Can't build water pump

[Selden]

I have all the materials I need, but when I try to build a water pump the green (or even red) outline doesn't show up. I've built these things before, but at the moment I can't solve the Abernathy Farm's problem of mysteriously having four people and needing more water.

Searching the discussion threads, I see a lot of 'can't build' problems. However, they all seem to involve mods and entire categories going missing - in this case, I'm playing a vanilla game and I have the water pump selected and all of the parts show as green with at least as much of concrete, steel and gears as it requires... and nothing happens. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

[Ilja]

Usually this is just a game glicth. Tarvel away from the setllmenet - at least the distance between Red Rocket and Starlight Drive-in. Spend night there, or see if you can place the pump in to another settlement in such distance. Usually this glitch will just go away, when your allow the settlement to unload properly.

Otherwise this might be caused by a broken file. Try to validate your official gaming files.
- Steam Library view: right click the game.
- Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Cache.

[bigdale]

If you're trying at the airport I can't recall if it is allowed there. Food certainly isn't. At the mechanists lair you can't either if you clean up the dirt in the main room by scrapping it.

[bigdale]

Oops I see you said Abernathy. No idea. I leave the one it comes with and build powered pumps.

[Selden]

From the looks of it, Bethesda follows a 'you can't take the last one because then we'd be all out' policy. It didn't work until I came back with more than enough of each resource instead of exactly enough.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by bigdale:

If you're trying at the airport I can't recall if it is allowed there. Food certainly isn't. At the mechanists lair you can't either if you clean up the dirt in the main room by scrapping it.

it can be done at the airport, the northern corners has a bit of dirt accessible in the zone, or you can build garden plots

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Selden:

From the looks of it, Bethesda follows a 'you can't take the last one because then we'd be all out' policy. It didn't work until I came back with more than enough of each resource instead of exactly enough.

Ah, that is possible. I just read about a similar discussion in Discord, where someone had the same problem. They had just 1 steel and game didn't allow to use it to build a resource object, until he had another one.

[Chaosium]

Which one? Because standard water pumps can only be placed on ground, it's written in the description. And by ground, they mean dirt, not concrete or anything.

[Selden]

Originally posted by Chaosium:

Which one? Because standard water pumps can only be placed on ground, it's written in the description. And by ground, they mean dirt, not concrete or anything.

First of all, the problem was solved.

Second of all, if I was running around with a red outline unable to figure out why it wouldn't let me place it, that would be a useful answer. Since I distinctly said I wasn't getting a green *or red* outline, not so much.