Water Chip Quest Reset Bug

W

W_E

First time out of the vault
After retrieving and returning the water chip, I went to the Hub and asked the Water Merchants to bring water to the Vault (just to test it) after that I accidentally saved and then I saw that I again had a time limit, but of for 200 days. I decided to not care and went to destroy the mutant base. Upon destroying it and returning to the Vault they told me to retrieve the water chip. Damn, I thought and went to Necropolis to check if the bug affected that place too. But NO. Now I have no water chip, and I can't finish the game. Can I fix this through a hack or anything?
 
You can't stop the time limit, but you can finish the game before it runs out. Hint: ask the Overseer if he thinks the mutant threat is all dealt with.
 
He just talks about the water chip, and I've already gotten the military base (even though I suspect there's another leaderl than "Lou" I should kill) If I find this leader, will that be enough for me to finish the game?
 
W_E said:
If I find this leader, will that be enough for me to finish the game?
Click to expand...

Yup. Well, you may have to do <sxxccrtzch> and solve <fnrttzzzk> and find the hidden <ptzwwgrrxx> and wade through sixteen screens of <hwrfft> but basically that's it.
 
Oh man, I've got 90 days left, I better find that last location quickly! Fallout is pretty damn buggy. You can click on some people and they say "Error" -_-
 
"Error" is a horrible cussword of the wastes. You should kill them.
 
I've seen those people. The people who help you fight the regulators say "error" when you hover the mouse on them.

Slightly OT, for the Nintendo NES, there was an RPG called "Zelda II, the Adventures of Link" that featured a character whose name was actually "Error", and he introduced himself to you by saying "I am Error". Good think this game predated fallout by several years, or all us Fallout fans would've thought he was an error, not "Error"....
 
Fallout 1 - Water Chip Quest Reset Bug

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could help me with this bug - I tried both googling and searching here for an answer and found people with the same problem, but unfortunately no solution. I'm using the Steam version of fallout, which appears as v1.2 in the main menu.

Basically my problem is that I went to Necropolis, nabbed the water chip, handed in the quest and was sent back out after the Mutants by the overseer. However when I was back in the Hub I happened to be talking to the head merchant who sets up V13 caravans for you (in the same area as the Children Cult's Hospital) and found that I had the option to send out water to the vault again.

I accepted and carried on, but only much later realized that this was a bug and I'd reset the water chip quest , and now had the timer stuck to my pipboy again. Based on what I've read about this bug it seems that the only way to fix it is to use some kind of Fallout inventory/savegame bug that requires a savegame where you still have the waterchip, as there don't seem to be any inventory editors for F1.

So my question is, does anyone know of a FO1 inventory editor that I've missed, or anywhere I might be able to download a savegame with a character who still has the waterchip? Or have I just not searched hard enough and there's an unoffical patch for this etc.?

Thanks for any help you can provide.
 
You might try going to Necropolis, if the quest is reset, there is a chance that the chip may be obtainable from the water control computer.

You could try, after loading the game, to Alt+Tab into Windows, open the directory Fallout/DATA/MAPS in Explorer and delete VAULTNEC.SAV to restore it to the initial state.

EDIT: Merged with earlier instance of this problem.
 
Unfortunately, neither worked :(

The second method did seem to work at first - the Nec Vault appeared as if it were my first time there, with all the messages reset, glowing guards at the entrance, etc etc.,

But when I got to the water chip room the guards over the body say the same line as they do from after you remove the chip ("the flow ends, so does your life" compared to "don't touch anything or end up like this guy"). Note that the body was still there (compared to just a puddle of blood when i go straight there without modifying anything) so the room must have been reset along with everything else, but the computer says "cannot xxx without a functional water chip" and you can't repair/science it without a "return the water chip to make this work" message. :(


EDIT:

Success! (I think). Got the chip (again), handed it in (again), got the new quest from the overseer (again) and my pipboy is now note-free :)

Basically I used the method suggested by this post in the gamebanshee forums, which is based off a similar map exploit as the one you suggested toxic :)

Here is the original:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kipi View Post

Second way is trickier, and only usable if you don't mind to sacrifice couple of minutes to this. If I remember correctly, Fallout 1 has similiar saving system as Fallout 2. So here are the instructions

1. Load a game where you haven't yet returned the water chip
2. Find the chip if you don't have it already
3. Go to any town and place the chip to any container (shelf, locker etc.) and leave the town.
4. Save the game (be sure it's not the same slot with the bugged gamed) and note the slot number you used. For future reference, I call that slot Slot B from now on.
5. Note the slot number of the bugged game (the save where you have already returned the chip). This slot is going to be called Slot A
6. By using My Computer, go to the Fallout 1 folder, and the find the place where the saved games are stored.
7. Go to the folder corresponding Slot A, and find the file corresponding the specific part of the town where you left the chip. Take a backup from this file to somewhere safe (desktop for example)
8. Go to the folder of Slot B, find the same file, and copy it to Slot A folder. Replace if asked
9. Start the game, load the game from Slot A, and you should find the chip from the place you put it earlier. Get the chip and leave the town. Save
10. Quite the game, and copy the backup of the file you took earlier back to Slot A.

Now you can start the game again, and load the game from Slot A and voilá! You have chip again and you should be able to return the chip to the Overseer again.
Kipi thank you so much -- it worked! I'm playing Fallout for the first time to prep myself for Fallout 3 (I know I don't *have* to play the previous games, but I like knowing the history of a series) -- I came across the same problem as the OP. I thought I had the latest patch installed... My main menu says 1.2 in the lower corner...

I sent the water caravans up after I'd already delivered the chip, was happy to get that 1K xp, but later discovered that it reset my water chip quest. I was *very* lucky to have saved a game file a couple tiles outside of Vault 13 (before turning in the chip), so it was just a matter of going a short distance to the Vault entrance and placing the chip in the skellie with the yellow backpack, right outside the vault. I followed your instructions and was able to complete the quest (again).

I also got the 7.5K xp again too.

I'm going to put up my vault entrance file with the water chip in the corpse with the backpack at Filefront, so anyone else with this problem and no previous saves available can drop it into one of their own savegame files.


Fallout 1 Water Chip Quest fix

If anyone tries this, please let me know how it works.

Edit: I went back to the water merchants and came across the same issue as before: as soon as you even talk to the merchant master, the water chip quest gets reset. If you want to do any caravan runs with the water merchants, make sure you unlock that part before you fix your game, so you can just check in with the caravan driver and avoid the merchant master. Beyond that, I finished the military base quest and turned in the water chip quest again, and it did *not* reset the mutant threat quests which normally follow after.

AFAIK, patch 1.3.3 or 1.3.4 fixes these particular bugs, but I believe you have to start a new game. At least, I tried patching and then ended up not being able to load any of my old saved games...
Click to expand...

For those reading this looking for a quick guide on "fixing" the bug - the specific method I used was this:

I sent my "bugged" character back to Necropolis and waited in the watershed area, just next to the hole that leads to the other hole that leads to the NecVault, saved it in slot 02. Went into the 02 savefile and put "VaultNEC/NECVAULT" or whatever the file is called somewhere safe.

Started a new game with a pre-made character, saved in saveslot 05 and used the FALCHE editor (can be found in the No Mutants Allowed files section) to create a super(wo)man - for our purposes all stats 10, 999hp, 50 action points and a super-high outdoorsman skill.

Loaded the super character save, and ran straight to Necropolis. Traversed the sewers all the way to the Watershed area, talked my way past harry (he has an insta-kill attack) and went into the necvault. Now once I grabbed the waterchip from the vault (which turned the ghoul guards hostile, probably happens when you don't fix the pump first), I went to one of the lockers in an adjacent room and popped the chip in there. Finally, I left the vault and went back up to the watershed, saving again in slot 05.

Now what we want to do is go rooting about in the savefiles in the fallout folder again. Go to slot 05 and copy the VAULTNEC file, then go paste it in the slot 02 save folder (from where you originally removed that save's own VAULTNEC file). Now load up the slot02 savegame and go down into the Necropolis Vault. Go to the locker where you put the chip and - voila! - the chip is yours. You are now free to take it back to V13 and hand it in, concluding this quest.

Now if you want (as I did) you can put your original VAULTNEC file back into your subsequent saves (once you've got/finished with the chip, of course), but I imagine this is redundant since there's nothing to really do in the Necropolis Vault. I suppose if you stored a bunch of other stuff in that vault before starting this process it'd be useful though.

One final note - I havn't yet checked myself but supposedly the water caravans option will be available again from the caravan master, and selecting it will AGAIN reset the waterchip quest, forcing you to repeat the process. Just something to keep in mind when you're in the hub. Other than that, I'm unaware of any problems. If I run into any mroe bugs related to this waterchip diversion I'll let everyone know. But so far so good :)
 
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