[BUG] Custom NPC relationships and scheduled deals reset after save reload

[jabalbinot]

Summary

Using any mod for adding custom NPC and dealers, we have the following behaviors when quiting the game or reloads, Those issues happens:

• all the friendship bar goes back to scratch;
• All scheduled deals with the new NPCs are cancelled;

What is still working:

• Addicted level, it keeps as before;
• Unlocking the NPC. Once you unlock them using free samples, they keep as unlocked;

Game Version

Other (specify in Additional Context)

S1API Version

3.1.14

MelonLoader Version

0.7.3 Open-Beta

Runtime Environment

IL2CPP (Regular)

Steps to Reproduce

Friendship:

1. Sell a drug to a custom NPC;
2. Friendship raises;
3. Quit the game or reloads;
4. Friendship is reseted to default;

Deal:

1. Scheudle a deal with a custom NPC;
2. Quit the game or reloads;
3. Deal is deleted;

Expected vs Actual Behavior

Fiendship:
Expected: Selling and interacting with custom NPC should raise friendship and keep as it when closing or reloading the game.
Behavior: Friendship is reseted to zero.

Deal:
Expected: Scheduling a deal should keep in the log until it is completed;
Behavior: Deal is deleted when reloading or closing the game;

MelonLoader Log

Latest.log

What Have You Tried?

No response

Additional Context

Game running at last official update v0.4.6f12

Pre-submission Checklist

• I have read the installation guide
• I am using the latest version of S1API
• I have verified this issue is related to S1API (not general modding support)
• I am using MelonLoader 0.7.0 or have noted compatibility issues with 0.7.1+
• I have included my MelonLoader log or relevant excerpts

[ifBars]

@Diffuin Investigate this issue deeply and create a plan to fix it

[diffuin]

Issue investigation

Confidence: Medium

Two persistence defects likely explain the report. Accepted deals have a strong static cause: each custom NPC receives a new random native GUID, but accepted contracts persist the customer's GUID. Friendship loss is most likely a later lifecycle overwrite because S1API restores the saved delta before activation and only records a boolean afterward. Confirm the saved delta at the lifecycle boundaries before placing the relationship fix. Existing contracts saved with random customer GUIDs cannot be migrated reliably because the contract record contains no stable NPC ID.

Recommended next steps

1. Use the existing WithIdentity ID as the durable identity source. Generate an internal, versioned SHA-256-based GUID with the same result on Mono and IL2CPP; do not add public API or a new save field.
2. Create and register inactive custom NPCs on the server immediately before native contract loading. Do not spawn them early, and make NPCsLoader hydrate and reuse those instances rather than creating duplicates.
3. Treat a valid saved relationship payload as authoritative, including an explicit zero. Apply prefab defaults only when no valid payload exists, and perform any late restoration on the server before broadcasting relationship state.

Open questions

• Does NPCs.json contain the raised nonzero RelationDelta immediately before quitting? A nonzero value confirms the late-overwrite diagnosis; zero redirects the fix to GetSaveData or ShouldSaveRelationshipData.
• Does the unavailable Latest.log show unresolved customer GUIDs or QuestsLoader contract warnings, and is the custom NPC registered in GUIDManager before QuestsLoader runs? These observations would confirm the required pre-contract-load seam.

Evidence and validation

Evidence inspected

• Both regular and beta stripped sources declare accepted contracts in QuestManagerData.Contracts and identify their customer through ContractData.CustomerGUID. Native CustomerData stores addiction, affinities, counters, and an offered contract, but not the accepted CurrentContract.
• S1API creates saved custom NPC instances from the NPCsLoader prefixes. The repository describes NPCsLoader as one of the last loaders, so native contract restoration cannot safely assume that a custom customer already exists and is registered.
• Current relationship tests cover finite values and whether defaults should run. They do not exercise the sequence from NPCLoader through NPC activation and network spawn.
• Addiction has an explicit Customer.Awake snapshot-and-restore patch. Relationship state has no equivalent protection despite also being loaded before custom NPC activation.

Validation performed

• Read AGENTS.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, CODING_STANDARDS.md, and the required Schedule One, issue-review, and human-writing skills.
• Inspected issue [BUG] Custom NPC relationships and scheduled deals reset after save reload #260 and PR fix(npc): restore behaviour lifecycle across runtimes #258 through the read-only GitHub broker. The linked attachment could not be retrieved by that broker.
• Inspected the v3.1.14 NPC construction, save/load patches, relationship policies, contract patches, customer/dealer wrappers, network bootstrap, and focused tests.
• Compared the relevant regular and beta stripped declarations for NPC, Customer, Contract, QuestManager, NPCLoader, CustomerData, and ContractData. The relevant persistence shapes match between those Mono branches. AssetRipper text searches found no additional serialized loader evidence. The worktree remains clean.

Runtime validation remaining

• Repository builds and tests were not run because dotnet and local.build.props are unavailable in this checkout.
• The saved NPCs.json relationship value must be inspected to distinguish a write-side failure from a post-load overwrite.
• The exact relationship overwrite boundary still requires a targeted human runtime trace around NPCLoader, NPC.Start, and FinalizeNetworkSpawn.
• Mono, IL2CPP, multiplayer, save/load, restart, late-join, and end-to-end gameplay validation remain unperformed.

Diffuin run details

• Provider: codex
• Model: gpt-5.6-sol
• Reasoning: high (Luna advisor: complexity (high); baseline source-backed technical request)
• Elapsed: 599s
• Codex thread: 019ff3a7-2c79-7382-b223-5efe7f1e4453

---

AI notice: Generated with AI assistance and not guaranteed accurate. Verify findings and plans against the current source and runtime.

[ifBars]

Maintainer triage clarification:

• fix(npc): restore behaviour lifecycle across runtimes #258 does not cover this save/load failure. It fixed the active behavior lifecycle so custom NPCs could attend and complete deals after they were scheduled.
• This issue remains the tracker for accepted/scheduled deals with custom NPCs disappearing after a reload.
• [BUG] Relationship values not saving (Drug Expansion - Disco Davey) - S1API 3.1.10 #217/fix(npc): restore custom NPC relationships from saves #219 fixed an earlier relationship-load overwrite, but this report reproduces the relationship reset on 3.1.14. Treat that symptom as a possible regression or remaining lifecycle path until the saved delta and post-load state are traced.
• Dealer inventory persistence is split into [BUG] Custom dealer inventories are cleared after save reload #259 so the two save paths can be reproduced and fixed independently.

Current static evidence supports treating scheduled-deal persistence separately: native ContractData saves the customer's GUID, QuestsLoader resolves that GUID during contract restoration, and S1API currently assigns custom NPCs a new Guid.NewGuid() value during construction. The exact fix still needs runtime confirmation of GUID registration and loader ordering on IL2CPP and Mono.

[ifBars]

@Diffuin Open a PR to implement a fix for and close this issue

[diffuin]

I opened #262