I've ventured to the orbital trading outpost outside my planet, gone to the sky guys bar, and attempted to buy rootbeer to start the quest but there is none to buy. Now the quest won't start and I'm not sure what to do. is there a way to spawn in the rootbeer or does it have to be bought from the trader?
Once you buy the "beer", take a seat and wait a few seconds for the contact to contact you. If it hasn't happened after a full minute, you have a borked mission that requires you logout while at the table with a beer in hand, then have the server admin restart the game on the server, then you login again and the mission contact should speak to you immediately after you rejoin the game at the table with a beer already in hand. If you're playing singleplayer - think of the server as your PC and do as above except you need to shut down the game on your own PC then restart it, then log back into the savegame.