Quest Loader

[Fisseha Aranda]

Thismod alone does NOT have any content. This is a tool that imports quests, images, language files and zones into the game with some additional functionality. Mod authors can use this as a dependency to easily add more Custom Quests into the game. Simply link to this page in your own install instructions.

VCQL allows Quest Creators to add multiple quest files, custom images for quests, quest zones and houses support for every available language in SPT-AKI with the included placeholder feature for not yet translated quests. The purpose of this loader is to allow aspiring modders to create a mod, without having to deal with the code associated with loading quests, locales, images or more advanced functionality like side specific quests or zone creation / loading. Although creating quests is a big task, I hope that this loader will give some confidence to those who purely want to add more content to the game, and don't know where to start. This mod is not limited to newer players however, a lot of the mod authors that use VCQL are quite experienced in programming and the SPT server structure, but simply enjoy the easy to use structure of the mod.

For a working quest, you will need a file for quests and a file for locales. Each quest has various conditions to start, such as level, loyalty level, previous quest etc. Conditions to finish such as kill, find, place etc. And rewards for completing the conditions. Learning how quests function and getting efficient at creating quests is a very steep curve. This has, and can be achieved by aspiring modders with no experience in modifying games, or creating mods. This loader is designed to remove all code aspects of importing quests and associated files into the game, and leaves the task of creating quests to be solely within JSON files. I advise all new and interested people to look at my VCQ mod, and how it is setup, to better understand quests and how this loader works.

Included with VCQL is a GUI tool within the BepInEx menu which can be used to create and modify custom zones. With regards to quests, zones are used to specify a region or place for quest conditions like 'kill bots in x area', 'place item at x area', 'launch flare at x area' etc. The tool allows modders to create and visualize the zones before they are output to a file, ready to be loaded back in and used for custom quests.

The bare minimum is Notepad, or any basic text editor. However I do recommend VSCode because it allows you to see basic syntactical errors and prettify files. VSCode paired with Refringe's extension significantly helps to create quests since you can see the names of values.

The easiest way is to start simple. Look at the existing quest files, and some modded quests to see how quests work, and start changing some values. Then when you get more confident, try to create your own. You do not need to create every single quest from scratch. If there is a base game quest that is similar to what you want, copy it and change the values. If you find that you are spending alot of time and still receiving errors, come ask in the discord for help. You also have tools like this Reference Sheet to help you.

All you need to do, is include a path to "user/mods/Virtual's Custom Quest Loader" with the same folder structure you used to develop your quests. When a user downloads VCQL, and then your mod, they will be able to place it straight into the loader, and the files will go to where they need to be. Please see VCQ as an example on this structure. Do not include the mod directly in your download.

I have seen a few users mention that quest zones sometimes do not work. Nothing has been reported so I am unsure if this is a genuine issue or user error. If you are sure that you have downloaded everything correctly, and you still cannot complete the quest, please comment the issue alongside your list of mods so I can look into it.

For 3.8.0 and above, you will see 'Virtual's Custom Quest Loader' in user/mods AND you will see 'VCQLQuestZones.dll' in BepInEx/plugins. If you are missing the client mod (.dll), then the zones won't be loaded but there will be no error.

Moving forward, all current and new mods using VCQL will be required to link to this page, instead of including the download within the mod. This has caused confusion for users and creates more issues for support when out of date versions override others.

- which can cause problems. If you simply ship the typescript file instead and remove the js and sourcemap, everything should be fine for everyone, the other files will be rebuilt correctly upon startup. Thanks.

What I'm presuming now is when we drop the user/mods folder into our SPT installation, and the specific trader mod asks if we want to overwrite, we select "Yes"? Scorpion had I think 4 overwrites, and Lotus had 114.

That indicates that you haven't installed the mod, or havent installed it properly. Within `/user/mods` there will be your list of mod folders. In each one, you should see a 'package.json' file. If you don't, then you have installed it incorrectly, or you have installed a mod that requires VCQL, but haven't yet installed the loader.

hi, i'm getting an error.... quest handover error : condition not found or incorrect value qid:.... with the double agent quests when i go to hand in. any thoughts? sorry for 3.80 sorry my bad, forgot i copied the quest folder over from an older install. now i dont remember where i got the double agent questline. investigating now. sorry again to have wasted your time. found it, sorry again was using an old version of lavax's and your quest packs. will wait and see if new ones come up

Experiencing an issue where once I hit Level 10, I can no longer get past the first loading screen. When I remove this mod, it fixes it, but I was really looking forward to the extra content that this mod is required for. Is there any known fix to this?

I have tested it, and the issue even happens when there are no mods installed that add quests. The only time the issue gets fixed is when I take this mod out out of the load order. Are there any mods that you know of that have any sort of incompatibility with this mod?

Is it possible to add more than three new traders at once without blocking the traders with your character portait? E.g. I installed Artem, Mercenary and the three traders from A.E.S. and every trader after Jaeger+2 trader portraits is obstructed by my player info (Name, roubles, euros, my rep and character-portrait)

Is there a scroll bar i didn't see or a keybind?

One question that I can't find any information for: can you install multiple custom quest mods at the same time? Like, if I installed two completely unrelated custom quest giver mods (for example, the "ultimate questing traders" mod as well as the "Maxim" mod) would both of them function, or would it just break everything?

VCQL is made to support multiple trader / quest mods. So if there is any issues between the two mods, it will be from their own traders, not the quests. Typically you are fine to install multiple trader mods.

hello im having the same issue as comment below, trying to install for the goblin king quests, iv got the trader on i can buy the items but im not getting any quests. when i load the server i get '0 custom quests loaded' im pretty sure iv followed all the steps correctly

So GK has a folder path going to Virtual's Custom Quest Loader which purely contains some quests and locales files. When you install VCQL first, then drop GK's files in, they will go straight to this location. I've checked GK's download and it worked first go for me. So I'd just double check that. Otherwise just manually put the files from GK into VCQL.

I have an issue. So, custom traders (saria shop, goblin king and one popular girl trader that i've forgot the name) does not have ANY custom quests from them, it's literally just NOTHING which is sad(

The 'restartable' value applies to quests that have a fail condition and determine whether or not the user can re-attempt a failed quest. There is no value to make quests repeatable and I believe they need to be put somewhere else in the files, separate from where the loader puts them anyways.

May I just ask a follow-up question to his which is probably obvious, but I just feel I need to ask, does the quest line break, if you remove a quest that is part of that chain, or does it just skip it as it does not even exist?

All quests have their pre-requisites listed. So if you delete a quest, you would also need to change any references to that quest for further ones. E.G. Gunsmith part 5 requires part 4 to be completed. I CAN delete part 4, but I would need to delete or change the quest requirement in part 5.

Hmm, I can't see any changes in the source material that would cause this. I can't test right now either so if additional people use it for 3.5.6 could you please confirm this. Thank you for letting me know.

At the time of the error yes, just VCQL and your quest mod. Since the error I did a full wipe of my mods and started fresh, using VCQL and your quest mod, as well as goblin king/anastasia aio etc, and had no issues, not sure what caused it sadly.

Currently stuck on this quest because when I use the console to enter the cargo loader it wont move at all. Tried reloading to see if that fixes it, it doesn't.

Kind of a big deal since it's preventing story progress.

Ive tried every single suggestion in there multiple times now - nothing is working. So looks like I can't progress the story because after well over a year to fix this bug and they still didnt? Now its putting off returning players, not glad I came back rn because it seems like it was pointless.

Just as a side note, Oculus does not recommend using OpenXR for production Android builds at this time as can be seen in our runtime matrix in the documentation. However we will try to figure out what is going on here.

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