I have noticed that too. Cant see any reason why, from my own poking at it.

I noticed as well! In fact they seem to lose their personality! I was expecting to have the HQ very active with them.... Ended up Only Anne(vanilla) is there barking her lines about the wonderful plays she used to do on the radio...

So I guess that's a general issue (proly related to the AI from HQ settlers)

Its literally as if they arent working for us

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I noticed as well! In fact they seem to lose their personality! I was expecting to have the HQ very active with them.... Ended up Only Anne(vanilla) is there barking her lines about the wonderful plays she used to do on the radio...

So I guess that's a general issue (proly related to the AI from HQ settlers

My plan was definitely not to send "Bob" to HQ so he could drive everyone insane with bad puns.
Sadly yeah they seem to lose all dialog once there, and I can't figure out why, unless there's some keyword somewhere I didn't check that they don't have...

That said, I'm still getting the "low happiness" lines from Audra and Knox as they wander about. Despite this save having built everything in HQ except a couple of upgrades to Science Labs, and the couple of rooms that reappeared as buildable after I changed the "room purpose" of a couple. Seriously, Knox, you're "having second thoughts about this being the best place for us"? This is literally the nicest building in MA at this point.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I wonder if that's related to how HQ only seems to sometimes show up as a settlement (with the population/happiness% underneath) on the Pipboy Map... but if that were the case, I'd have thought it'd apply to everyone.

I just don't know. I get that people have other priorities, but seeing that huge list of issues I put in the first-post of this thread and knowing I haven't seen anyone else mention most of them, even though I've confirmed they all still happen for me on a Minimal Load Order... Morale isn't exactly high to keep on trying to figure it out.

 

[MsBathory]

There is definitely funky stuff going on. Half the time I come back to HQ (some, most or all) the workers have lost their SPECIALs and containers in rooms that haven't been cleaned keep refilling. I thought of doing the whole sending the special NPCs there, but I'm honestly glad I ended up mostly cheating the stats on generic settlers since everyone turns out as useful. I'm at the point of frustration with the stats (and associated equipment) that I'm combing the halls and batting everyone I see with my brand new "special15" every time I'm there. I desperately wanted to love the HQ system, but... This is less than enjoyable.

 

[Agi_]

I wonder if that's related to how HQ only seems to sometimes show up as a settlement (with the population/happiness% underneath) on the Pipboy Map... but if that were the case, I'd have thought it'd apply to everyone.

I just don't know. I get that people have other priorities, but seeing that huge list of issues I put in the first-post of this thread and knowing I haven't seen anyone else mention most of them, even though I've confirmed they all still happen for me on a Minimal Load Order... Morale isn't exactly high to keep on trying to figure it out.

I'm just at the beginning of HQ construction, i'm trying to build some barracks to be able to enroll more settlers and i just did a first Nightingale quest, the underwater one, and the HQ doesnt appear as a settlement to me.
I see the GNN HQ on the map but no pop or happiness and pressing C i see a caravan line going to a blank space where the HQ is

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I'm just at the beginning of HQ construction, i'm trying to build some barracks to be able to enroll more settlers and i just did a first Nightingale quest, the underwater one, and the HQ doesnt appear as a settlement to me.
I see the GNN HQ on the map but no pop or happiness and pressing C i see a caravan line going to a blank space where the HQ is

Yeah, I'm not sure which it's meant to do, since I've definitely seen those extra details underneath it on the pipboy map more than once.

 

[Agi_]

I dont remember seeing HQ details, but i'm not sure about that; will take my eyes open and see if they appear.
As i said my HQ is still at the beginning, just first ten settlers, a few room cleared, some rooms set as dorms but not usable to enroll new settlers dunno why, Lupe complaining for lack of bathrooms, Jake non responsive at all, not even an 'hi Slick' in response to mi hello, Nightingale questline being done now.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

The dialog on the assumed Department Heads (you can actually change who's the Head of each Department; didn't think to test what trying to use the Pipboy Radio thing does in that case) does seem a bit derp. Mansfield was still whining about wanting more "places to hang out and eat together" in my own last run, despite there being enough that I'd estimate there to be 2 seats per person in the ones that existed - and the sandbox AI doesn't seem to ever take people to them.