Anyone else feel a bit betrayed that you can't use scrap generated by the industrial plots? or any of the caps generated by the town?

[SoulInShadow]

As a compromise, perhaps when virtual storage is full the full output of scrap production plots is diverted into the player accessible settlement inventory (assuming it doesn't already, I haven't done much testing on that score). In theory this should make more scrap available to players who prefer to build settlements themselves rather than use city plans.

 

[msalaba]

and risk my life for a bunch of asam kicking yokels

Thanks, now I have coffee on my keyboard!

As a compromise, perhaps when virtual storage is full the full output of scrap production plots is diverted into the player accessible settlement inventory (assuming it doesn't already, I haven't done much testing on that score). In theory this should make more scrap available to players who prefer to build settlements themselves rather than use city plans.

As for the resources, you can turn them off in the settings. You can also turn off the costs that require these resources. Then you can build a bunch of scrap heaps and whatever junk collection the addons offer. Then you will have SS1+

 

[Deleted member 10215]

Now that I had some more time to experiment/test, and people explained a few things to me better than the mod itself (by which I mean, explained at all, unless its buried in those "tutorials" on the holotape that didnt work last i checked), I understand the way the "virtual" system works a bit better and am less cranky. I'm still not 100% sold on it, but with me actively TRYING to avoid Jake's Questline on this save, the rate of getting Unique Settlers and thus working up the tech tree is way slower, I am clearly still missing the actual "output" section of the techs that takes ingame months and owning half the Commonwealth to reach. But thats on me for not playing the mod 100% precisely how it was intended.

 

[Strec]

Now that I had some more time to experiment/test, and people explained a few things to me better than the mod itself (by which I mean, explained at all, unless its buried in those "tutorials" on the holotape that didnt work last i checked), I understand the way the "virtual" system works a bit better and am less cranky. I'm still not 100% sold on it, but with me actively TRYING to avoid Jake's Questline on this save, the rate of getting Unique Settlers and thus working up the tech tree is way slower, I am clearly still missing the actual "output" section of the techs that takes ingame months and owning half the Commonwealth to reach. But thats on me for not playing the mod 100% precisely how it was intended.

Even with the facility I have now to avoid Jack (I don't want the quest interfering with my tests) and the facility to choose which settler goes in which settlement (I try to have settlements with performant settlers and some others with standard ones) I think it's difficult to evaluate how this economy works.
I'll try soon the new IDK Logistic station to see because I fear the integrated caravan plot ystem is bugged.

 

[Syndrous]

Even with the facility I have now to avoid Jack (I don't want the quest interfering with my tests) and the facility to choose which settler goes in which settlement (I try to have settlements with performant settlers and some others with standard ones) I think it's difficult to evaluate how this economy works.
I'll try soon the new IDK Logistic station to see because I fear the integrated caravan plot ystem is bugged.

Bugged how? The Empire system is intentionally limited in range to nearby settlements, likely following the logic that Preston on a trip from Quincy to The Meuseum of Freedom lost around 24 armed survivors. By that logic the distance that the vanilla and past SS1 caravan's could travel made no internal sense. By allowing them to travel so far with such minimal guarding Bethesda was intentionally ignoring how dangerous they previously stated the Commonwealth was.

As for the economy and how it works, I only interact with Fallout 4 in survival with mods that limit the amount of easily accessible loot so keep that in mind (I haven't tested easier difficulties), and with the way the system adjusts itself to your game mode the current economy feels balanced, which SS1 never achieved. The economy here is focused around the 'Empire' concept, instead of single settlements. You are not meant to max out and balance a single settlement, but to have several settlements in a HUB that contribute to production, which leads to commercial or conversion plots to eventually enable the player. This is about rebuilding the Commonwealth as a whole, rather than focusing on a singular settlement. And the new systems for helping the player gain resources makes sense, in light of real life mayoral ship, or even leadership as a Monarch. Prosperous regions had Kings who paid for the goods they received, sure they taxed the citizenry, but they also commissioned goods and paid for them, which was something SS1 didn't do which led to the player becoming ungodly wealthy. SS1 was never good for survival mode as it makes survival negligible. SS2 focuses on correcting that with a combination of the Virtual Storage system as well as the focus on Commercial and Conversion plots as the main area that benefits the player, the economy is also presently impacted by the lack of additional plots because it's new, for instance, survival players would benefit greatly from AMMO or MEDICINE type conversion plots, or plots that build a Commercial building that sells those items.

I think that if you want an absurd number of resources, you will be looking more at SS1 or add-ons that create plots that can convert and discount resources, though those both go directly against the teams stated design goals. The latest release of information pertaining to the economy made it clear that they wanted to avoid breaking internal game balance that even vanilla settlements are capable of.

 

[magitsu]

It's probably best to just focus on gameplay balance. Lore doesn't make complete sense, since if you had this many robots and vertibirds you wouldn't run out of more common materials either. True lack of resources would start from lack of trees which would be burnt for warmth/cooking. Instead there's fusion cores, laser and plasma power everywhere.

Basically Lone wanderer and Settlement builder are too different concepts which need a lot of handwaving to come together. Since there are functioning vaults and towns, I'd say that the lone wanderer part should be deprioritized more. Instead it just should accept being a war torn dystopia with no real lack of resources, leaving the lone wanderer to pure player choice (if you'd play without companions, without settlement building). It's almost like a looter shooter after NV->FO4 transition.

SS clearly emulates RTS in some ways like Kinggath has suggested before.

 

[Strec]

Bugged how? .............

........ I think that if you want an absurd number of resources, you will be looking more at SS1 or add-ons that create plots that can convert and discount resources, though those both go directly against the teams stated design goals. The latest release of information pertaining to the economy made it clear that they wanted to avoid breaking internal game balance that even vanilla settlements are capable of.

No need to be agressive

As I said "I fear", aka "I've the impression that", aka "I'm not sure that", ................ In any case after trying to construct some plots I've seen that sometimes the caravan lines change without new settlement added, sometimes they diseappear, sometimes there are multiple lines from one settlement ...
Second thing you may replace "absurd" by "absurd in my mind" because perhaps you don't know but not all players want the same gameplay and such a thing is subjective.

Concerning the range limitation I don't think it's a good idea, at least to permit or not to install a caravan line, making the start very difficult depending of which radiant quest Preston gives you. Think it would be better to reduce the trade produced depending of the range.

 

[Syndrous]

No need to be agressive

As I said "I fear", aka "I've the impression that", aka "I'm not sure that", ................ In any case after trying to construct some plots I've seen that sometimes the caravan lines change without new settlement added, sometimes they diseappear, sometimes there are multiple lines from one settlement ...
Second thing you may replace "absurd" by "absurd in my mind" because perhaps you don't know but not all players want the same gameplay and such a thing is subjective.

Concerning the range limitation I don't think it's a good idea, at least to permit or not to install a caravan line, making the start very difficult depending of which radiant quest Preston gives you. Think it would be better to reduce the trade produced depending of the range.

Absurd in my mind is likely correct, and I apoligize if I came off aggressive as reading through this thread had me more than a bit heated, as I believe that Kinggath was very clear that this was going to be a different Sim Settlements in it's overall balance and direction. I am aware that other ways to play exist but in this case it seems a moot point, we are discussing a mod that's overall intent is to implement a vision and not cater to a playstyle. Kinggath wants to make settlements more integral to the over-arching Fallout 4 story. He was very clear about that. And that meant including systems that maintained a certain amount of balance in the system to avoid trivializing content both now and later. He also gave systems to allow most of that to be bypassed but I believe the overall balance aspect is not something that could be easily opted out of. By moving most of the produced items of your settlements into the Virtual Storage space the team is preserving character balance and parity within the game. Is it currently a bit conservative? Maybe. That would depend on the playstyle of the player. The current balance fits me well, because I keep valuable loot in one of my player homes, and have been very slow about upgrading any single settlement too far. This may be a big issue for many who grew accustomed to the wealth and largess generated in SS1 for the PC directly in very short time-frames as well, I acknowledge that not everyone wants to be a slum lord, ensuring minimal needs are met and then moving back to upgrade as additional options are found. I don't feel incorrect saying that if your playstyle doesn't sit well with how the team appears to be handling balance then that isn't really something you can expect to change, as that balance is designed to keep the story portion of the mod intact and non-trivial.

The economy though is designed around owning multiple settlements that HUB into a whole though, it's an industrial system if you will, and that is something that takes a great deal of getting used to. Not allowing a single settlement to hit the commercial tier and be self sufficient is a design choice that I impressed that they took, as it forces the player to branch out away from that single settlement, in turn forcing exploration for additional rare resources and planning of your empire at the macro level. I agree with others that have said that this iteration may be more about city plans than individually manipulating plots yourself, as your end goal in the story of SS2 is so lofty i.e. the rebuilding of a civilization. The range limitation was necessary in that regard, to reflect the gradual building up of an industrial empire, and while I agree that makes you somewhat dependent on Preston, early game you are given access several base options, though the triangle of death has to be handled carefully, including Starlight Drive-in without input from Preston. I think this is going to come down to a fundamental design philosophy for SS2 that is different from the design behind SS1, I also suspect that there is an actual performance reason for the shorter supply line distance as well, relating to script performance.

Your actual issue with Caravan/supply lines vanishing is a weird bug that likely needs correcting, I haven't noticed it myself, and will keep an eye on it.

 

[Strec]

Your actual issue with Caravan/supply lines vanishing is a weird bug that likely needs correcting, I haven't noticed it myself, and will keep an eye on it.

I'm not really sure they completly diseappears or if it is only that they don't appear on the map but, in doubt I prefer to avoid anything that can corrupt my tests of the core
Concerning the lack of resources I'm mainly concerned with the "basic" ones (Wood, Concrete, ...) which are needed to create settlements from scratch because I've a tendency to expand quick with few settlers and expand my settlements in a second phase.

 

[Bored Peon]

Bugged how? The Empire system is intentionally limited in range to nearby settlements, likely following the logic that Preston on a trip from Quincy to The Meuseum of Freedom lost around 24 armed survivors. By that logic the distance that the vanilla and past SS1 caravan's could travel made no internal sense. By allowing them to travel so far with such minimal guarding Bethesda was intentionally ignoring how dangerous they previously stated the Commonwealth was.

That is kind of an understatement. Last year or so myself and a few other lore buffs on Steam explored the Concord/Lexington Area and that was where the majority of the losses were if you counted only Minutemen and Settler corpses. The assumption we came up with was the pack of 30 made it through to Lexington because of their size and then got over run by ghouls and then the gangs picked off the now weaker group. So obviously a lone person with a brahmin would be easy pickings.

Now for the game itself. About a year ago I played with mortal settlers, meaning no protected and essential status. I lost so many provisoners just between Ten Pines and Starlight I ran out and go the no Automatron start.

I think that if you want an absurd number of resources...

People just need to rethink how to use the economy to their advantage.
1. You will still always have the cheesy bottled water.
2. You could sell your crops.
3. You could scrap your vegetable starch into adhesive (which sells higher than vegetable starch.
4. Make a productive economy and withdraw the caps every few days.
5. Scavenging is still VERY productive.

People are also overlooking that if they were able to take the settler resources then the operating costs would wreck half their settlements. I doubt many people even realize how much wood and steel your settlements are using to pay or operating costs.

 

[angrysunbird]

I’ve been using the Lootable Vault Tec Containers and Crates mod to help with the increased demands of the game. Even then I’m out of materiel far faster than I used to. It may be slightly cheaty but I’m not interested in roleplaying as a scravver.

 

[Syndrous]

I’ve been using the Lootable Vault Tec Containers and Crates mod to help with the increased demands of the game. Even then I’m out of materiel far faster than I used to. It may be slightly cheaty but I’m not interested in roleplaying as a scravver.

If you plan to go that route I recommend the mod Lootable Crates by Richwizard. It avoids breaking precombines in those areas by placing a slightly smaller crate over top of the original crate. The LVTCC mod breaks pre-combines in many areas. I had 2-3k nuclear material without ever venturing south of Sunshine Tidings or east of Starlight Drive-in, prior to making adjustments to the lists it uses for survival balance.

 

[angrysunbird]

If you plan to go that route I recommend the mod Lootable Crates by Richwizard. It avoids breaking precombines in those areas by placing a slightly smaller crate over top of the original crate. The LVTCC mod breaks pre-combines in many areas. I had 2-3k nuclear material without ever venturing south of Sunshine Tidings or east of Starlight Drive-in, prior to making adjustments to the lists it uses for survival balance.

Goddamit! I knew there were two and I didn’t check and downloaded the wrong one. Thank you for this. I guess I’m restarting my play through tonight.

 

[Lostlegends]

I think some of this is getting a little too serious. At the end of the day 'its a game' and fine it may be aimed more towards a specific play style, but whats wrong with adding options for other play styles? that is what's being talked about here, not rewriting, not changing how anyone else plays it.
I am already looking into modding it, to give the player more from owning settlements, because thats what some players want.
Personaly I never had this massive amount of reasources that people talk about in SS1, but I never used SS water/power and hardly ever used defense plots. I built everything myself, because thats the way I liked to play.

Lets put it this way for me Fallout is dead, I finished it countless times, there is nothing new to do!
Sim Settlements 1, breathed new life into Fallout and made it a very different game.
For this I am eternaly gratefull to Kinggath and team, they have probabily given me hours more fun than I got from the base game.
Is it wrong of me to try and get some more fun from Sim Settlements 2?
Kinggath understands that people play differently, look at the options!
This isnt about trying to change the way others play the game, it is about opening it up for people like myself.

 

[Strec]

Tryed hardly to play with SS2 alone to see how we can create an "empire" ...... and failed to create a county....

My fun is not to be transformed in a pure scavenger, farming the wasteland for wood and copper every time I want to construct anything.

I'll wait to see if some plots appear giving "non virtual" basic ressources (wood, steel, concrete) and for now I reinstall More Scavenging Stations to replace my scavenging plots.

 

[Slb1]

Your actual issue with Caravan/supply lines vanishing is a weird bug that likely needs correcting, I haven't noticed it myself, and will keep an eye on it.

The "vanishing" may be a weird bug, however, a line will vanish if a caravan plot on one end loses power - this has happened to me twice. There are other problems I am experiencing with the caravan/comm situation, see https://simsettlements.com/site/ind...avan-comm-pack-brahmins-where-update-3.15959/

 

[msalaba]

Lets put it this way for me Fallout is dead, I finished it countless times, there is nothing new to do!

I never too Codsworth with me when I first entered Diamond City and never knew he had dialog lines with the Noodle Robot (can't remember the name - Takahashi?)
They are few and far between, but I at least see one new thing I haven't seen before each playthrough. (2500+ hours of gameplay)
But yeah, I hear you.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

I never too Codsworth with me when I first entered Diamond City and never knew he had dialog lines with the Noodle Robot (can't remember the name - Takahashi?)
They are few and far between, but I at least see one new thing I haven't seen before each playthrough. (2500+ hours of gameplay)

I only learned a couple playthroughs ago myself that Hancock actually acknowledges Nick if he's with you during that initial scene when you first enter Goodneighbor with the dude that tries to extort you for "protection money".

 

[msalaba]

I only learned a couple playthroughs ago myself that Hancock actually acknowledges Nick if he's with you during that initial scene when you first enter Goodneighbor with the dude that tries to extort you for "protection money".

Oooooh! there's another combination I haven't done. I guess there is still life in this game.

 

[Irealys]

Bethesda games often have little things that happen so rarely and under such unique circumstances that many people never experience them despite playing the game more than once.
They never have an issue with doing content, and even very interesting content, that won’t be seen by everyone. Take Fallout 3, if you only follow the main quest line do you ever have a reason to get anywhere close to Oasis? The Republic of Dave? Dunwich Building? I remember playing my first game, being under the impression I had discovered most locations, taking the explorer perk and having my jaw drop.

Or they have hidden dialogues that most people would never see. I got the quest from three dog to get the dish to get info about my dad. Found my dad myself and only after that I went and finished his mission before talking to him. He had dialogue acknowledging that I helped him even when I didn’t need his info anymore and rewards you with a key to a hidden cache. I’m curious how many people ever got that dialogue.

And I try to avoid spoilers (never looked at the wiki quest pages) because I like trying new stuff in new games.