The Cranberry quest is still bugged

[PatrikLundell]

Describe the bug

When turning in some Hub01 quest (I turned in the trifacet and DARPA quests at the same time), Cranberry is spawned and can provide a quest that's extremely difficult to impossible to perform unless you have very specific protective gear. Said gear is supposed to be possible to acquire from Hub01, but it's not available at that time.

Attach save file

N/A. I didn't create a save at that time.

Steps to reproduce

1. Figure out how to actually communicate with Hub01 to get a quest rather than waiting for a new quest to get them to open up after they told you to get lost (that could definitely be improved).
2. Accept all 3 quests offered.
3. Perform the trifacet and DARPA quests and hand them in.
4. Check what stuff you can buy from Hub01.
5. Note that Cranberry has spawned and get its quest.
6. Get fried and stuck with a moronic temporary companion you can't park until you get the chance to actually acquire the gear virtually (and possibly literally, though grenades might work) necessary to be able to complete the quest.
7. Check with Hub01 again to see if the meta knowledge equipment has been made available and find it's still absent.
8. Revert to the previous save, as you suspected the quest was still bugged, or get stuck with Cranberry until it eventually kills itself by fighting zombies as you go lab diving to acquire the needed gear through alternative means (as meta knowledge tells you it can be found in some labs).

Expected behavior

A quest design where you're given info that the special equipment may be needed and that it might be available from Hub01, as well as the equipment actually being available from Hub01.
Note that this is still tricky, as you may have spent all your funds shopping from Hub01 by the time you've gotten the quest.
The quest design should also involve a step where Cranberry tells you to notify it when it's time to perform the quest in order for you to sort out issues such as funding before actually going into the quest itself.

Screenshots

No response

Versions and configuration

Master as of a few days ago.

Additional context

This happened a few days ago, and I had originally intended to write the bug report once I'd worked around the bug (since I knew it might be an issue I didn't save after getting the quest, and reverted to the save just before when it turned out the quest was indeed still bugged).

I don't know what triggers the availability of the equipment from Hub01. It might be the third quest (portal storm data), all 3 quests, or time (for inventory to be refreshed). I think these quests used to be sequential, so it's possible making them parallel broke something, although I think it was at least partially broken before that (maybe meta knowledge requirement to realize you had to check the Hub01 inventory again after taking the quest, despite just having checked it).

[PatrikLundell]

I'm trying to understand how this is supposed to work:

• Cranberry is spawned when the "Return to sender" mission is handed in.
• The robofac_enviro_suit is only spawned with a 25% chance. Since it's essential to the ability to complete Cranberry's mission it should be spawned with a 100% probability OR, preferred, Cranberry should know about the danger and tell you that you'll need that kind of equipment and that it can be bought from Hub01 sometimes and that you should return to continue the quest talk once you've got the gear or decided to risk it without it (with no check that you've actually got it, both because you should be able to take the risk and because there are alternative ways to get the needed protection).
• You can't actually buy the equipment until you've completed the NEXT main line quest, Light Retrieval OR you've accepted that mission AND bought their protective gear (which you may not want to do if you've already got corresponding equipment elsewhere). This is a real setup for failure.

Conclusion:

• The spawning of Cranberry shouldn't happen until the "Light Retrieval" mission has been completed to ensure the PC is allowed to buy the necessary gear, or Cranberry shouldn't offer the quest until that mission has been completed (requiring complicating the character's mission logic, including indicating a future quest). I'd delay the spawning.
• Just spawn the suit with a 100% probability.
• Add dialog to Cranberry to strongly suggest you need to buy the suit.
• Add a step to the Cranberry quest where you return and say you're ready after getting the gear (or not).

Ideally, the Cranberry quest should have you go to the quest target, see the threat and have Cranberry initiate dialog with the PC and say it's too dangerous to engage the target without protection and tell you that Hub01 sometimes sells protective gear and they should return to Hub01 and put the quest on hold until gear has been acquired (removing Cranberry as a temporary companion). When that's been done, the quest should be resumed. However, I don't think there's enough infrastructure to do that.

Edit:
It seems I've failed to understand the gear package offered by Hub01 contains the suit needed for the Cranberry mission, and I've failed to read the description of it properly (the description provides the needed info, so it's entirely my fault). I thought it was just another environmental protection suit (like the ones dropped by some zombies and found in various places).

It doesn't change my conclusions, though. You DO have the guaranteed ability to buy the suit when accepting the Light Retrieval mission, but it still requires you to have the means to do so (you may have gone on a shopping spree before accepting the mission, thus spending your funds).
If the Light Retrieval gear purchase offer still stands after the mission is completed and you didn't buy it, there isn't a need for a 100% probability for the suit to spawn in the trade inventory (but it would be helpful if Cranberry could nudge you by saying the gear sometimes is sold together with a gas mask).