Wastelander's Homesteading Guide to Fallout 4

A homestead building guide for new, old, or returning wastelander's...

Pre-Game Considerations

Playing this game without Nuka-World is the way this game is meant to be played, throwing Nuka-World into the mix turns everything upside down and is just a giant pain. There are bugs everywhere...

During the character building portion of the introduction, Special Stats are almost irrelevant through the entire game, it is best to start with investments into Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.

The base point distribution should be like 5 for Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence and Agility and like 4 for Strength, Perception and Luck. One of these stats, generally Luck gets an automatic +1 boost after finding the SPECIAL Book under Shaun's crib. The rest of the stats get the regular +1 boost from Bobbleheads and the rest of the points can be maxed out via level ups.

Starting with high Charisma helps to ensure speech check passes which are pretty much the only skill check passes, a good source of XP, and the main source of caps for the player. Endurance and Agility are nice for HP and AP pool building, higher Intelligence captures more early XP and high Luck ensures good drop rates.

The best perk to max early is Idiot Savant, this yields bonus XP events that have a higher frequency of occurring the lower the players Intelligence and the player must raise their Intelligence to 9 for the Nuclear Physicist perk which doubles Fusion Core life spans once maxed. Max Idiot Savant early and it will yield a significant amount of level ups before the player starts to live in their power armor.

Speaking of Power Armor, there are so many suits, scattered everywhere, they might as well be considered garbage. I literally have a warehouse full of just Power Armor Suits and a chest full of the spare armor pieces that don't have a suit to fit, curate a set of each and the special armor pieces and just junk the rest or create a couple different builds for kicks and giggles. I.E. X-01 suit outfitted with a Jet Pack for exploration and an X-01 suit outfitted with the Medical Pump for auto-healing in combat.

Repairing suits of Power Armor is the single greatest draw on useful resources aside from settlement building, wait until a piece of armor is damaged and in the red or broken until actually repairing it. The game does not pro-rate the repair cost based on the remaining duration, therefore it is best to get the most wear out of a piece before repairing it to conserve on resources.

Almost all junk counts as a resource now and there are very few items that do not count, mostly Burnt... objects and Folders. Collect everything, deposit everything into a single Workshop pool, raise the character Strength to 6 and max out the Strong Back perk to carry a minimum of 500lbs of junk while wearing Power Armor and then max out the perk in the Charisma tree that buffs companions, this will raise their carry weight to roughly double the previous capacity and enable the player to haul a minimum of 700lbs of weight back without being encumbered.

All perks are important, however because of the settlement building nature of this game, there are now a bunch of perks that need to be taken in order to capitalize on junk farming for settlement building. Here are those perks...

Strong Back: More carry weight, movement and fast travel while encumbered
Cap Collector: Unlocks the Shopping Stations for settlements
Local Leader: Allows for establishing Supply Lines
Medic: Unlocks the Clinic at settlements
Scrapper: Salvage rarer and more components from scrap items
Nuclear Physicist: Doubles Fusion Core life and allows for living in Power Armor which increases carry weight and allows for hauling more junk back to settlements

This list does not include the more obvious workbench perks that allow for modifications to save on space but those are necessary to for maximized workbench potential within the settlements.

To buff Nuclear Physicist, pick up the Repair bobblehead located at the top of the Corvega Assembly plant, this location can be freely founded and is repeatedly assigned as a quest designation later on in the game.

To mark Diamond City on the map from the start of the game, pick up the magazine found at the Gorski Cabin which is located south of Sanctuary Hills along the creek, just follow the river south and it's right there.

At the Starlight Drive-In there is a skill magazine that doubles the amount of meat looted from wild animals, taking this early on can be very beneficial over the course of the game. Try to search the rooms in back of the movie board without triggering the Mutated Mole encounter that unlocks the diner since this is better completed later.

The Starlight Drive-In might not be where this magazine is located...

A Strategic Approach to Starting Fallout 4

The introduction to this game is unbelievably short, which is nice, but there are a lot of things immediately thrown at people with little to no tutorials and then Nuka-World just throws a monkey wrench in any kind of plans.

Complete the "tutorial", leave the Vault, discover Sanctuary, meet Codsworth, follow Codsworth around Sanctuary Hills, feel free to discover the Red Rocket Station immediately outside of town...

Do not build any radio towers at Sanctuary Hills or the Red Rocket Station or develop any settlements...

DO NOT COMPLETE THE MISSION ASSIGNED BY CODSWORTH TO INVESTIGATE CONCORD

While the player can initiate the mission, then just simply leave and not come back when instructed to retrieve the Power Armor on the roof and return later to complete the mission, it's probably best to just never initiate the quest and give Concord a very, very, wide berth for the moment. I recommend keeping the quest active and simply not going anywhere near the marker until the locations around the marker have been discovered and the player has moved deeper into the Boston area and away from exploring the northwest corner of the map. Basically until they are familiar with where not to go.

The reason for this is because initiating the Nuka-World DLC and activating the Raider Settlement content which is part of completing Nuka-World means angering the Minute Men and Preston Garvey and potentially breaking settlements by angering the current residents. Therefore, it is best to avoid the activation of Preston Garvey and the Minute Men who comprise the games core faction until after completing Nuka-World and expunging the Raider scum from the wasteland.

The game will stop the player with a message recommending they reach a minimum of level 30 before proceeding, so how players fill that time is largely up to them, however here are some recommendations. The following is a suggestion on how best to start the game which will allow them to maximize on everything else later on in the game.

Because Speech checks are a significant source of experience, there are two magazines and a companion perk to acquire, the earlier the better, which will give the player +25% XP for checks on the opposite sex and a global doubling of points for Speech and location discovery. There is an additional magazine that offers a global 5% XP gain. In between all of this, the player should be leveling their character for Charisma to unlock the Local Leader perk which will allow for the establishment of Supply Lines between workshops and maximize their speech success.

First, go straight to Diamond City and acquire Piper, travel with her and over time she will yield The Gift of Gab which will double speech check XP and location discovery XP. While we're at it, stop by the Schoolhouse in Diamond City for another magazine that boosts Robo-Companion damage. Next go to Goodneighbor and check the counters of the Hotel Rexford for the global 5% magazine, talk to everyone in the Hotel Rexford as well for a couple missions, one of them being Trouble Brewin'. On the way out of town stop by the Third Rail and check the restroom for another magazine that raises companion damage resistance. From Goodneighbor, head north to Bunker Hill and to the top of the monument tower, at the top is a Live & Love magazine that will yield an XP bonus for persuading men. Finally, travel due south from Sanctuary for some time to a place called Fiddler's Green Trailer Estates, at less than level 10 with no good weapons or perks, this location can be difficult to clear. The trailer park is inhabited by ghoul residents so shoot for the legs and aim to cripple, there is a Glowing One that may be difficult to defeat. Another tactic is to gain some high ground but this generally causes enemies to play peek-a-boo. In one of the trailers on the east side of the park is the magazine that yields bonus XP for speech checks on women. Altogether, these bonuses plus Idiot Savant can net a Charismatic character a very significant early game XP and cap boost and I would highly recommend acquiring all these items immediately on a fresh start, this also describes how to acquire 5/9 of the Live & Love magazines.

While completing the Nuka-World raider missions that get assigned by the raider faction leaders, one of the assignments sent me to the Shamrock Taphouse which is where Trouble Brewin' sends the player, either "complete" the quest early, or wait to see if the player gets sent there later by a faction, the choice is largely irrelevant. The difference is that acquiring Buddy earlier, allows the player access to infinite Ice Cold Beverages which can be farmed for caps, the earlier the better, but in the long run the point is moot. Acquiring new beer recipes could also be a good direction to go for some early game levels by giving players something to do that doesn't affect much while preparing for Nuka-World. Ultimately, choose to keep Buddy at Sanctuary Hills for the choice of convenience, farm Buddy for Ice Cold Beers, after completion Nuka-World, stock Buddy with the special Nuka-Cola variations to build a stock of Ice Cold Nuka-Cola's to increase their already ludicrous effects.

The next two activities prior to Nuka-World are the completion of Vault 88 and the defeat of the Mechanist since these two DLC packages can be completed between levels 20-30. Defeating the raiders outside of Vault 88 prior to level 20 and with no good gear or combat perks may be difficult, I made it through at level 18 and cleared the Vault out later on at like 25+, the Vault does not need to be cleared to complete the Vault 88 quest line however. Postpone the activation of the Vault 88 Radio beacon, or activate it and then de-activate it when instructed to conduct the initial interviews. The purpose of this is to advance the Vault 88 quest line without trying to build a real settlement, this can be done later. Choose all the benevolent experiment options and do not persuade the current Overseer to stay, the objective is to become the Overseer for the achievement. This will open access to the Vault components in the settlement building menu, which are superior to other building options.

After acquiring the Gift of Gab, complete the Mechanist quest lines to open the Mechanists Lair, from the Mechanists Lair, build a bunch of basic Automatons with Protectron tops and Mr. Handy Bottoms since the Mr. Handy Bottoms require fewer components to install basic Factory Armor on. Now the Local Leader perk and the supply lines come into play, feel free to rename the Automatons and then assign them to Sanctuary Hills, Red Rocket Station and Vault 88 via the Workshop menu.

Hold V to activate the workshop, highlight the Automaton, press Q to establish a Supply Line, select a location then press Enter to confirm.

Build and attach an Overseer Terminal found in the Electrical > Misc. section of the settlement items and use the Terminal to control and re-assign workshop routes as necessary, i.e. double route assignments from one work shop supplying another like Sanctuary Hills < - > Mechanist Lair to Sanctuary Hills <- Mechanist Lair.

To re-assign supply lines, simply enter the Overseer Terminal menu and deactivate the current supply line jobs, then exit and reassign units as they appear.

What this will do is create a nexus point from the Mechanists Lair to the rest of the workshops found throughout the game using robots as Provisioners in place of Settlers, who can then be more beneficially assigned to farming, guarding or doing something else.

After completing all of these things, the foundational groundwork has now been laid for settlement building much, much later down the road and the player should be very close to level 30, if not beyond, which is honestly recommended.

Preparing for Nuka-World

The previous section describes a general run down of what to start Fallout 4, the following is a more in depth description of what is necessary to prepare for Nuka-World and beyond.

Faction Interactions

Minutemen
As previously stated, DO NOT make contact with Preston Garvey, Nuka-World content involves killing members of the Minutemen and taking over settlements related to Minutemen quests which Preston does not take kindly to and Preston and the Minutemen are related to core story content, they can be skipped but I prefer not to.

Freedom Railroad
If contact is made with the Railroad, only complete the MILA quests assigned by Tinker Tom to install the atmospheric measuring devices around the Boston area. One of these missions will take the player to the top of the Corvega Assembly Plant where the Repair bobble-head is located.

Brotherhood of Steel
Completing the repeatable missions for the Knight and Scribe at the Cambridge Police Station are a good source of early game XP, in order to avoid glitches, it is actually recommended to complete these quests until locations in Far Harbor are assigned to the player. The reason for this is because of bugged quest lines in Far Harbor, if the player has cleared an area prior to the assignment of the related quest, then the quest cannot be completed or canceled due to bugged conversation content, i.e. the option to state that the quest has been cleared or to cancel the quest is not available and the related enemies or items won't spawn.

Do the first mission offered by Paladin Danse and accept the invitation to join the Brotherhood of Steel but don't accept the mission after clearing the Arcjet location, this is due to a minor bug that occurs as the result of a quest picked up in a variety of locations to the west of the Cambridge Police Station. There is a dead BoS squad who put out transponder signals inside the National Armory, the Revere Satellite Relay, and just northwest of the Insane Asylum by like a city block or so, follow the road to a bombed out building which will lead to a location at the far northern edge of the map. Talk to the stranded BoS member and choose whichever option, convincing him to return yields points with the BoS later, then to Danse to turn the mission in.

At the National Armory, there are two X-01 suits, one for repair inside the building in the back of the compound which is incomplete, and another complete suit found inside an open shipping container right next to the repair shed building. Look at the door to the repair shed then turn left, a short distance away is a jumble of shipping containers and one is open to reveal the suit behind a locked gate.

The minor bug comes from turning the mission in later since the mission does not update and re-assign the turn in location to Lancer Kells, so it's just very unclear as to how to wrap things up since the conversation line with Danse becomes unavailable after he becomes a companion.

There are Nuka-World raider missions that involve the killing of BoS members, what I do in these cases or in the cases involving the Minutemen is simply stand back and let everybody kill themselves unless there is a really strong legendary enemy and then I take them out. The BoS will not get upset, but the Minutemen will if Preston knows about it, which is why we're not talking to Preston.

Institute
The Institute is irrelevant since their related quest lines and activities won't be completed until later on, nor have I explored them to discover where the point of neutrality lies.

Overall, in the long run, I choose to side with the Minutemen and the Railroad over the BoS and definitely not the Institute.

Perks, Power Armor and Character Requirements

There is no required character build for Nuka-World but a decently upgraded suit of X-01 power armor, at least a decently upgraded combat rifle, shotgun or assault rifle, a decent supply of curatives and a lot of patience.

The perks that make Nuka-World much more tolerable are these:

Strong Pack +4: Needed to carry a lot and fast travel
Nuclear Physicist +3: Necessary for Conserving Power Cores
Rad Resist +1: Makes Kiddie Kingdom more tolerable and is generally useful
Inspiration +3: Gauge can't carry much and needs all the additional weight he can get

If the Repair Bobblehead has not been found yet, retrieve it from the top of the Corvega Assembly Plant to buff Nuclear Physcist.

X-01 Power Armor is by definition the best, it has the highest duration and defenses, the most upgrade versatility and the specialized Quantum suit found at the very end of Nuka-World is an X-01 suit.

This is really all the player needs, a Jet Pack is very handy in Nuka-World, but there are a lot of things that hit really hard so the Medical Pump is also nice to have.

There's a Bug in my Cola...

To call Nuka-World buggy is like saying of the bugs on earth we only see the top 2%, of the bugs in Nuka-World, we see only the top 2% but they very big bugs. Primarily, the two worst bugs found in Nuka-World are none respawning recipe books and enemies under the map.

Enemies under the map is no big deal, either time shots to try and clip the animations throw explosives to try and hit with an AoE or just leave.

The Nuka-Cola Recipe books are much worse. They can and will disappear from the map in the event of explosions, avoid detonating explosions or explosive effects anywhere near the location of a recipe book in order to avoid it being potential flung through a hole in the map and disappearing forever. The recipe books and Scav! magazines used to re-spawn until they fixed the re-spawning Star Core glitch by simply de-activating the over-world reset in Nuka-World.

In the Commonwealth, environmental skill magazines will re-spawn in certain locations and can be picked back up if they were ejected from their sitting position which fixed the problem of them being thrown around during combat, they broke this in Nuka-World in order to prevent the Star Cores from re-spawning.

I have witnessed one single possible over-world reset in Nuka-World and it was on accident, the trigger is unclear and so is what it affects. What I saw, was a Nuka-Cola vending machine that had re-spawned the soda it was holding after I had picked them up already and after talking to Gauge at the Fizztop Grille and starting the quest to meet the raider leaders, that machine no longer respawned sodas. While that seems small, it could potentially mean that the overworld reset in Nuka-World may recur as long as the player does not proceed with talking to Gauge, however I have not confirmed that.

Twelve Vending Machines to Rule Them All

In Nuka-World, there are a series of vending machines which will rapidly re-spawn Nuka-Cola's in a way that is unlike the regular re-spawning of items which could be related to the aforementioned Nuka-Cola Recipe glitch.

There are five in the main area of Nuka-World:
Outside the Cola Car Arena
In the main parking lot
On the corner wall of the Nuke-Ade
Inside Cappy Cafe
Inside the Parlor - There are two inside the parlor but the machine on the left is glitched from being too close to the other machine so the soda's typically spawn like in the floor and you'll be lucky to pick a few up off the floor, but a couple is better than none.

There are six machines in and around the Nuka Galactic Zone:
On the right just through the main entrance
Outside the Starlight Theater

Facing the bottom of the Starport, turn right and proceed up the Staircase, not the ramp that goes to the next area of the park, there turn right at the top of the first flight and turn right again for a Nuka-Cola machine that is tucked in a corner

Continue up the stairs and go right again for another machine
Turn right again and proceed down the ramp then turn right yet again for another machine
From the final machine, do a 180 and exit the zone then turn left and head towards the sheds

Nuka-World and Raider Settlements

Welcome to Hell Raider Scum!

As mentioned in the previous section, learn the location of all the re-spawning Nuka-Cola Machines well and develop a route preference as raiding these machines often is the entire purpose of doing the Nuka-World DLC.

I ran out of room in the previous section so this one will largely be a continuation of the previous one.

Another small bug that I encountered was while clearing the Galactic Zone, if the player clears the Nuka Galaxy ride before clearing the Robco Battlezone, then the Robco Battlezone arena becomes inactive unless there is a different trigger for it. Therefore, clear the Battlezone first for a good source of fusion cores and do Nuka Galaxy last when clearing the Galactic Zone.

Since there are recipe books that can be glitched out of the game, I will list the ones that are in combat heavy areas.

Nuka-Cooler: Found in the Star Market in the Nuka Galactic Zone on a magazine rack, there is a Mr. Frosty in the area and potentially other robots that can knock the magazine off the rack and make it disappear aside from player activated glitches. I would suggest having developed some of the Sneak perks and looking up it's location for a surgical extraction, as mentioned the Mr. Frosty or something else happened during combat in a nearby zone and the recipe book disappeared in my previous attempt.

Nuka-Ray: Found inside the Robco Battlezone, again it is on a shelf in the gift shop area under the viewing stands and there are a bunch of robots and explosions that will throw it around and potentially through the map. There is a side door that loads directly into the gift shop and right next to the magazine stand, entering the building from this door in Sneak Mode is probably the best way to collect it.

Nuka-Void: Again, the same issue, found in the Starlight Theater, there is the Startender who just detonates on defeat and will blow the recipe book to where ever, the initial location is on the concession stand counter. Try to lure the Startender out and away from the concession stand to minimize the risk of losing it. Alternatively, look up the location, then use Sneak to run in and grab the magazine before combat initiates.

Nuka-Power: Again, same issue, this time different location at the Nuka-World Power Plant. I would very highly recommend going to the Power Plant and picking up the recipe before doing the Power Play mission since there are Raiders that will hole up in the room and they will light it up with grenades.

Nuka-Love: Due south of Nuka-World is a lone guy named Evan, don't shoot Evan in the face when you see him from a distance, instead be nice and ask him to share the Love...the first time I saw Evan, I shot him in the face cause that's just Howie Do It...

Nuka-Bombdrop: Found on a concession stand in Dry Rock Gulch, this one again has the same problem as all the other recipes, there are enemies in the area and any AoE effects can potentially launch the book into the unknown, just be careful and methodic when clearing this area of the park. Overall, the bloodworms are significantly less threatening to the magazine than the Mr. Frosty is because the bloodworms don't shoot Nuka-Missiles.

The rest of the recipe books are pretty obvious when trying to find, there are a couple more hidden ones, but not really.

The only other notable portion of Nuka-World is maxing Gauge's affinity for his companion perk which provides another buff to global XP gain and making sure to capitalize on his re-spawning trade inventory. Every return to base, sell all the useless clothing items the player picks up like the clothes from dead Disciples and other junk items in exchange for 7.62mm ammunition for use with the assault rifle native to Nuka-World. It is by far the strongest of the rifle ammunition's literally 1-3 shots on all but the strongest of enemies and even then it's like 5-6 well places shots to explode a limb.

When introducing oneself to Mason the leader of the Pack, chose either all the intimidation options or at least pass the final intimidation check for a special named rifle that deals increased damage for consecutive hits on the same target, combine this with Bloody Mess and the game is just broken easy. This rifle plus Bloody Mess = Meatwad Mode where enemies just explode into hamburger, personally, it's not my favorite since I enjoy a margin of combat difficulty and it also makes searching bodies more difficult since there's just enemy chunks mixed up with other enemy chunks.

Now farm Nuka-Cola, unlock all the recipes, clear all the zones, complete all the missions until the player meets Shank and gets the "pleasure" of creating Raider Settlements.

The player gets to start with one settlement near Sanctuary Hills, chose to kill the inhabitants, I chose Starlight Drive-in. This sent me to kill Mole Rats, pretty benign. The next mission sends the player to bully a local settlement, I choose Abernathy Farms because it affected the Minute Men the least and was the lesser of all the evils to choose from. You can apologize to Abernathy Farms later and it creates a no harm, no foul situation, especially if you use the persuasion grenades.

After the first settlement is established the quest line Ammoral Combat will begin which unlocks a series of fights the player can participate in to unlock the weapon Aeternus which is a special gatling laser powered by a fusion core which gives the weapon unlimited ammo and does not consume another fusion core. Check the ammo section after equipping the weapon and a random 8/100 fusion will be equipped to the player even while wearing no power armor. Objectively, this is the best weapon in the game.

Power Play can be triggered after the second raider camp is established, if the player completely ignores one of the factions. I.E. in my play through I assigned the Operators to four areas in Nuka World and the Pack only got one area then I made a camp for each of those gangs in the Commonwealth and triggered Power Play against the Disciples. The reason I favored the Operators is because they generally carry better, more expensive equipment since they're the rich kid gang. The Disciples carry mostly garbage and explosives and the only thing useful the Pack carries is bullets.

From there the player gets assigned to kill a local raiding party and is also instructed on Raider happiness which is a moot point and then they gain the ability to continue establishing camps, the max perk for Wasteland Warlord unlocks after 8 raider camps have been established.

The best locations for Raider Camps are:

Coastal Cottage
Murkwater Construction Site
Hangman's Alley
Outpost Zimonja
Sunshine Tidings Co-Op
Jamaica Plain
Croup Manor
Starlight Drive-In

These are split between areas meant for Railroad Safehouses and a couple Minutemen Settlement locations. What they all have in common are neutral enemy clear zones, meaning no settlers were harmed in the making of the camps.

After 8 camps have been established and Aeternus retrieved, there is 0% reason to leave any of the Nuka Raiders alive, simply return to base, complete the final farming run, buy up the last of Gauges supplies and say goodbye then walk into one of the leaders home bases and start blasting to free the slaves held in Nuka-World.

GG Nuka-World is complete and as easy as it sounds, was an absolute nightmare to have to play through....

Work In Progress

This guide is a work in progress as I go back through and re-play the game after learning a whole lot and messing a bunch of things up that I would have rather not...

I have re-written the above material to be more helpful and slightly more coherent.

Wasteland Homesteading 101

Charisma and Perks
This section comes first since it is relevant to character building if the player deems it necessary.

Charisma affects how many people will appear in a settlement, and there are perks unlocked through a certain amount of Charisma and some other stats that unlock settlement functions.

There is no need to rush these perks or max Charisma from the start of the game unless it is the players personal perogative. However, they should be taken into consideration at some point in terms of strategic leveling to ensure that all the perks are taken in an efficient order.

The most important perk is the one that allows for the establishment of supply lines between between settlements. This works by entering the Workshop menu, walking up to any settler and pressing Q to assign a supply line, a menu will appear and a settlement chosen and what this does is connect the building materials available in one Workshop to the newly selected site. However it doesn't allow for the access of all crafting items or other stored goods like weapons and armor, only Junk materials.

Companion characters can be assigned as Provisioners, this is not recommended, but it is funny to see Codsworth running across the Wasteland.

Overseer Terminal

In the Misc. section of the Electrical objects section of the Workshop Menu is an Overseer Terminal, this can be plugged into a power grid and used to assign work to unemployed settlers. Be patient with the terminal and let each screen run the way that it wants to, or the programming will not work correctly since it can be buggy. This terminal can also be used to assign tracking quests for companion characters if the player can't remember who or where their companions are located. The terminal is best used to re-assign provisioning caravans and to un-assign farm labor since settlers will assign themselves to any available and unassigned work such as excess crops. This can be beneficial or annoying it depends on what the player wants to do.

Scrapping and Storing

Firstly and foremost, to maximize on building materials when gaining access to a settlement, the player will either be able to Scrap or Store environmental objects already within the settlement. Some items are Scrap only, like trees, damaged paintings, fences, junk cars. Other items like junk tin cans on tables or other gather-able objects can be stored in the Workshop.

Scrap the scrap items and Store the store-able objects like the tin cans and other junk items, the reason for this is because storing the object in the workshop will assign it a higher junk value than the scrap value of the object itself. It doesn't seem like a lot but a little goes a long ways.

I.E. Tin cans are worth 2 or more steel in the Workshop as junk, via the Scrap menu, it is only worth 1 Steel.

Some items like pre-built furniture can be stored or scrapped and it might look junky and better for scrap material, but it is more often than not better to store the junk furniture for later after the settlement has been built because it might fit somewhere saving some materials or can later be set down and scrapped for more material.

Placing Objects

No where, anywhere, does it explain that while selecting an object for placement the player can hold Shift and object more or less independently with the mouse, but that is an option. Experiment a lot with this, I know that the mouse buttons rotate and the scroll wheel moves things forwards and backwards, using Shift + Scroll Wheel the object can go up or down from its orientation axis but that can get confusing real quick.

Fencing Settlements

Please do build fences for settlements, please don't use the wire fencing and get familiar with building junk fences. The building materials are roughly the same cost, the difference is that junk fencing is not destructible, is larger and will therefore cover a greater space with fewer pieces than the wire fencing while providing a higher quality of defense for the town.

Irregardless of whether a town is fenced in or not, it will be attacked, however fenced towns seems to have a statistically lower chance of being attacked and a statistically higher chance of self repelling the attackers since they can successfully do that on their own. This all makes sense since most of the attacks will spawn in from certain points or attackers can come in from all angles, therefore fencing prevents being attacked from either one or more directions by providing cover and redirecting attackers to certain points.

Be strategic about the fencing, don't just build a fence around the entire perimeter available and call it good, attackers will still spawn in and all this does is waste materials and building allotment. For example in Sanctuary, there is a lot of hedging that provides natural fencing and then the buildings themselves create a barrier so all the player has to do is plug the gaps between the houses and some of the hedging to barricade just the cul-de-sac, enemies will still spawn in but at least the majority of the town is blocked off.

Building Foundations

There are two types of "Wood" foundation, one is a wooden platform on stilts and the other is involves a cement base which can be laid over a variety of other environmental objects like the pre-existing foundations found in Sanctuary Hills after scrapping the destroyed buildings. Use this to your advantage to "reset" pre-existing building structures by laying new foundations over the old foundation to help square the new building with the map or make things look more aesthetically pleasing. With the cement foundation, a ring can be build around the base to create the visual appearance of a complete foundation, then floor pieces can be attached over the gap in the center to save on materials but keep a pleasing aesthetic.

Assigning Supply Lines and Maintaining a Hub

From Sanctuary, assign two settlers to provision the two nearest settlements and then from there assign a single settler to provision the next workshop until a complete circuit has been established. This is the ultimate goal behind building settlements and opening the workshops is to create a global network so that junk caches and crash pads can be established anywhere which is the first thing most people want to do but as I found out almost 200 hours in, it's possible to paint yourself into a corner and then have your hard worked settlement just taken from you, or after assigning all my settlements there is no room for Raiders and honestly, it's so annoying but I don't want to skip it either since like what is the point?

Just start with Sanctuary, the Red Rocket where the player meets Dogmeat and maybe a few key others like Vault 88, Longfellow's Cabin in Far Harbor and the Red Rocket in Nuka World after doing the Raider Camps.

[MidnightGuideWriter]

Since booting this game up for the first time in November - December of 2023, I have put almost 300+ hours into something like 4 play through restarts for various reasons. I will get back to re-vamping this guide after I debate another reset since I'm still kind of pissed at this game for reasons...