If you could build a settlement anywhere, where would you build and why?

[<color=#CD3210>Lunatic]

[Title]

[socialmediaaddress3]

I like Sanctuary's location.
-Mostly surrounded by water (which NPCs do not like to cross, though will on occasion)
-Lots of buildspace
-lots scrap loot.
-In a very low threat area.

I also like Somerville too though
-Because its so isolated I consider it a challenge to make it work
-The build area is big enough
- It has a single raider (well armed raider veteran) spawning not far outside who does not attack the settelment ( he is just far enough and works on a statue) but will attack you when you walk that road nearby.
So I can regularily go there and farm him for his loot. Also I have Commonwelath captives installed so I can rescue his captive and make her a settler. Actually I wish he would not auto attack, He seems like a nice guy what with working on his statue painitng. And he does not stand a chance against the leveled ,power armor wearing armed to the teeth PC who at this point is probably worth 50+ raiders in combat power.
I would leave him alone and not even rescue his captive fun girl, if he just would not attack.
- Because it is so far from my other settelments realistically it would not get timely support so I build the place into a fortress.
-Also I believe that corner of the map deserves some attention.
- In game we often have nomadic folks roaming around looking for a place. A large and well developed Somerville would be a beacon of hope in that region. In a real universe like this we would also have some tiny homesteads around nearby so if I build a trading post, a clinic and a gun store in Somerville, it would be a valuable addtion to that region.

In most of my playthroughs I use mods for extra population to amortize all these investments,and extra resources and for prefabs so its easy to build up extra housing .
In my latest playthrough I am at 24 NPCs and my goal is at least 30 NPCs in Somerville to make it large strong and not needing outside support (which real world would be too long in coming due to locaiton).

Half of them are male NPCs armed to the teeth with some of the best weapons the game offers, acting as guards.
Including 2 with miniguns ( remember NPCs dont run out of ammo, at least this is what I have been told on forums like this one)
The females are beautiful girls and farm, they are from "Commonwealth Captives" mods that I rescued and dressed up in hot vtaw and Lazman clothing

[fluxtorrent]

Conquest mod, you want it! (build settlements where ever you please)

My faves are the red rocket just outside Lexington, its a great location. Swans Pond is another fun one. Theres a bunch of good ones on the freeways as well.

[<color=#CD3210>Lunatic]

Originally posted by fluxtorrent:

Conquest mod, you want it! (build settlements where ever you please)

My faves are the red rocket just outside Lexington, its a great location. Swans Pond is another fun one. Theres a bunch of good ones on the freeways as well.

Thats what im using, was looking for a more centralised location for a safehouse, was going to use watts electrical, its fairly open area with virtually nothing hostile too close.

Does swan respawn when you build a settlement in his pond, i know the area well and there's virtually no hostiles near that specific area, it would be an ideal location, but it'd suck having a named behemoth respawn or eve non named after swans death.

[Zes]

I would build a nice setup close to a shore. a medium size farm on land. a fishing boat some animals.. But i dont like farming, I just like the look.

ofc some security measures needed but not walls for gods sake ;) that said, house needs some underground extensions.. like a bunker.

[fluxtorrent]

I don't recall ever SEEING him respawn, but that doesnt mean it wont happen. I did specifically build to account for it, walling the area and building turrets. I know the red rocket i mentioned still gets its random spawns so I built with that in mind too. Generally means building defenses to target the area the dogs and supermutants spawn.

Used watts in one playthrough and its less trouble than the red rocket, but I personally found it close enough to bunker hill to be kinda redundant. The parking structure next to kendall hospital is another good one if you want a more centrally located lexington base

[DouglasGrave]

My preference if it's anywhere tends to sound less like "farming community" and more like "supervillain lair", which is why my first thoughts are things like the Moon, or under the ocean. Or at least on a dramatic mountain peak.

Having to actually build somewhere in the Commonwealth in Fallout 4 would be much more restrictive.

[<color=#CD3210>Lunatic]

Originally posted by fluxtorrent:

I don't recall ever SEEING him respawn, but that doesnt mean it wont happen. I did specifically build to account for it, walling the area and building turrets. I know the red rocket i mentioned still gets its random spawns so I built with that in mind too. Generally means building defenses to target the area the dogs and supermutants spawn.

Used watts in one playthrough and its less trouble than the red rocket, but I personally found it close enough to bunker hill to be kinda redundant. The parking structure next to kendall hospital is another good one if you want a more centrally located lexington base

Considering the conquest workbench build area size, i was also thinking maybe the roof of the cambridge polymer labs with just a little edge towards the river for water. I thought about the kendal parking lot but the nearby hospital entrance usually spawns 3-5 blood bugs, some of which can be legendary black widows, and a few pesky bloatflys.

I noticed the interior location entrances within settlement build area isn't used. Like the basement in the base settlement for croup manor, so i could technically build on top of a skyscraper with roof access and the settlers wont use it, not sure if invading enemies would transition to reach them though.

I think next time i play, i'll head to the south side of the river, clear off swans pond and other locations on the rivers edge. I might even do that cult quest with the outdoor symposym and then wipe them and build a settlement there.

I'm also wondering what might happen if i clear hangmans alley, and then tcl or fly to the roofs above and build a settlement there, would it combine both or break the game?

[fluxtorrent]

irrc it bases the settlement on the cell size, so it should neither overlap nor merge. Not sure what would happen if you tried putting it down in a cell already covered by an existing settlement XD

[Zekiran]

Both settlements break in weird and wonky ways. Having used conquest I'm not that impressed, but mainly because there are a hundred other mods that have settlements in various places that I DO like to build at.

For me I like flat areas that aren't too huge, there's a specific place that is near one of the railroad track lines - only one of the mods I've ever used has utilized it, for some reason. I can't remember the precise location it's at, but I think it's near the one radio signal with a woman and her son trapped in a train car? It is definitely around a few other existing settlement mods like Cutler Bend I want to say. (I could be absolutely wrong lol).

Anywhere you walk there are a lot of empty spots on the landscape that do make me wonder why a shack or shed or even just a tent hasn't been put up on it. There are more than enough actual people in the Commonwealth for this.

Also: anywhere there is a structure that has been boarded up but not demolished? Hello? There's a ton of cement and concrete and bricks. Get your backs into it, settlers, drag some water up from the irradiated river, mix up that powdered neighboring city block, boom - you have a solid wall again.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

If I could build a settlement anywhere..

Hmm the rear area of Parsons insane asylum would be perfect for a settlement. Walled for the most part, large build area, water access and plenty of room for crops as well.

I always tend to make a little player home in the room above Diamond city. Close to the shops and a nice view and safe from wandering critters

That's such a good spot, you're right. The problem that I think arises is that since it's heavily scripted there for the fighting that you have to do for the quest in that spot, it might get broken super easily.

[necro]

Strategically I would pick vault 88.
-Security alone is easily defensible. One side being a nuclear nightmare with a vault door and possible defenses; the other being a hidden gift shop close to the castle/diamond city.
-It's a safe walkway from roughly the middle of the map all the way to the bottom.
-Very spacious so it has room for almost 5 diamond cities.
-Easy access to water and dirt for planting food.
-Already supplied with nuclear power beyond your ambitions.
If i was free to build anywhere though, it would be the open city area but anymore tension on my pc in the deep city would kill my computer. I always wanted a scrap city built into the walls of the dying one.

[<color=#CD3210>Lunatic]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

If I could build a settlement anywhere..

Hmm the rear area of Parsons insane asylum would be perfect for a settlement. Walled for the most part, large build area, water access and plenty of room for crops as well.

I always tend to make a little player home in the room above Diamond city. Close to the shops and a nice view and safe from wandering critters

The area behind the creamery is also a series of mirelurk spawn positions, i have encountered 3 mirelurk kings, 1 mirelurk hunter and a rageclaw.

[<color=#CD3210>Lunatic]

The reason why i started this topic was for insight to where a good position would be to build a settlement of your own.

I have used the Conquest mod for a while and during my current playthrough i am leaving preston in concord, ignoring the minutemen, did nothing to sanctuary, i'm basically wiping every base settlement of any settlers, leaving behind empty lots, occasionally adding enemy spawners so those locations feel like base game pois.

The base game has like 30ish settlements and it ruins immersion for me, i have had previous games with a perfectly a to b to c to d to e ect supply caravan setup with around 30-40 settlers per settlement and all lv3 shops in every settlement, and the game just doesnt properly register the combined income, resource generation and sharing, it just doesnt work, you'd think 900-1200 settlers, 20% of which harvest the 3 foods that you make adhesive with, 10% running stores that are supposed to generate about 100-200 caps each per day and the other 70% running salvage, would amount to a vast supply of adhesive, misc materials, purified water and caps being generated into the workbench that can be collected from anywhere if all supplys are linked, but that isnt the case. The game cannot compute that, and just leaves a single settlements earning per workbench meaning you have to basically fast travel all day between settlements to get your hard earned rewards,

So i have mucked around with the conquest mod before, i built a city high on up a 12ish story highway, i'm considering an ocean city, and maybe a bunker in the glowing sea.

But for my current playthrough i really just want a centralised safehouse, somewhere in the middle of the commonwealth, i'm considering the south side of the booby trapped bridge north of cambridge seeing as both bridges and the surrounding area has no random encounter points of hostile mob pois. I'm also considering cambridge polymer labs roof with a little bit of the river and the alley to fraternity post, and i'm about to check out the park with swans pond.

I also have a mod that adds a few locations to explore, and the tales from the commonwealth mod which also adds a couple interior safehouse/settlements.

Also considering the fact that the vault & mechanist expansions add interior settlements, does anyone have a good idea of an interior poi, between cambridge and diamond city that has a fairly large and open interior like a warehouse or factory that could be used as a settlement?

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Lunatic Heretic:

Considering the conquest workbench build area size, i was also thinking maybe the roof of the cambridge polymer labs with just a little edge towards the river for water. I thought about the kendal parking lot but the nearby hospital entrance usually spawns 3-5 blood bugs, some of which can be legendary black widows, and a few pesky bloatflys.

I'm not sure how big that is (since I don't mod Fallout 4), but if you're not going to blow it up the C.I.T. ruins seem like a tempting choice with enclosing walls on three sides around a large patch of usable ground.

If you're going for an Institute ending or a non-ending, you could do a lot worse in that region of the city.

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Also: anywhere there is a structure that has been boarded up but not demolished? Hello? There's a ton of cement and concrete and bricks. Get your backs into it, settlers, drag some water up from the irradiated river, mix up that powdered neighboring city block, boom - you have a solid wall again.

I agree that it's kind of funny that brick isn't a more common reconstruction material given all the destroyed buildings around, which tend to leave plenty of stray bricks.

[ᕮᗪᗯᗩ®ᗪ🍀]

Totally C.I.T. ruins. The place already looks like a fortress. Not too large, but you should be able to build some stairs to reach the roof. I like the view and it's a nice sniper position.