I couldn't find anything online about this. Does anyone know why the game sometimes doesn't continue the Louissa Phillips mission and have her follow you around, then receive 10,000 Credits from her father? If it works correctly, what sorts of missions does she appear during?
At the end of my last playthrough, I noticed there were several missing CCN entries. While Sheila Nabokov was there, David Hassan was not. Kindred was not, even though it says in the guide it should be there. And a few others like Alberto Fossa, Lord Mike Vonx etc. were missing. I also read somewhere that the Kindred entry could be obtained in version 16.0 by avoiding reading certain entries until later in the game. I don't know if that's right though, and of course I'm using the unofficial patch which is based on version 17.0 so it may not apply anyway. But for this playthrough I'm avoiding using the Records unless I absolutely have to until the very end of the game after all cinematic missions, to see if anything's different.
I'm also trying to get the Louissa Phillips mission done early by setting CD.DAT to 3, to see if anything different happens this time. I discovered that Xavier Shondi 1must be IS USUALLY the first side mission offered, and it definitely requires CD 1; loading a particular save with CD 1 in makes it start and adds Page 2 to the Diary, but with CD 2 or 3 it just doesn't offer a side mission at all. During my previous playthrough, the last two missions were Louissa Phillips and Xavier Shondi 2, and it didn't seem to require the game to think CD 3 was in the drive for the Xavier mission to start; after a number of landings, Diary page 2 changes from the Louissa entry to "No Entry Available" without a full stop no matter which CD it thinks is in, and on the next takeoff, the Xavier mission starts. ("No Entry Available." with a full stop means no mission is queued, but if there's no full stop, a mission is queued, it seems.)
EDIT: That was wrong. Xavier doesn't have to be the first side mission offered. It's just that none of the missions on CDs 2 and 3 are available at that point in the game. But if you use a no-CD method and keep CD.DAT set to 2 or 3, you will get missions from those CDs once you're far enough in the main plot. Each mission has different requirements. I'll note them down later. And after the main plot is complete, the game waives the CD requirement, hence the Xavier 2 mission not requiring CD 3 in the previous paragraph.
In Sinner's Inn there appear to be a number of short cutscenes involving Joe that appear to be unused. Are all the Melissa Banks cutscenes used? If so, I'm assuming it picks one based on your progress, and which main and/or side cinematic missions are done. Does anyone know the exact criteria? The one involving the bowl of stew is unclear, and the one talking about their anniversary might require the entire main plot to be done, maybe? I don't know.
EDIT: I got the anniversary cutscene. To get this one, you have to rescue Melissa but turn down her escort mission. Then she'll be in the Sinner's Inn but instead of leaning on this side of the bar, she's on the other side of it. So that leaves the "Space Bimbo" and "Stew" cutscenes; I assume the Space Bimbo one requires having done Louissa Phillips's mission or possibly Tamessa Ames, though I think this is less likely.
I did work some stuff out. In the editor, CLOK appears to be fractions of a minute followed by minutes played (the first number is out of 6000, so it's in centiseconds), and for TIME, the second number is always 60 * (first number + 1); the next time you land after CLOK is greater than the second TIME number, a new piece of technology will unlock, and if you're landed and CLOK is greater than the third TIME number, a new cinematic mission will be queued up if possible based on the current CD. If not possible, you can save the game, quit and restart with CD.DAT set to a different CD, and if the new CD has all requirements met for a mission, it will queue as soon as you load the file.
CLOK carries on ticking even in menus, so you can just leave the game sat in the PAD menu and once it's been long enough, exit and press P again and if it says "No Entry Available" without a full stop, you'll get an email after taking off. The exceptions are the missions that give you an email when you LAND, but there are only a couple of these.And of course a couple of missions start in bars (Auntie and Nelson), so the time factor doesn't matter as long as the Cinematic Mission slot is free. That's wrong - although there's no email to start those missions, the character only appears in the bar if their mission is next in line and the requirements are met, and at that point it sets the next mission to become available 60 minutes later. While those characters are in the bars, it's actually possible to do multiple cinematic missions at once but I strongly advise against it, because it can cause issues. I believe the email from Dr Loomis is also activated based on the third TIME variable. It's not. It's based on time spent flying, same as waiting for Rhinehart's first email and Hassan's email after the Rhinehart runaround.
If the main plot is complete, the "current CD" restriction is lifted and any and all cinematic missions can activate regardless of the current CD. There seems to be a preferred order of missions but some of the ones that would normally be later can come first if the requirements aren't met for the earlier ones. It's kinda complicated but that's the gist. I'm testing stuff now. My last two missions last playthrough were Louissa and Xavier 2, but I got Xavier 2 done early this time so maybe Louissa will either be last, or I'll do it before the main plot ends to stop it queueing up another cinematic mission, hopefully letting me see the second part of the Louissa mission.
At the end of my last playthrough, I noticed there were several missing CCN entries. While Sheila Nabokov was there, David Hassan was not. Kindred was not, even though it says in the guide it should be there. And a few others like Alberto Fossa, Lord Mike Vonx etc. were missing. I also read somewhere that the Kindred entry could be obtained in version 16.0 by avoiding reading certain entries until later in the game. I don't know if that's right though, and of course I'm using the unofficial patch which is based on version 17.0 so it may not apply anyway. But for this playthrough I'm avoiding using the Records unless I absolutely have to until the very end of the game after all cinematic missions, to see if anything's different.
I'm also trying to get the Louissa Phillips mission done early by setting CD.DAT to 3, to see if anything different happens this time. I discovered that Xavier Shondi 1
EDIT: That was wrong. Xavier doesn't have to be the first side mission offered. It's just that none of the missions on CDs 2 and 3 are available at that point in the game. But if you use a no-CD method and keep CD.DAT set to 2 or 3, you will get missions from those CDs once you're far enough in the main plot. Each mission has different requirements. I'll note them down later. And after the main plot is complete, the game waives the CD requirement, hence the Xavier 2 mission not requiring CD 3 in the previous paragraph.
In Sinner's Inn there appear to be a number of short cutscenes involving Joe that appear to be unused. Are all the Melissa Banks cutscenes used? If so, I'm assuming it picks one based on your progress, and which main and/or side cinematic missions are done. Does anyone know the exact criteria? The one involving the bowl of stew is unclear, and the one talking about their anniversary might require the entire main plot to be done, maybe? I don't know.
EDIT: I got the anniversary cutscene. To get this one, you have to rescue Melissa but turn down her escort mission. Then she'll be in the Sinner's Inn but instead of leaning on this side of the bar, she's on the other side of it. So that leaves the "Space Bimbo" and "Stew" cutscenes; I assume the Space Bimbo one requires having done Louissa Phillips's mission or possibly Tamessa Ames, though I think this is less likely.
I did work some stuff out. In the editor, CLOK appears to be fractions of a minute followed by minutes played (the first number is out of 6000, so it's in centiseconds), and for TIME, the second number is always 60 * (first number + 1); the next time you land after CLOK is greater than the second TIME number, a new piece of technology will unlock, and if you're landed and CLOK is greater than the third TIME number, a new cinematic mission will be queued up if possible based on the current CD. If not possible, you can save the game, quit and restart with CD.DAT set to a different CD, and if the new CD has all requirements met for a mission, it will queue as soon as you load the file.
CLOK carries on ticking even in menus, so you can just leave the game sat in the PAD menu and once it's been long enough, exit and press P again and if it says "No Entry Available" without a full stop, you'll get an email after taking off. The exceptions are the missions that give you an email when you LAND, but there are only a couple of these.
If the main plot is complete, the "current CD" restriction is lifted and any and all cinematic missions can activate regardless of the current CD. There seems to be a preferred order of missions but some of the ones that would normally be later can come first if the requirements aren't met for the earlier ones. It's kinda complicated but that's the gist. I'm testing stuff now. My last two missions last playthrough were Louissa and Xavier 2, but I got Xavier 2 done early this time so maybe Louissa will either be last, or I'll do it before the main plot ends to stop it queueing up another cinematic mission, hopefully letting me see the second part of the Louissa mission.
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