Hey everyone, thank you so much for downloading and playing "The Machine, And Her"!
I recently did an interview with Bethesda about the project, which can be found here: https://bethesda.net/en/article/32AWU6xmyjmhTXrpBjmRbR/monthly-modder-nikanine _____________________________________________
Update July 2021: I now work in the industry as a Quest Designer and writer so I’m no longer able to provide assistance or updates for this project. Thank you to everyone for the incredible support over the years; it means more than I can possibly say!
Im gonna be completely honest, this mod is terrible. Kit is annoying, her motivations make absolutely no sense, the story is just not compelling. I've been given zero reason as to why I should care about AGNIS, or why Kit cares about her, for that matter. The objectives themselves are boring as hell. Why am i standing here recording 6 different, minute long each, AGNIS demonstrations? Why do I have to find DNA samples of 3 random guys to open a door? Its just tedious for tedium's sake. The lack of dialogue options also kills everything that could've been good about this mod. Even the few times when you get dialogue options, every option leads to the same outcome, its boring.
Edit: Also every npc yaps for WAY TOO LONG in this mod, dixon's hollo tape is like 5 minutes of nothing, and you HAVE to listen to ALL OF IT. for NO REASON. I deadass almost fell asleep listening to that.
Nika, I'd like to fix the missing cell header information in this mod (and remove a lot of dirty edits). Can I get your permission to upload a replacer?
I'm surprised someone hasn't created a patch for this so that it is safe to keep Kit around as a companion after you are finished with the story. I think a lot of us would like to keep using her as a companion. I uninstalled after I was done though due to the reported bugs below if you keep her around.
Try using Liga of My Companions mod. Talk to her, then use the liga command holotape and select "talk to target". Select "Do you want to travel together", after that you should be able to treat her like any other companion. I use the same method with the Heather Casside mod so I can have her stay at my settlement.
I played this mod about the time it came out. Was ok, buggy in spots. Just dl about 4 days ago finally installed today. Get to radio station and super buggy, librarian dude can’t hold a convo spot stand back to door just to talk. Alex shows up and just stands there. Can’t wound, kill or talk. Had to cheat to open door. Just so disappointed I am taking it off my mid list.
I have kept Kit as a companion without using any supporting mods - no issues - works much like any vanilla companion - with the addition of intuitive lock picking system and some customizing around play style. Have not seen any evidence of her affinity system, but some of her commentary and said lock picking makes it worthwhile keeping her around in my playthrough... Reading some of the feedback here relating to bugs is different from my own playthrough - I really enjoyed the story, one one quest breaking bug that I consoled around with the library dude, rest of the mod was fine, not sure what all the fuss is about - I would suggest you give it ago with the proviso that your mod list is properly sorted
As much as this is a great story you should definitely play if you like story heavy mods. It is extremely buggy and going through some parts of it can be an exercise in frustration. Here are the fixes for most problems you'll definitely encounter. All that in a non spoilery-way.
Before you start telling me "I had no problems, it's best mod", I'm happy for you but I couldn't care less.
Also, I only did the "good path", as such I'm sure there are problems I missed, but my advices are generic enough to apply to most cases, hopefully.
1) No Dialogs options
When you try to talk to the girl, you get an empty dialog thingy. It's because you're using XDI. There's a compatibility patch for that on the nexus. You can find it easily on your own. Contrary to what other posters said, the XDI patch works, dialog/cutscene bugs are related to the mod, not to the patch itself.
2) In the metro station, the girl is asking me to follow her, but get stuck in the terrain
Open console, click on girl, make sure it's selected (it's should show numbers followed by letters in brackets). close console. Move to the toilets (it's on the right side of the station). Open console again. type "moveto player" (without the quotes).
3) Game Freeze when getting the quest object from the weird guy at the radio station / library
I'm pretty sure it only freeze if you have a mod for your UI. Anyway, Do not take the object manually. Use the "Take All" keyboard shortcut, so it'll close the UI before the cutscene starts.
4) Cutscene lock at the radio station / library (really, it's true for ALL cutscenes)
Before retrieving the quest object SAVE YOUR GAME (just so you don't have to redo it all over again if it bugs out). A cutscene will start immediately after that. DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING, don't look away, don't skip dialogs, don't even breath. Even when you think that you should intervene, DON'T (and yeah i did the same thing as you at that precise moment, been there :p). Move only when it's super clear that you got back full control.
5) The 20 seconds pauses each time my character speaks drive me crazy
This is not unique to this mod, but given how "wordy" this one is, it's particularly awful. Thankfully, that's what this small mod fixes, works with all quest mods where the player ain't voiced. Perfectly safe. You'll never have to make or look for silent dialog patches ever again.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39848
It basically allows you to skip through your unvoiced dialogs like you can when it is.
6) The red phone scene
Before answering the phone SAVE your game. It's followed by a long dialog sequence. At this point you can investigate (one of the dialog options) to learn a lot about the lore and your companion. It's great content, but it will soft lock the dialog / quest. I HEAVILY suggest to do it once, explore all option to learn all the things. Then you reload your save, and just go with one of the options to proceed without investigating.
7) Ambient Music won't stop playing after quest is done
Yep, i have no fix for that one. Beside running the uninstall script, which leads me to:
8) When done with the quest
I know you'd love to keep her as a companion, but don't. This mods breaks pre-combines in places, deletes nav-meshes, and is full of very dirty edits & scripts. Keeping it will cause cascading problems in the long run.
Once you're done with the quest, dismiss your companion. Move to some interior cell (home-plate or any other interior not impacted by the mod). Open the pip-boy holo-tape given by this mod (AGNIS something, i think). it's full of settings, somewhere in the debug or something category, there's a "full uninstall" option. Run this option. Wait for a few seconds. I don't remember if there's a confirmation message box or not.
Save the game. Quit the game. UNINSTALL the mod, don't just disable the plugin. Fully remove it.
I know it's normally a MAJOR no-no to remove a mod mid-game. But afaik their uninstall script is working well, I went back to several of the locations altered by the mod, and had no related issue after 10+ hours.
It's not unique to this mod. Generally, the "brown face" bug can trigger when mixing different texture sizes for the body/face/hair/eyes and so on. Like 2k eye textures + 4k skin texture, this kind of stuff. Restarting the game (fully) will generally clear the issue, temporarily at least.
At least that's the common opinion about it. I suspect it to also happen when the graphic card's free memory is running a bit low, or just because Bethesda Code (tm). It's quite a common issue, I don't really have a "fix" for that, sadly. There a few "brow face fix" mods, but I've yet to see them do much of anything personally.
I had Kit go "brown face" a few times too, but I couldn't tell you if Kit has mismatching texture sizes because of this mod alone or not. Not really willing to uninstall my whole mod setup just to check.
ITs 2022 why are ppl still using Bethesda crappy HD texture pack, modders make way better texture overhaul, type Luxor HD texture pack for example, it is advise by most modders to NOT use the HD texture pack by Crapthesda. It incompatible with things and it bad, just overall garbage,.
TY for the guide, but from all the bugs/issue report and from the last part where you said this mod is full of precombine break, etc and such, i would've rather just ignore it overall, wish Thuggysmurf would make more quest mods, some of his stuff is older than this mod and it works well 99% of the time.
@xheox Hence why i suggest ppl to just play the mod and then remove it if you're into this kind of mod, it's safe to do so. Heck, they can even save before installing it, go through it, remove it and restore their save, if they are paranoid.
If the machine & her ain't your cup of tea, fair enough (and god i can understand why, there's a lot of stuff in it that's not for everyone), but telling people to go play a completely different and combat heavy mod instead of offering advices seemed counter productive.
How do I find this AGNIS holotape that will allow me to uninstall safely? Do I have to actually start the quest before I can get it?
Downloaded the mod and just noticed all the warnings that popped up in LOOT and now I'm pretty annoyed. Gone to a lot of effort to keep this modded run stable.
I'm sure its well written and everything but until someone patches it up, not gonna chance it but I already saved so gotta get that uninstall script..
Im really glad I checked comments before downloading this mod, it seems really interesting from the Beth.net entry and on here it also seems fine and dandy (especially reading the part about ending up actually getting hired by Bethesda, how cool is that?!), but then you see that the author (for logical reasons) cant and will not support it anymore, but see from the comments that there are a lot of problems with it, and in the end, I dont think it is worth it to install for me yet since Im still on my first (or "main") character (as in when I play the game normally and dont do like a specifically quirked character etc), so I'll let this one be methinks.
Unfortunately this: "This mods breaks pre-combines in places, deletes nav-meshes, and is full of very dirty edits & scripts. Keeping it will cause cascading problems in the long run." is true at least in my experience as well- broken terrain (near between Starlight Drive-In and Drumlin Diner), and a few other places (working on getting screenshots of the areas). But don't let that dissuade you from playing this mod. I have yet attempted to uninstall this mod so when I get to that point I'll report how that goes for me in case others are wondering.
Thanks for your hard work in creating this list, Sonrah. Must have taken you a fair bit of time to make. Kudos to you.
Sad that it breaks pre-combines and the author is blocked from fixing them. Probably because of the work contract with BG. That fact alone is the only thing making me hesitant about trying this mod because I made it a rule 10+ years ago to never uninstall scripted mods mid-playthrough. I may create a MO2 profile just to play through this once so I can experience it but won't play a full playthrough with it.
XDI really confused me. It's extended dialogue interface, why someone would abbreviate it as XDI is beyond me. This isn't 2004. Extended begins with an E. But if you were confused like I was, that's the mod this post is talking about. No idea on the patch that this poster said you should find on your own, I just disabled.
Has anyone figured out what's causing Kit's brown face bug? Even after extracting and upscaling her face textures to 2K to match every other face texture I'm using, she still has a save persistent brown face. Even her twin sister is fine, it's literally just Kit with a problem.
TraganMonroe It isn't a joke, no idea why you take it that way and no idea why it's so confusing for you. Something so goddamn simple. Extended is generally abbreviated as an X when it comes to initials, to avoid confusion.
Thanks Sonrah for taking so much time to help people, especially since we're usually annoying, entitled little prats complaining that our free stuff isn't good enough. :D
Tyvm for this infos, helps me a lot on my current walkthrough of that nevertheless very cool story. One thing i might want to add that caused me a bit trouble that might be useful info for others experience this too. After i brought the parts to Agnis in Symphony and Kit gone to the basement do some stuff, When she came back the quest was not completed, Kit giving no dialogue options to progress, there was also no quest marker or anything and for a short time thought it's a bug. I did load the save again to see if this time it will auto progress, but nothing. I then found out that i had to go to Agnis (that box) again and activate her to start a dialogue, although was also not quite clear to see, as the dialogue window popped up only when on the right ankle/distance. This helped to progress on the quest then. Idk if others had or will have this issue of mine, but if so i thought this info might help.
Unfortunately this didn't work for me. I am stuck in the radio station. I get the quest item from the locker, Alex appears and starts to speak then just stops. I touch nothing, I tries suggestions, but it's just bugged, we just stand there and stare at each other. Unplayable for me. Shame. Looks like it could have been good, but clearly needs more work.
@spot10 You may just need to back out to a save from before you entered the building. Also try reducing how many mods you have loaded, if you have more than this. Just remove the stuff that affects game behavior, not save data.
If you still can't get it working, I'd suggest looking up a let's-play or walkthrough on YouTube, as it's a great story regardless of whether or not you can be the one to press the buttons to make it go!
Мод слишком забагованный В квесте с книгами, диалог с библиотекарем намертво завис, в квесте с обновлением Агнис, при выгрузке в терминал голозаписи с портом Агнис, в личных данных не появляется нужной строки для её обновления, хотя я уже и смотрел прохождения и проходил идентично, всё тоже самое без изменений. Да и судя по комментариям, я увидел только меньшую часть багов. Снёс этот мод и возвращаться к нему не планирую. Не знаю какой там сюжет, возможно действительно хороший, как и озвучка, но постоянные баги это не просто бельмо в глазу, это уже полная слепота, которая очень мешает насладиться данный творением.
This isn't a bug, but perhaps something that the mod author and players should be aware of. The ground around the stairs at the radio relay shack doesn't appear to be solid. My character simply fell right through it to the rocks beneath. No damage occurred and this issue isn't game breaking as you can still reach the stairs leading to the shack via another route or simply console command and TCL your way there.
I also noticed that sometimes Kit gets stuck in the "Crane" pose (like in Karate Kid) getting into combat seems to snap her out of it though.
Changing Kit's clothing doesn't appear to work well either. Her hands disappear and her body shape changes to a more "plump' version, though this may have something to do with my CBBE setup. She also seems to have her knife out while using idle animations.
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I recently did an interview with Bethesda about the project, which can be found here: https://bethesda.net/en/article/32AWU6xmyjmhTXrpBjmRbR/monthly-modder-nikanine
_____________________________________________
Update July 2021: I now work in the industry as a Quest Designer and writer so I’m no longer able to provide assistance or updates for this project. Thank you to everyone for the incredible support over the years; it means more than I can possibly say!
Edit: Also every npc yaps for WAY TOO LONG in this mod, dixon's hollo tape is like 5 minutes of nothing, and you HAVE to listen to ALL OF IT. for NO REASON. I deadass almost fell asleep listening to that.
Any chance for someone to patch this?
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/25699
Reading some of the feedback here relating to bugs is different from my own playthrough - I really enjoyed the story, one one quest breaking bug that I consoled around with the library dude, rest of the mod was fine, not sure what all the fuss is about - I would suggest you give it ago with the proviso that your mod list is properly sorted
As much as this is a great story you should definitely play if you like story heavy mods. It is extremely buggy and going through some parts of it can be an exercise in frustration. Here are the fixes for most problems you'll definitely encounter. All that in a non spoilery-way.
Before you start telling me "I had no problems, it's best mod", I'm happy for you but I couldn't care less.
Also, I only did the "good path", as such I'm sure there are problems I missed, but my advices are generic enough to apply to most cases, hopefully.
1) No Dialogs options
When you try to talk to the girl, you get an empty dialog thingy. It's because you're using XDI. There's a compatibility patch for that on the nexus. You can find it easily on your own. Contrary to what other posters said, the XDI patch works, dialog/cutscene bugs are related to the mod, not to the patch itself.
2) In the metro station, the girl is asking me to follow her, but get stuck in the terrain
Open console, click on girl, make sure it's selected (it's should show numbers followed by letters in brackets). close console. Move to the toilets (it's on the right side of the station). Open console again. type "moveto player" (without the quotes).
3) Game Freeze when getting the quest object from the weird guy at the radio station / library
I'm pretty sure it only freeze if you have a mod for your UI. Anyway, Do not take the object manually. Use the "Take All" keyboard shortcut, so it'll close the UI before the cutscene starts.
4) Cutscene lock at the radio station / library (really, it's true for ALL cutscenes)
Before retrieving the quest object SAVE YOUR GAME (just so you don't have to redo it all over again if it bugs out). A cutscene will start immediately after that. DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING, don't look away, don't skip dialogs, don't even breath. Even when you think that you should intervene, DON'T (and yeah i did the same thing as you at that precise moment, been there :p). Move only when it's super clear that you got back full control.
5) The 20 seconds pauses each time my character speaks drive me crazy
This is not unique to this mod, but given how "wordy" this one is, it's particularly awful. Thankfully, that's what this small mod fixes, works with all quest mods where the player ain't voiced. Perfectly safe. You'll never have to make or look for silent dialog patches ever again.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39848
It basically allows you to skip through your unvoiced dialogs like you can when it is.
6) The red phone scene
Before answering the phone SAVE your game. It's followed by a long dialog sequence. At this point you can investigate (one of the dialog options) to learn a lot about the lore and your companion. It's great content, but it will soft lock the dialog / quest. I HEAVILY suggest to do it once, explore all option to learn all the things. Then you reload your save, and just go with one of the options to proceed without investigating.
7) Ambient Music won't stop playing after quest is done
Yep, i have no fix for that one. Beside running the uninstall script, which leads me to:
8) When done with the quest
I know you'd love to keep her as a companion, but don't. This mods breaks pre-combines in places, deletes nav-meshes, and is full of very dirty edits & scripts. Keeping it will cause cascading problems in the long run.
Once you're done with the quest, dismiss your companion. Move to some interior cell (home-plate or any other interior not impacted by the mod). Open the pip-boy holo-tape given by this mod (AGNIS something, i think). it's full of settings, somewhere in the debug or something category, there's a "full uninstall" option. Run this option. Wait for a few seconds. I don't remember if there's a confirmation message box or not.
Save the game. Quit the game. UNINSTALL the mod, don't just disable the plugin. Fully remove it.
I know it's normally a MAJOR no-no to remove a mod mid-game. But afaik their uninstall script is working well, I went back to several of the locations altered by the mod, and had no related issue after 10+ hours.
I hope this'll help someone.
Cheers.
It's not unique to this mod. Generally, the "brown face" bug can trigger when mixing different texture sizes for the body/face/hair/eyes and so on. Like 2k eye textures + 4k skin texture, this kind of stuff. Restarting the game (fully) will generally clear the issue, temporarily at least.
At least that's the common opinion about it. I suspect it to also happen when the graphic card's free memory is running a bit low, or just because Bethesda Code (tm). It's quite a common issue, I don't really have a "fix" for that, sadly. There a few "brow face fix" mods, but I've yet to see them do much of anything personally.
I had Kit go "brown face" a few times too, but I couldn't tell you if Kit has mismatching texture sizes because of this mod alone or not. Not really willing to uninstall my whole mod setup just to check.
If the machine & her ain't your cup of tea, fair enough (and god i can understand why, there's a lot of stuff in it that's not for everyone), but telling people to go play a completely different and combat heavy mod instead of offering advices seemed counter productive.
Downloaded the mod and just noticed all the warnings that popped up in LOOT and now I'm pretty annoyed. Gone to a lot of effort to keep this modded run stable.
I'm sure its well written and everything but until someone patches it up, not gonna chance it but I already saved so gotta get that uninstall script..
Managed to fix this bug today, type command: removemusic AGNISKitBackstoryTypeMus01
Cheers.
Varför skriver du ens här ??
"Why do U even write here"
Kudos to you.
Sad that it breaks pre-combines and the author is blocked from fixing them. Probably because of the work contract with BG.
That fact alone is the only thing making me hesitant about trying this mod because I made it a rule 10+ years ago to never uninstall scripted mods mid-playthrough.
I may create a MO2 profile just to play through this once so I can experience it but won't play a full playthrough with it.
One thing i might want to add that caused me a bit trouble that might be useful info for others experience this too.
After i brought the parts to Agnis in Symphony and Kit gone to the basement do some stuff, When she came back the quest was not completed, Kit giving no dialogue options to progress, there was also no quest marker or anything and for a short time thought it's a bug. I did load the save again to see if this time it will auto progress, but nothing.
I then found out that i had to go to Agnis (that box) again and activate her to start a dialogue, although was also not quite clear to see, as the dialogue window popped up only when on the right ankle/distance. This helped to progress on the quest then.
Idk if others had or will have this issue of mine, but if so i thought this info might help.
I am stuck in the radio station. I get the quest item from the locker, Alex appears and starts to speak then just stops.
I touch nothing, I tries suggestions, but it's just bugged, we just stand there and stare at each other.
Unplayable for me. Shame. Looks like it could have been good, but clearly needs more work.
If you still can't get it working, I'd suggest looking up a let's-play or walkthrough on YouTube, as it's a great story regardless of whether or not you can be the one to press the buttons to make it go!
В квесте с книгами, диалог с библиотекарем намертво завис, в квесте с обновлением Агнис, при выгрузке в терминал голозаписи с портом Агнис, в личных данных не появляется нужной строки для её обновления, хотя я уже и смотрел прохождения и проходил идентично, всё тоже самое без изменений. Да и судя по комментариям, я увидел только меньшую часть багов.
Снёс этот мод и возвращаться к нему не планирую. Не знаю какой там сюжет, возможно действительно хороший, как и озвучка, но постоянные баги это не просто бельмо в глазу, это уже полная слепота, которая очень мешает насладиться данный творением.
I also noticed that sometimes Kit gets stuck in the "Crane" pose (like in Karate Kid) getting into combat seems to snap her out of it though.
Changing Kit's clothing doesn't appear to work well either. Her hands disappear and her body shape changes to a more "plump' version, though this may have something to do with my CBBE setup. She also seems to have her knife out while using idle animations.
due to bugs and errors that the dudes write in the comments, I will not re-play this mod