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Best way to deal with small settlements?

igtenos

igtenos

New Member
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4
Like, say, Outpost Zimonji? Or Graygarden.

I've already turned on "Beds count as houses" because of other tiny settlements making residential zones impossible, but this is starting to annoy me greatly.... Even for farms and industry sites, there's almost no room for anything.

What's the best way to cope this this? I'm already using spring cleaning to clear out all the bushes and shrubs.
 
Off the top of my head:

  • Creativity. Some of the settlements aren't as small as they appear. Efficient streets, piers, PCDug's Wedges, plots on top of plots, and...
  • ...levelling up farms and industry: all help. It's easier with...
  • Place Everywhere. Also allows zoning outside settlement boundaries. You could also use...
  • Expanded Settlements. And perhaps high-density mods, like...
  • JtBryant's Utilities (the barracks is very good for defense). Also, you could
  • limit the pop of the settlement. Easier with
  • Mytigio's Industrial City. Mytigio made a recruitment beacon that only attracts settlers if there's a free plot.
 
Greygarden is bigger than most think Build up there ,like finch farm it has the overpass:)
But with Small settlements I keep em small ,turn them into an outpost for ur favorate faction:)
 
igtenos said:
Like, say, Outpost Zimonji? Or Graygarden.

I've already turned on "Beds count as houses" because of other tiny settlements making residential zones impossible, but this is starting to annoy me greatly.... Even for farms and industry sites, there's almost no room for anything.

What's the best way to cope this this? I'm already using spring cleaning to clear out all the bushes and shrubs.
Click to expand...

Always remember that not every settlement has to be an SS settlement. You can always manually build a handful of small problematic settlements or use Transfer Settlement Blueprints for those and SS for the larger ones.
 
@Lystraeus You mention plots on top of plots. I've thought about building up with Sim Settlements. Do you have ideas, tips, or screenshots?
 
Bane said:
@Lystraeus You mention plots on top of plots. I've thought about building up with Sim Settlements. Do you have ideas, tips, or screenshots?
Click to expand...

It will technically work, you might only find settlers in them when you fast travel.... but they will have lots of trouble finding their way to them....

I personally see small settlements, as just that.... 1 - 5 people max, they just need what they need to live, no shops... some def, a stop over for provisioners.... not every settlement needs to be diamond city.... btw... biggest town I ever saw..... and something about getting back there one of these days.... green jewel!!!!!
 
Wwas thinking about making some "under plots" so to speak. plots where you can build on top off.
 
Bane said:
@Lystraeus You mention plots on top of plots. I've thought about building up with Sim Settlements. Do you have ideas, tips, or screenshots?
Click to expand...

I've, ahem, never done this. I'm too traditional to ever go beyond grounded plots. But I've seen others do this. The idea is build the foundations; use Stackable Foundations or similar, for a second/third level; and join em'up with stairs & mezzanines. Then plop plots :) Power poles could mess with the aesthetics; either Place Everywhere, or include a 1x1 offset.

As @ruinedworld said, there's pathing issues with vanilla. Settler Sandbox Expansion increases the maximum radius settlers can route to. It especially improves small/high rise settlements.
 
Lystraeus said:
I've, ahem, never done this. I'm too traditional to ever go beyond grounded plots. But I've seen others do this. The idea is build the foundations; use Stackable Foundations or similar, for a second/third level; and join em'up with stairs & mezzanines. Then plop plots :) Power poles could mess with the aesthetics; either Place Everywhere, or include a 1x1 offset.

As @ruinedworld said, there's pathing issues with vanilla. Settler Sandbox Expansion increases the maximum radius settlers can route to. It especially improves small/high rise settlements.
Click to expand...

I do this in certain areas (hangman's alley, starlight drive-in), and honestly it's hit or miss on how it looks with SS plots.
 
the only real way to deal with smaller settlements is to leave them small. sure, its possible to pack 40 settlers into a really tall tower, but they arent going to path correctly and itd be a pain to balance. even using vanilla beds and an apartment building you are going to run into issues with build heights.
 
I use to turn small settlements into provisioner way stations or a dumping ground for really annoying settlers....
 
Probably make Theim as outposts or anything that could stay small.
If you use industrial city, make Theim grade 1 or 2 plots that could help you improve big settlements.
Thats the way I use Theim, but if you could get scrap anywhere mod it could really help you
 
So.... Basically what I did was use All Settlements Expanded. That fixed most of the problem by giving me more room to work with. Although even with the mod, Outpost Zimonja is still really crowded with 18-20 people and all the plots for commercial & industrial (I use bed as homes).

Hangman's Alley is the exception. There's just no room for anything. I took down the beacon and moved excess settlers to other settlements. Tempted to put the beacon back up to keep doing this.... Good way to get people to slow growing or unpopulated settlements. I'm about 70 or so hours in (normal diff) so at this point I have most of the settlements unlocked.
 
Personally, I like the multi level settlements. Like with Croup Manor. I have the ground level. Then I put the beds and work benches in the house with all beds count as homes turned on. Then, on the very top of the roof of Croup Manor, I set down a floor and then extended it all the way around and out to the edge the settlement. This effectively doubled my space available. Then I set up 3 stair ways on the outer edge and 2 elevators so my settlers can get from ground level up to the platform easily.

For power, I put a stair way on the outer edge of the upper platform to go up another level. For this one, I just put a small platform with one of the 500 vault generators. The platform for this 3rd level was just a couple of the small wooden floor pieces. Then I snapped the base of the generator to them, making the top platform nothing but a generator that was suspended in the air. I did it this way so that my power generator would not take up space in my settlement. I added some power poles to run the power down to the platform level. After that, I ran a line down under the platform and attached a bunch of ceiling connectors to the underside of it. Then when I needed power on the ground level, I would just drop a line straight down. This way, I didn't need to have a bunch of power poles scattered around on the ground level taking up space and getting in the way.

On the ground level, I have mostly Agricultural with some Big Industrial plots and Martial plots on the outer edges. Workshops and beds counting as homes inside Croup Manor its self. On the upper platform, I have a few small Industrial and Recreational plots, but mostly Commercial plots.
 
IamTheDanger said:
Personally, I like the multi level settlements. Like with Croup Manor. I have the ground level. Then I put the beds and work benches in the house with all beds count as homes turned on. Then, on the very top of the roof of Croup Manor, I set down a floor and then extended it all the way around and out to the edge the settlement. This effectively doubled my space available. Then I set up 3 stair ways on the outer edge and 2 elevators so my settlers can get from ground level up to the platform easily.
.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a really cool approach! Do you have any screen shots? I like the idea of building up another tier.
 
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