I'm trying to understand how HQ functions, but this whole thing is just a mess to me. I understand that trade agreements take excess resources from the settlements that you have established agreements with and that the only way to send power to HQ is through a trade agreement and a power transfer plot, but nothing seems to be working the way I want it to. I've been trying to figure out what the issue has been for the past week and I came to the conclusion that I know how HQ and transferring resources functions but not how it all works. To clarify, I get that a settlement needs to put out excess resources but I don't understand what constitutes as excess- is it only water and power generated through plots that's transferred or can you use vanilla resource generators to help? none of this is explained within the gameplay it's just:
"Build a power transfer building to transfer power." and it's like, that's great and all but how do I ensure that I have extra power without spamming municipal plots? How can I make my player made settlements balanced and unique so they will output enough for HQ? I've been seeing responses from people saying to just pick a settlement and spam, but I don't want to do that- technically I can't because I have all but one settlement claimed in my game with the majority using city plans. Or the common response is just to cheat using the terminal to eliminate the resource needs and that just takes the effort out of it- what's the point of me building everything up just to get rid of what all the build-up was supposed to be for? I'm not gonna cheat because I won't understand how this all works if I cheat.
In my situation I have 10 settlements linked to HQ with trade agreements I will attach pictures I took of each settlement so you can see what they're producing along with my HQ status:
- Sanctuary Hills
- Emerald necklace
- Sunshine Tidings
- Lakeview
- Chestnut Hill Station
- Eleanor's Shack
- The Castle
- Spectacle Island
- Beachmont
- Daylights End
I'm gonna list off everything I have constructed in my HQ that deals with resources:
- 2 dinning halls
- 1 communal Kitchen +100 max food
- Food lab (I can't seem to find information on what resources it provides and what it takes away I know it gives you food)
- Cafeteria +80 food +5 power usage
- Power distribution +1750 power
- Lower hallway +10 power usage
- Robotics lab +200 power usage
- Old World Library +10 power usage
- Medical Lab +150 power usage
- Communication Center +550 power usage
- Water Treatment +500
- Laundry +20 water usage
- 2 showers (I thought these would take water but when I looked at the room terminal there wasn't any resource requirement)
with all this I have 0 power 0 food and 89(?) water. At first I thought my troubles with transferring resources was because I've been using logistic plots in my player built settlements (Sanctuary, Emerald Necklace, Lakeview, Chestnut Hill Station, Eleanor's Shack, Beachmont, and Daylights End) so I switched them to Caravan plots thanks to the memory lounger (that was a god-send), but nothing seemed to change my power, water, and food all showed 0. After a few days of adding a bunch of vanilla resources to my settlements and going about making sure needs were met in order for my Advanced water and power plants in my player built settlements to upgrade to level 2 or 3 the end result was what I pointed out in the beginning of this paragraph.
I just can't seem to figure this system out, I wish that instead of just giving us a pop-up box saying what these things are supposed to do the SS2 team made an actual tutorial directed by Jake like how they did for the plot types. I can't learn how to play this by simply reading a 2 sentence pop-up it doesn't give me enough information to understand how the system is supposed to work. I'm hopping my post will bump this enough to get some more community involvement because this has really been frustrating me. And if the solution to all this is simply to activate the cheat that eliminates resource requirements than why design HQ like this to begin with?
I'm only allowed 10 attachments so I will make an additional post with the final picture of The Castle.