Mastodawn

i don't know who needs to hear this but here are some useful bug workarounds for very annoying state of decay 2 from someone who has... wait, i have over 500 hours in game? holy shit.

bug: character stuck in "searching car boot" animation. there's a semi-rare bug that occurs when opening the car's boot where your character will begin the "searching for items" animation, but the inventory won't appear. the only way to escape this is to open the map (or community screen, or base screen, etc) with a direct hotkey -- the default "open menu" command won't work! if this happens and you don't have a direct hotkey for opening any of the menu screens, you have to quit the game. you can't even exit to menu! solution: on controller, the menu is bound to ⧉ view (the button that used to be select). you should instead bind this to "toggle map screen". pressing ⧉ will now get you out of this bugged state. on keyboard, press M. this is something you have to have done before the bug occurs, so do this before you even start playing!
bug: new survivor won't follow you. sometimes you get quests where people ask to join. you say yes, they agree to join, you get the "noise from survivors added" notification, and then the quest updates to tell you to bring the new survivor home. you get in the car, and they just... stand there. their AI gets stuck in "stay in this room" mode and they don't follow you. solution: return to your home base and switch to the new character from the character select screen. there'll be a loading screen, then they'll teleport home. alternatively, if you don't want to head back home, just exit to menu, and when you reload the save, they'll be home.
bug: can't enlist follower from character select screen. you'll try to enlist them, and you'll be told you have to be at your base to do that, even though you are. this happens because the game doesn't keep all survivors loaded in at once, and that particular survivor is currently despawned. solution: switch to that survivor. you'll get a loading screen and they'll spawn in, despawning someone else. then you can switch back and enlist them.
bug: can't talk to quest NPC. this seemingly happens because the game thinks there are zombies around even when there aren't. solution: drive several hundred metres away and drive back, causing the area to reload.
bug: can't enlist followers during some quests. some quests give you an NPC follower. when this happens, you can't enlist followers from the character select screen. solution: enlist followers by talking to them in person.
bug: can't enlist followers at all. sometimes the game thinks you have a follower when you don't. switching characters doesn't fix this. solution: exit to menu and reload.
bug: can't buy individual fuel cans. if someone's selling two fuel cans, you have to buy both at once. solution: buy both when you only have one free inventory slot. you'll only buy one.
bug: quest NPC stuck in "i don't wanna die" animation. pretty simple: sometimes they get stuck in the crouched over, hands-on-head, "about to die" state. solution: drive far enough away to unload the area. if they're a follower, they'll warp to you. otherwise, just drive back. thankfully, you can still talk to them in this state.