Greetings! Just to explain my situation: I recently ported my old save from 0.F-3 into the newly released 0.G version of the game.
When I tried to continue the quest for Dino Dave, I couldn’t complete the last and final mission where the quest says that I have to talk to this NPC named “Smokes”. I looked up all over the Refugee Center and didn’t find a single NPC bearing that name. What should I do to find this character? I would very much like to help out Dino Dave. Thank you.
They are adjacent to the refugee center’s lobby, behind glass panes. IIRC they greet you the first time you come near them.
Thanks for the reply! I double-checked the NPCs behind the glass panels. Well, one is a merchant named Ledwanski, and the other one is a doctor. There is a broker deeper into the refugee center, there is also the arsonist, the representative, the mercenary and the rest are just random refugees or guards. Still not a single character named “Smokes”.
I even tried to talk to all of them, but none of them has any speech options that is related to Dino Dave’s request to build his cardboard castle.
Could “Smokes” be a new NPC added in 0.G that replaced someone in 0.F? And since I imported an old save from an older version of the game, this supposedly new NPC did not spawn?
Smokes the shoopkeeper (or merchant?) of the Refugee Center. If its an old save and you have already discovered that Refugee Center perhaps its 'cuz Smokes can no longer spawn because a shopkeeper was already spawned there. I guess your save is from a time when the Refugee Center shopkeeper is still randomly generated.
That sounds like bad news 
. I suppose the merchant in my older save was supposed to be replaced by this Smokes guy. Yeah, I’ve visited the refugee center quite a few times in my old save, so pretty much every NPC has already spawned in there.
I wonder, is there a way to just spawn this “Smokes” guy into the game? I tried the NPC spawn debug command in the game, but it just spawns random NPCs.
I really don’t want to start a whole new save 
.
Unfortunately, if your save and the generation of the merchant predates December 9th, 2021, your probably Shit outta Luck. There’s not really a method to spawn special location NPC’s arbitrarily, probably because they’d seize up and their heads would explode. If you look at that PR, it was actually explicitly set to not touch old shopkeepers, to avoid potentially breaking saves.
Forward migration of saves is generally guaranteed, but forward migration of old saves is not guaranteed to include any new content. Most everything you got should still work, but it’ll work how you had it, not how the new toys do.
Edit: Actually, digging deeper, Daves quest wasn’t even completed until May of 2022 so this possible interaction was probably not even considered.
Thanks for the reply.
This old save of mines dates back to 0.E, which was a long time ago. Huh, so that was why Dino Dave’s quest seemed strange. He used to just loop conversations, without a real ending, even after giving him everything he asked for. Whelp, I guess the beggars at the refugee center will just have to wait then.
I’m no big brain, but if you have already ported your save, special structures like the refugee center can occur more than once, if you are willing to cheat, you can just turn on debug clairvoyance and scan the map for another refugee center. Theoretically, since the save would be 0.G it would generate a 0.G Center with a 0.G Merchant?
Thank you very much for the suggestion! 
Thing is, I feel like too much has changed since 0.G. Equipment, crafting, and other mechanics have been changed significantly. Although I ported the old save (world and character) into the new game, the experience is still lacking. Thus, I have decided to start a whole new world with a whole new character to witness the new version of the game with a fresh start. 