Conquest + Scrap Everything

[Mringasa]

Just started using Conquest since I reinstalled and modded FO4, and I'm looking for others who have used it, and have good spots to setup a new Settlement. I'm going to avoid the vanilla settlements mostly, with a couple exceptions, but haven't had much luck so far setting up a new one. Any locations others use effectively?

Reeb Marina was my first shot, and there wasn't much to scrap there even with Scrap Everything installed. I'm wondering if maybe there is another mod that'll let me scrap more in more locations?

Also looked at a few other locales, but random encounters and then Tales from the Commonwealth have nixed those spots. Lol. I plan on heading south, or maybe restarting and using a more southern alternate start, and building in the marsh around Quincy. Should be good since it's bare with not much in and around it but some trees.

[Lem]

This is primarily an issue with pre-combined meshes. Fallout 4 optimizes the environment by combining most of the visible meshes into one giant mesh. For settlements, you can only scrap an object that is both a valid scrappable object and isn't combined into a larger mesh. Scrap Everything puts tons of stuff in the list of scrappable objects and disables pre-combined meshes in settlement areas. There is no reason for Scrap Everything to do this in areas that aren't settlements as it would cause more performance issues and would edit more areas, conflicting with more mods that wish to edit those areas. Because of that, you aren't going to find many scrappable objects outside of settlements because almost everything is pre-combined.

If you have a freakin beast of machine, there is an ini edit that disables pre-combined meshes. I forget what it is offhand, but it should be easy to find with a search. It will severely impact performance, particularly in the areas that are already the worst (like downtown) since those areas have the most meshes. If you're having the idea of trying that trick to scrap objects and then turning it back on, I doubt it will work. Most likely the scrapped meshes would show back up once pre-combined meshes is re-enabled.

I'd recommend looking for mods that add new settlements and tweaks the areas to remove pre-combined meshes... or even make one yourself if you're really invested in having a settlement in a particular area. It shouldn't be too difficult to modify a cell to disable pre-combined meshes. One I can recommend offhand is the nuka settlements mod that adds all the major nuka-world parks and several surrounding locations as settlements. It disables the pre-combined meshes and adds to the list of scrappable objects as well, making each area work nicely. Of course, only use that if you have performance to spare in nuka-world.

Outside of all that, the best you can do is find areas that are just mostly clutter free already. Unfortunately, those areas tend to be the least interesting. Wilderness areas around the edge of the map are a good example. The tops of some large buildings could also work.

[Mringasa]

Ahhh. Now that is some excellent information. Had no clue they actually combined the meshes like that. Thanks!

I'd say I have a midrange machine, but I might try that edit just to see how horribly it'll affect my game. If it doesn't hit it too hard, I may just keep it that way. I can deal with about 30 FPS, much lower I'd have to turn it back to normal though. Going to start looking around for other places that aren't too cluttered to build in then. Since I know that edit will probably make me run around 5FPS. Lol

[showler]

Can you turn the INI edit on and off only when you plan to scrap in a new settlement?

[Mringasa]

Doubtful. It'll probably cause them to reappear. Already looking into just leaving it off though. If I can scrape enough FPS to be comfortable in Downtown in a big firefight, I'll just leave it off and take whatever hit I get. Time to tgm, tcl and fly for a bit after I do this. See if I can make my computer scream and cry.

[ronr42]

I don't use Conquest, so I can't help with your question.

As far as building in the "Marsh" around Quincy, you should know that the cells of Warwick Homestead and Spectacle Island intersect with the Marsh. That means that if you have much built in those settlements, building much in the marsh will kill your fps quick. Too much in those cells will have to render all at the same time.

[Mringasa]

I'm planning on avoiding almost all the vanilla settlements. I will probably use Deadman's Alley and maybe Starlight, just because that one is huge and so open to development.

I doubt this is going to work, just from reading up on that .ini addition it looks like I'm going to turn my game into a slogging mess. We'll see though. Might just need a couple extra tweaks to get it playable for me.

[ronr42]

Ever since the game released I've always thought Beth should have made West Everett Estates a settlement. It is a great location and may be worth checking out for a possible Conquest settlement. If you use Scrap Everything, there should be plenty of materiels there to scrap and build with. Just a thought.

* You will probably have to deal with respawning Super Mutants though. :)

[Mringasa]

Lol. Already considered that one. I was also looking around Fort Hagen. There to the south is a little depot, possibly military or civilian government. Looked like a nice place. SO many areas that would be perfect spots so hopefully I can get this to work well enough to be playable.

[ronr42]

Good luck and have fun with whichever location[s] you decide on.

As I mentioned, you will have to take into consideration respawning enemies in the area you build. Those spawns are going to be an issue with your building. I got Gunners and Raiders spawning in my hotel common room/livingroom at Somerville. If I shoot any before they get outside, they sometimes will clip into the foundation and I have to remove it to get rid of the body.

[Lem]

Originally posted by showler:

Can you turn the INI edit on and off only when you plan to scrap in a new settlement?

I haven't tested this myself specifically to be sure, but it is my understanding that objects marked as being included in the precombined mesh will do so even if scrapped or disabled, causing them to effectively reappear whenever precombined meshes are enabled in the area. I believe it does this because no matter what you do in your save, the objects exist in the map data and it is the map data that is used for creating the precombined mesh. It's a great optimization intended for static objects that are never meant to be moved or destroyed. That's all fine and dandy until we come along with our awesome mods and decide we want to move or destroy those objects.

My experience with the issue comes from Scrap Everything conflicting with other mods. A lot of mods like to modify sanctuary area cells, especially mods that add new gear and decide to create a chest in sanctuary to make the new gear easy to grab. When another mod overwrites the cell, it re-enables the precombined meshes for the area, which then causes all those leaf piles and trash heaps that I scrapped to re-appear. The objects are still marked as scrapped in the save, so I can fix it by making sure Scrap Everything is moved down in the load order so that it takes precedence. I keep Scrap Everything pretty close to the end of the load order now. Lessons learned!

[ronr42]

Originally posted by Mringasa:

Lol. Already considered that one. I was also looking around Fort Hagen. There to the south is a little depot, possibly military or civilian government. Looked like a nice place. SO many areas that would be perfect spots so hopefully I can get this to work well enough to be playable.

The potential problem with Many locations is the lack of flat ground to build on. I used a mod called "Ground" at Somerville to build up the lower hillside to be level with where the original farmhouse sat. It worked well. Here's the link if you want to try it.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17691/?

[Mringasa]

Ground has been a staple in my modlist. I use it tons to level off areas, and also since it has two snap points at the top of the block, you can shift things up/down really easily. Makes it easy to build something 1/2 a block high instead of being stuck with a full block height. Love the snapping plants as well. Instead of having to eyeball rows of veggies, can just snap them onto the Ground block so easily.

So far, so good. City dipped into the 30s during a nasty little battle, but nothing major as of yet. Going to have to see how well this works with a built up settlement though. That'll probably be where my major dips come from. Seems stable too, so another point in the good column.