Building a Better Crop is an Institute side quest in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Institute side quest: Building a Better Crop | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Clayton Holdren. | |||||||||||||
| Talk to Isaac Karlin. | |||||||||||||
| Go to Warwick homestead. Speak to Roger Warwick. Speak to Roger's family and get information. | |||||||||||||
| Speak with Cedric Hopton in Goodneighbor. | |||||||||||||
| Deal with Bill Sutton at Warwick homestead. | |||||||||||||
| Report to Isaac Karlin. | |||||||||||||
| Reward: 200 XP 250 caps 20 stimpaks Warwick homestead as a settlement | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
The quest is triggered either after completing Institutionalized and then going to the BioScience division and speak with Doctor Isaac Karlin, or after completing Mankind - Redefined and speaking with Doctor Clayton Holdren, where he will mention that Karlin could use some help. Either way, talking to Karlin will have him explain that the Institute replaced Roger Warwick at the Warwick homestead with a synth sometime prior and need some modified seeds to be delivered to him to perform an experiment, providing a passphrase to use when talking to the synth Warwick.
The Warwick homestead can be found south east of the Atom Cats garage and south of the Castle in the southeastern corner of the Commonwealth. Find and speak with Roger by giving him the passphrase. Roger will ask to speak to them apart from the crop farm, where he will receive the seeds and then ask for the player character's help. He claims that his foreman, Bill Sutton suspects what he really is and is trying to turn the rest of the family against him. He requests for them to solve the issue for him by finding Bill and a farmhand, Cedric Hopton in cahoots with Bill, who have both disappeared from the homestead; Roger thinks that the other Warwicks may know something about their whereabouts.
Wally and Janey will not provide any information without completing an orange Charisma check, at which point they will mention Cedric going to Goodneighbor. June can be persuaded to give the same information by telling her she should be grateful or by passing another orange Charisma check.
Travel to Goodneighbor, where the quest marker points to the Third Rail; inside Cedric can be found seated either at the bar or in one of the seats. All four dialogue options lead to the same outcome, where Cedric can be bribed, or by passing an orange Charisma check, to give up on Bill and leave Roger alone.
Upon returning to the Warwick homestead, they discover that Roger is being held hostage by Bill. The confrontation ends one of two ways: killing Bill or passing an orange Charisma check to talk Bill down. Either way, they receive 250 caps as reward and Warwick homestead becomes available as a settlement (if not already obtained by completing the associated Greenskins radiant quest for the Minutemen). Afterward, return to the Institute to talk to Karlin for another reward, completing the quest.
Quest stages[]
Companion reactions[]
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Notes[]
- Despite both Karlin and Roger stating that he is a synth, if killed there is no synth component found on his corpse.
- If one returns to the Warwick homestead after peacefully resolving the situation with Bill, the Warwick family make comments about a particularly large and colored gourd plant growing in a patch of regular-sized gourds; such as "You should take a look at the gourd patch. We've got a prize-winner for sure." This is due in part to the Institute Bioscience department developing a unique breed of Cucurbitaceae (gourd family) via genetic manipulation, and the exceptionally fertile soil at the farmstead (all noted in their terminal entries). Checking the gourd patch in the southeastern corner of the crop field, it does indeed now include a very large gourd growing there which can be harvested, though it only produces a normal gourd item.
- Despite the Institute stating that they plant o wipe out the whole Warwick family once their experiments are over, this does not occur in-game regardless of whether the Institute was destroyed or not. All Warwick family members including the synth Roger continue to go about their regular settler business indefinitely.
- If Preston Garvey is an active companion, every interaction with Roger will trigger a "Hate" reaction, so it's advisable to bring either X6-88 or another good-natured companion when doing this quest.
Bugs[]
If one already has Warwick homestead as a settlement, it is highly likely either Cedric Hopton or Bill Sutton, or both, will be killed during an attack on Warwick Homestead so this quest becomes unavailable.[verified]- If one has already established Warwick homestead as a settlement before this quest, issues may occur. Any settlers that are in the vicinity of the confrontation between Bill and Roger at the climax of the quest will eventually start attacking Bill. It is possible that they will already be fighting if one fast travels to the homestead during this stage. Even if one manages to quickly get through the conversation with the peaceful ending before any settler starts fighting, settlers will still attack Bill afterward at any time (even if the quest has already been completed).[verified]
- A possible workaround for this issue (that works on any platform) is to send all generic settlers to other settlements before leaving to find Cedric in Goodneighbor. Another possible solution if playing on the PC is to simply disable any settler via the console before they have a chance to attack Bill. However, even if one specifically re-enables the same IDs afterward, any settler's appearance and inventory will be randomized and not saved from before.
- Another possible, more complex solution (for all platforms) involves several steps:
- Settler beds need to be away from the Warwick family beds.
- Discovering Bill's plan before 8 pm, then waiting for the settlers to go to sleep.
- Using a Vertibird or the Institute teleportation to get to Goodneighbour and talking with Cedric to advance the quest.
- Returning to the homestead before 5 am, interrogating Bill, sparing him, will leave him waiting in front of the entrance.
- Turning the quest in with Karlin results in Bill leaving the homestead and wandering the Commonwealth while remaining alive.
- If a Minutemen radiant quest (such as Greenskins) for Warwick homestead is already active when undertaking this quest, the radiant quest may be stuck because the dialogue for this quest will take precedence and even after completion, Roger may refuse to talk about the radiant quest, leaving it stuck in the Pip-Boy for the duration of the game.[verified]
- It is possible to fail this quest silently before it has even started. This leaves Doctor Holdren saying that Doctor Karlin needs help, while the latter simply uses one of his default lines without initiating dialogue. It is unknown what causes this, but it might be related to completing Mankind - Redefined before starting this quest. The console command setstage 000986C7 200 allows one to start the quest manually.[verified]
- If Bill Sutton is dead, the quest will not trigger. This can be resolved by finding Bill Sutton's corpse, clicking on it, and using the console command resurrect. After this, you will need to trigger the quest manually by using the console command setstage 000986c7 200.[verified]
