I defeated the Automaton inside the cave using the remote. After testing "deactivate weapons" and "party mode" I made the thing self destruct, but while I was testing the other modes the automaton killed the NPCs that had joined the fray.
I only noticed that the quest log had not been updated when I had already left the cave and was on my way to Evelyn's hideout. When I tried to return to the cave the northern entrance did not work - I could click it but nothing happened.
After I had dealt with Evelyn & Friends I teleported back to the city's northern gate and tried to return to the cave to further investigate the automaton problem. Unfortunately the cave entrance is no longer reachable since a "crash zone" has appeared in front of it: Using the southern approach the game reproducably crashes around coord. 285:341 and using the western approach it crashes shortly before reaching the ford. I've let the support tool send a few crash dumps and hope this helps. If you need more, just ask and I'll see to it.
