You can build what you want in SS without messing up the upgrade path. For the most part, SS only looks at it’s plots, not what you build. You can build your own bed if you want.
Sanctuary just leveled up to level 1. There’s a bunch of stuff there. Some of it, I can actually interact with. I finally found a working weapons bench. If there’s an armor bench, I haven’t found it.
Before SS, I used to just build some beds, water pumps, defense turrets, a recruitment beacon, and plant some crops. That would be good enough until the town had too many settlers. Then I’d just add a few more of whatever it needed. It kept Preston happy and made me feel like I was doing my best to help the Commonwealth. I never really got into making a cool looking settlement. But SS makes some pretty wild additions! They look amazing for a war-torn, post apoc aesthetic!
But I’m finding it’s not my cup o’. You can’t interact with all the cool stuff. Some of it even gets in the way. I had to jump over a post just to get through a door to reach the city planner’s desk. I’m already 10 hours or so past installing it, so I’m not going to take it out now. However, I don’t think I’ll use it in my next run.
Every time I do another FO4 run I install SS. I always have high hopes that it will be a nice addition taking away the drudgery of base building. But I find that the base doesn’t feel like my base anymore; I’m visiting someone else’s location as it were. So I tend to ignore it after a short while and concentrate on making a new base for myself somewhere else.
Sim Settlements isn’t about building your base. You should do that yourself, if that’s something you want. It’s about building the other 34000 settlements they ask you to build.
Sim Settlements 2 seems a lot different then. There’s quests and stuff and you use ASAMs to make plots which the populace then builds and uses.
No, that’s what I am using and I think what they are too.
I’ve been using SS2 with the ASAMs and all.
Perhaps I’m playing very differently. I like having a few fleshed out settlements with multiple settlers around. That’s why I keep trying SS2 as it looks like it should generate something that feels like more than simply a safe house for me and a few companions. Yet no matter what I do the combination of SS2 plots and stuff never really meshes well with my personal buildings so I drift away and go build the personal stuff elsewhere and never really go back to the big settlement.
Since I rarely to never go back to Sanctuary I never have anyone asking me to build anything!
I’m using SS1, so that’s probably part of the lite experience.
Also, I almost always used Sanctuary as my main base. I guess it’s a rpg “home” thing. Not sure why I go back there just to dump stuff into the workbench once I connect other settlements with supply routes. I just do.
The game kind of positions it that way, what with it being where that first batch of Minutemen go, your former residence, etc. Just apparently it can be buggy if you use Sim Settlements with it.
Starlight Drive-in is really a good sim settlements starting location. Its not far from Sanctuary or that trader in the diner. It has a large area free from obstacles (once you scrap everything) leaving you tuns of room to build. Also sim settlements warns you about using sanctuary, red rocket, and I think a farm, the arby farm? So Starlight drive in checks all the boxes.
Also you are not impeded with the minute man quests that take place in sanctuary.
Several things kept appearing after Sanctuary increased to level 1. It’s halfway to level 2, and there is finally a working armor bench and a weapons bench as well. They’re both right there on main street. They were so obvious, I almost missed them. It just took them awhile to build them.
And the weeds around the cooking station have been cleared. You can actually see it now!
A mod gets an expansion.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t Starlight Drive-in plagued with radiation zones?
Not if you scrap the barrels in the middle of the pond.
You can take care of the barrels and the pond as well I think. Or maybe getting rid of the barrels fixed the pond.
There’s a small pond with radiated barrels, hardly “plagued” with radiation zones :)
I’ll be doing a new heavily-modded run-through (including Sim Settlements 2 & Sim Settlements Chapter 2). Some story/quest mods I’m thinking to include so far;
Quest/New Location Mods
- Point Lookout (DLC from Fallout 3 re-made into the Fallout 4 engine with some tweaks)
- Project Mojave (parts of New Vegas redone in the Fallout 4 engine)
- Chaotic Sun (new world-space, just updated)
- South of the Sea - Atom’s Storm (forgot this re-done world-space, adding a lot to the Glowing Sea & marsh areas)
- Miami Misadventures (Florida Man in Fallout; what could ever go wrong?)
- Operation Wilkes Estate (new world-space, think The Most Dangerous Game)
- Galac Tac Retribution & Galac Tac Mercs & Music (because there should totally be a group inspired by Mandalorians)
- All Americans (a quest mod featuring a biker gang)
- Hearts of Darkness (a mod about dealing with the Gunners)
- Fusion City Rising (an old mod with some bugs, but seems like a classic)
- Fourville (adds a new town which looks fun, although I may drop it due to the bugs list)
- Old Time Religion (a story-based quest mod)
- Brothers in Arms Redux OR the pair of Project Valkyrie & Outcasts & Remnants (Brotherhood of Steel-oriented mods)
I wanted to use America Rising (a mod about the Enclave), but I’ll probably be adding America Rising 2 when it releases later this year if it doesn’t require a new start, and it’s not compatible with the first. I’ll also be adding A Better World when it releases, which is an Institute-oriented quest mod.
Any other story/quest mods anyone can think of that I’m “missing” from the list?
- Guns for Hire which lets you set up a bounty hunting office which you can fix up, hire mercenary companions, etc
- Atomic Radio &Tales of the Commonwealth, which includes various odds and ends, including a number of new companions, each with their own quests/stories. Their stories are very fun/interesting, IMO.
- The Bleachers - A Diamond City Story, a great quest/location mod in Diamond City, with several new characters and a number of quests
- Ryns Fallout 4, great adds a lot of new/enhanced locations with new enemies
- Atomic World, another great location mod, adds lots of new places/enemies to fight
- David Hunter, A Brotherhood Story, adds a series of quests related to a BoS member
- “Immersive” series of location mods - Nahant, Salem, Beantown Brewery, Gunners Plaza, Hub City Auto Wreckers, Lexington
Other location mods:
Plenty O’ Exploration
Stumble Upon Interiors
Inside Jobs
moreXplore
Rysio’s Location Pack
Commonwealth Underground and Forgotten Spaces
Boston Emergency Services
N.E.S.T. Survival Bunkers
The Wild Wasteland (I love this one)
The Sewers
Brain’s Explorer Pack 1
Lima Detachment (love the locations but the loot is unbalancing)
Awesome stuff, thanks! A lot had slipped under my radar!