Merga Plot is not advancing | BlueBottleGames | Page 1

short lily Jan 13, 2025, 7:48 PM

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-3d 10h (50% of it was just paused in the background)
-0.14.2.8 (started on 0.14.2.7)
-No mods appart from the less rng char gen mod removing it does not change anything

After dooing a lot of reseach into this plot i understand that i should get tv messages about killings around venus and special talk options about the black hand to npcs to advance it past nPhase 2 but no matter how many black hand deaths i investigate or black hand pda files i read the plot will not advance.

So far i know only of 2 ppl who managed to complete this plot and i saw 1 streamer get the talk option about black hand death after his first black hand investigation so clearly i am missing something or this quest is just broken.

short lily Jan 13, 2025, 8:58 PM

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mortal zealot Jan 16, 2025, 10:30 PM

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I can second this glitch, I actually played 3 games with about 4 days of gameplay each (2 in the beta, 1 after release). The very first game, I got the blackhand plot and it progressed, but I ended up with a game breaking bug that forced me to restart (in the beta). The next 2 games, the blackhand plot didn't generate and neither did the plot that points you to Venus. In both these 2 games, I came across the blackhand murders and reported them before the plot generated and the plot never generated, whereas in the first game (where it did work) I didn't find blackhand murders until it had already generated the plot. Hopefully that additional info helps, I'd very much like to do some of these new quests but they haven't been generating for me. In all 3 games I made it to Venus.

fickle prairie May 17, 2026, 5:23 PM

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yea, happened to me in 0.15 as well, without any Merga advances possible even after finding bodies with hand

normal pewter May 18, 2026, 2:49 PM

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Thanks for the heads-up! Are you able to provide a save file we could look at where you're stuck?

It might be useful to see which variables are not being set correctly in those saves, especially if this is a random chance bug.

outer hare May 18, 2026, 6:46 PM

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Erik asked me to post this to here, since it seems related to the Merga plot. Since I have an error on related to a Merga plot npc. I don't think i did enough investigations to start the Merga plot though. One thing of note, I only get rumors of the meat plot from asking ships about rumors, even though meat plot is resolved.

📎 ammo.part1.rar 📎 ammo.part2.rar

outer hare May 18, 2026, 7:31 PM

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oh, mod installed is BIG (Better Inventory Game)

fickle prairie May 18, 2026, 8:53 PM

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Thanks to discord 50 MB limit. I had to extract the ships folder and zip it along side it.

Anyway, My case is similar to Rikonman. Where in my other 4 throw away saves i could start the Merga plotline without problem. (Modded with same modlist as well) however during this save i couldn't advance it.
Even after finding both bodies with black hand, PDA files about singer and black hand and watching news.

Playtime: 3 days 14 hours 46 minutes 59 seconds.
Save Version: 0.15.0.25 / Current 0.15.0.33

Mods:
"OversizedDollies",
"ConsolidatedBackpackPockets",
"EVAToolClips3",
"EVAToolClipsRetroactive",
"Build and repair item stack increase",
"VortexBackpacks",
"DualChargers",
"Sundries Expansion",
"BreakerYard"
and BIG (Better Inventory Game) (Installed very recently after finishing Meat plotline and finding bodies with black hand)

📎 merga_modded.zip 📎 ships.zip

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and Merga debug, if there is anything else that is required please ask for clarifying

normal pewter May 19, 2026, 2:09 PM

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Thanks for the saves! I'll get this logged.

rancid juniper May 20, 2026, 10:19 PM

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Hey all! This plot actually advances outside of the Black Hand investigations, which are associated with the Whodunnit plot and not the Merga Plot. There are narrative connections between the two, but not mechanical ones. To start this plot on OKLG you need to watch a television broadcast about Venus narratives (Rex Korin or Camillia Middlemist or Black Hand Murders) and then discuss these things with any NPC around OKLG. After doing that a few times you should eventually get a message from Ursula K who points you towards a detective on Venus who will be in the Sol Vermhello bar on Encantado Aerostat. The rest of the plot moves through that detective. Has anyone gotten the message from Ursula?

mortal zealot May 20, 2026, 11:23 PM

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I got it in my first playthrough in .14 but after that run through I haven't gotten the message in 3 other .14 games and a .15 game. I always have a television on my ship with the news on it but I haven't seen the broadcast about the Venus narratives except on my first .14 playthrough.

normal pewter May 21, 2026, 12:18 AM

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If you right click on a television, are there any options there about the Venus murder?

fickle prairie May 21, 2026, 3:37 AM

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nope, no message from her, however i had news about signer death

and usually that triggered the detective to contact me.

mortal zealot May 21, 2026, 3:55 PM

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I haven't had the news pop up for this whole game, I've been checking throughout, this save has about 5 days of play time. I uploaded the save for the bug "Reactor Stalling When 'USE'ing Nav Station", you might be able to use it for this issue as well

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It did have the perpetual food source option still but I actually clicked it away before taking that screenshot without thinking about it, I've been doing that whenever it popped up hoping it might show the venus options

rancid juniper May 21, 2026, 4:02 PM

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Hmmm that's interesting. Even the televisions on OKLG don't ever offer an option to watch news about Venus goings on?

mortal zealot May 21, 2026, 4:03 PM

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Did it specfically have to be the TVs on OKLG? I do sometimes do that on OKLG but I'm usually watching the TV on my ship

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I can load way back to an OKLG save and check

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rancid juniper May 21, 2026, 4:08 PM

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hmm yeah it should look like one of those View News: options

mortal zealot May 21, 2026, 4:08 PM

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That's froma save about 2 days 17 hours in, I had to use emergency transport

rancid juniper May 21, 2026, 4:08 PM

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and you haven't watched them already?

mortal zealot May 21, 2026, 4:09 PM

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I've watched the perpetual food source and have never seen the other news options except in my very first .14 game from the .14 beta

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I did notice, all the TVs in OKLG were set to the drama channel though

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Also my crewmate inevitably switches the TV back to the drama channel, though I didn't have him for about a day of play time and my ship's TV was set to the news channel the whole time

mortal zealot May 21, 2026, 6:33 PM

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I also thought of another potentially useful tidbit, in my .15 game I found the video tape, but never found anyone to talk to about it on OKLG or BCRS. It's possible I just never figured it out, but if there was supposed to be an event for it besides the option you get when you first find it, I don't believe I had it.

outer hare May 21, 2026, 7:18 PM

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mortal zealot I also thought of another potentially useful tidbit, in my .15 game I found the ...

you don't talk to anyone about the tape; you're suppposed to interact directly with the tape, and then on OKLG, interact with your PDA

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Regarding the Merga plot, in my save I don't remember if I got the news - I know I saw the meat news there, but there were two options at that time, so I might have clicked through it. No detective contacted me afterwards tho

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And my log is spammed with Rex Korin messages (no pspec found)

fickle prairie May 21, 2026, 8:18 PM

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yea, in my case news showed about missing singer around venus but option to talk to anyone about it was missing.

#Merga Plot is not advancing