HQ Food and Water

[GumShoe]

I have established headquarters trade agreements with 18 settlements, the majority of which have Hi-Tech Power/Water/Food, but my HQ Food is a dismal 12 when trying to research disease cures. The Water stat is at 90. I have 9 settlers with 10+ END assigned to logistic with a current Logistics Energy rating of 97. I've built all the Cafeterias and Dining Halls I can find. I even did the food research. What am I missing or is this yet another HQ bug?

I'm also stuck on Commonwealth Rising with only 350 power (known bug in v2.2.2) and the Cheat for quest skipping doesn't work.

 

[Ubin_Timor]

The Settlement Management Terminal mod currently has a known issue where recruiting a tracked settler will cause the behavior you describe. I posted a bug report and the author (cbrgamer3) has replied that they are working on a fix. I was able to fix it by going back to a save before I recruited the settler. Fortunately, I caught it almost immediately after I did it.

unfortunately it looks like I won't be able to use it till it's updated and even then I have no idea if it will work. It started doing the critical failure bug after I used the refresh all plots option and ever since I haven't been able to access it, even when I reloaded a previous save. Hopefully cbrgamer3 comes up with a fix some time soon.

 

[Ubin_Timor]

Don't forget that Caravans (and Power Transfers) will shunt Food/Water/Power production numbers around to other settlements on that same 'trade network' if those other settlements don't have enough to fill their own meters. Because of that, what one settlement's numbers say their excesses should be, might not be what HQ can actually access.

I had discussed that with ThunderboltDragon- which my main concern was that resources we're being transferred to Sanctuary even though my needs were already met, but I guess that just meant my needs were met by my other settlements. I think I mentioned before that I have every settlement in the Commonwealth- excluding Bunker Hill and Warwick Homestead claimed, all my settlements that aren't player made- these are ones I had a hand in designing like most of the settlements I've posted pictures of excluding The Castle and Spectacle Island use ROTC city plans.

It's weird how HQ doesn't take priority, I assumed that any trade agreement with HQ would mean that the settlement would focus on giving surplus to it rather than directing it to settlements in need especially if you've claimed half the Commonwealth- with the exception of products generated through production plots.

I've relied on ROTC because I can't remember if the regular plans level-up, when the mod came out it didn't seem like the base plans leveled. I didn't want to deal with designing each settlement- I like building but my player built settlements took sometimes days to buildout. designing 6 settlements is good enough for me. Unfortunately I found out that ROTC isn't stable after heavily relying on it- I had done a playtest on my girlfriend's computer (it's essentially a potato) and couldn't even go to a settlement using ROTC without an immediate CTD. I recently bought a new high end desktop because my gaming laptop that I usually play on is still being fixed and I've been having CTD periodically in ROTC settlements (not nearly as much as my girlfriend's PC) along with the occasional power bug were I have to rewire the entire settlement because the rebuild power option in the workbench isn't an option- at least not for me because I will CTD while it's active I thought maybe it was on my end then I looked it up an noticed a few people have been posting about the same issues I've been having so that was kind of a relief. Greentop Nursery is a permanent no fly zone though, as soon as I get within viewing distance of the place I CTD which was annoying because I needed to go there for one of the Concord quests (had to use console to advance the quest), but otherwise the ROTC plans have been looking really cool I never got to see how these plans leveled up before. It doesn't seem like there are any other options when it comes to city plan collections so I'm stuck with ROTC, don't particularly feel like searching for 32 different plans when I'm already pushing 230 mods as is.

 

[yaugie]

Do note that according to kinggath's own Livestream Lets Play over on Youtube last week, he was certain the numbers he was seeing in his own game in HQ were off too, and weren't even consistently different to what he was expecting, so there really must be something calculating incorrectly there. It's tough to tell if the current 'public beta' has resolved it, I don't have any saves at that point to test with and don't have the time before Friday to cheat one up to that point. (there's a bit in the changelog for WSFW's next patch that MIGHT have helped)

 

[ThunderboltDragon]

I had discussed that with ThunderboltDragon- which my main concern was that resources we're being transferred to Sanctuary even though my needs were already met, but I guess that just meant my needs were met by my other settlements. I think I mentioned before that I have every settlement in the Commonwealth- excluding Bunker Hill and Warwick Homestead claimed, all my settlements that aren't player made- these are ones I had a hand in designing like most of the settlements I've posted pictures of excluding The Castle and Spectacle Island use ROTC city plans.

It's weird how HQ doesn't take priority, I assumed that any trade agreement with HQ would mean that the settlement would focus on giving surplus to it rather than directing it to settlements in need especially if you've claimed half the Commonwealth- with the exception of products generated through production plots.

I've relied on ROTC because I can't remember if the regular plans level-up, when the mod came out it didn't seem like the base plans leveled. I didn't want to deal with designing each settlement- I like building but my player built settlements took sometimes days to buildout. designing 6 settlements is good enough for me. Unfortunately I found out that ROTC isn't stable after heavily relying on it- I had done a playtest on my girlfriend's computer (it's essentially a potato) and couldn't even go to a settlement using ROTC without an immediate CTD. I recently bought a new high end desktop because my gaming laptop that I usually play on is still being fixed and I've been having CTD periodically in ROTC settlements (not nearly as much as my girlfriend's PC) along with the occasional power bug were I have to rewire the entire settlement because the rebuild power option in the workbench isn't an option- at least not for me because I will CTD while it's active I thought maybe it was on my end then I looked it up an noticed a few people have been posting about the same issues I've been having so that was kind of a relief. Greentop Nursery is a permanent no fly zone though, as soon as I get within viewing distance of the place I CTD which was annoying because I needed to go there for one of the Concord quests (had to use console to advance the quest), but otherwise the ROTC plans have been looking really cool I never got to see how these plans leveled up before. It doesn't seem like there are any other options when it comes to city plan collections so I'm stuck with ROTC, don't particularly feel like searching for 32 different plans when I'm already pushing 230 mods as is.

Regarding priority, as Jake/Theresa/Mansfield/Lupe says, it's not about HQ getting priority, it's about asking the settlements to share any surplus.
I have a very high end computer and have no problem building huge settlements performance wise. Until two days ago the current play through
has been very stable but is now suddenly very borked.

 

[Ubin_Timor]

Regarding priority, as Jake/Theresa/Mansfield/Lupe says, it's not about HQ getting priority, it's about asking the settlements to share any surplus.

Eh, it felt like to me that meant the actual surplus not the scraps of the surplus- like none of that makes sense to me considering how important HQ has been built up to be within the story. It needs resources to produce tech, vaccines, and it needs resources to build the place up to be defendable in order to protect itself since it's got a huge target on its back not mention it's the place that keeps the ASAMs connected through the Commhub- you loose the Commhub you loose control over your own settlement. It would also mean that the larger your influence the more useless HQ is- the more settlements you have under your control the worse off your HQ is gonna be.

I know that technically the Commhub doesn't matter because plots will still work no matter how far away the settlement they're in is but that's only because of gameplay reasons. In terms of story the Commhub is extremally important. We're told by Jake time and time again that the Commhub needs to be active in order to keep everything coherently together so it would make sense that the building the Commhub is housed in would need to be well protected and thus would take priority otherwise they might as well have just moved it all back to the hardware store (not like they could have considering what the Gunners did to it, but you get my point).

Like, the idea that HQ shouldn't take priority is really strange to me considering how these things usually work. Usually in video games when you have a centralized base or building (ex. Townhall in Age of Empires) the building is considered top priority because if you loose it you end up losing (depending on what game mode you play and what game you're playing- for example in Supreme Commander your ACU is a mobile command center and in most game modes if you loose it you loose the match). I would think that within the context of the story settlements that have a trade agreement with HQ would want to give it as much resources as they can first to make sure that HQ would be able to develop technologies that would prevent the Gunners from taking them over again or prevent diseases from ravaging the settlement. Not to mention that kind of makes trade agreements one-sided because basically every settlement get's protected from diseases, can get com, energy transfer, and caravan upgrades that help them grow faster, and added protection in the form of the player being able to zip to their settlement from any point in the map and provide immediate aid against attacks and they can just go:

"Well, we gave most of our surplus to that settlement over there so here's 2 logistics material, 1 rare material, 2 bottle caps and 1 food." (This is an exaggeration, but still, it might as well be like this for most of us who are having resource allocation problems)

I don't know, that just doesn't sound like a good deal to me considering what HQ means, what it can offer settlements under the player's control, and how important it is to the story- like, regardless if a settlement is in a trade agreement with HQ or not they receive the benefits of HQ while actively taking away potential resources that could be better used there on top of the fact that trade agreement settlements would receive higher attention against raids and would receive more defense because in theory you would have more incentive to protect your resource generators. I mean, they say in the storyline that trade agreements are supposed to work like that but I'm sure the code doesn't reflect that notion because it just doesn't make sense gameplay wise or with how common sense works with these types of gameplay situations. How are you supposed to do anything at HQ when all you're given is a fraction of scraps? Unless you actively go to and balance all of or the majority of your settlements to prevent them from giving their surplus away to another settlement that is.

Although in many of our cases material allocation isn't a problem it's water, power, and food allocation that's the problem.

 

[yaugie]

I feel like it's meant to "incentivise" you to build more plots and/or advance up the pseudo tech tree - it seems that it's not until I start getting Advanced-tier Farms and Water plots upgrading past level 1 that I ever start having any 'leftovers' for HQ myself. But considering you can easily make it up to HQ without even knowing the Advanced tier exists (let alone High-Tech) that doesn't feel 'great' either...
kg has repeatedly said HQ is meant to be for the "long game" too, not something you finish in 5 minutes and then never look at again.

I think a lot of the issue comes back to a core problem with the mod overall - the active refusal to ever actually teach the player any of the mechanics. You're "meant" to just somehow figure everything out yourself, or rely on coming to the forums and asking someone else who already did.

 

[Donofgames]

I feel like it's meant to "incentivise" you to build more plots and/or advance up the pseudo tech tree - it seems that it's not until I start getting Advanced-tier Farms and Water plots upgrading past level 1 that I ever start having any 'leftovers' for HQ myself. But considering you can easily make it up to HQ without even knowing the Advanced tier exists (let alone High-Tech) that doesn't feel 'great' either...
kg has repeatedly said HQ is meant to be for the "long game" too, not something you finish in 5 minutes and then never look at again.

I think a lot of the issue comes back to a core problem with the mod overall - the active refusal to ever actually teach the player any of the mechanics. You're "meant" to just somehow figure everything out yourself, or rely on coming to the forums and asking someone else who already did.

Yeah, I agree. I'd consider myself to be well into construction, repairs, and development on HQ and I still haven't unlocked advanced plots (just have to get a few more to level 3). To get to a point where I can unlock some of the Science related advancements, I'll have to put a lot of effort into producing metal and rare materials because I wasn't really doing it before and I need to overcome the surplus mechanic for the settlements. All of which I wouldn't have known without going to the wiki and forums. I think something like a few lines of dialogue like, "I'd bet, once we build enough of these and build them up as much as we can we'll probably figure out how to make something even better." coupled together with a clear tooltip note or a development objective would be sufficient. I feel like at the start the game does a really good job of walking you through new ASAMs and features and such, which ultimately becomes confusing when they stop doing it because you might not realize something exists at all.

 

[yaugie]

Yeah, I agree. I'd consider myself to be well into construction, repairs, and development on HQ and I still haven't unlocked advanced plots (just have to get a few more to level 3). To get to a point where I can unlock some of the Science related advancements, I'll have to put a lot of effort into producing metal and rare materials because I wasn't really doing it before and I need to overcome the surplus mechanic for the settlements. All of which I wouldn't have known without going to the wiki and forums. I think something like a few lines of dialogue like, "I'd bet, once we build enough of these and build them up as much as we can we'll probably figure out how to make something even better." coupled together with a clear tooltip note or a development objective would be sufficient. I feel like at the start the game does a really good job of walking you through new ASAMs and features and such, which ultimately becomes confusing when they stop doing it because you might not realize something exists at all.

It's tough though. Technically it's possible to get so far into the questline with so little building done that the quest "How to HQ" has to actually have an additional unlock trigger for Caravan type plots, because it's completely possible that someone might've gotten to there without having done so already - and the 'normal' unlock for those is only "built at least one other Municipal plot and hold at least two settlements to your name".
The questline could effectively have any reference to building things in settlements removed entirely and it'd barely make a difference, up until you hit HQ at which point it's assumed you have mastered all these systems it never taught you while also learning a new one... BUT, having made building more plots mandatory for quest progression would've taken away 'player freedom'...

 

[SarahAda]

[...] Technically it's possible to get so far into the questline with so little building done that the quest "How to HQ" has to actually have an additional unlock trigger for Caravan type plots [...]

New Plots on the Block has you build a municipal plot as part of the quest, and having two settlements is a very very low bar considering the mod is basically "how can i even hold all these cool settlement features dot pea en gee".

i feel like the mod author is on solid enough ground when the tie a late game feature to something you will typically unlock during the tutorial.

[...] I think a lot of the issue comes back to a core problem with the mod overall - the active refusal to ever actually teach the player any of the mechanics. [...]

this is always a difficult balance to strike. dumb it down too much and repeat players will mod out your tutorials, but assume too much knowledge and every game becomes Myst or DCS; utterly incomprehensible without outside knowledge.

i don't think Kingath did a bad job with that. in fact, i think he and the SS2 team did an EXCELLENT job, better then a lot of AAA studios do against the same odds. i think the first plot tutorials are excellent, all of chapter 1 is basically tutorial quests or lore fill-in, and the HQ tutorials have the feeling of expert subordinates catching their boss up on a set of complex systems management doesn't really need to fully understand. the long and slow burn predecessor quests (it's HOURS before you unlock the second set of plots, DAYS before you get to HQ) give an opertunity to get familar with the existing systems and develop mastery with settlement building before the HQ demands you utilize that mastery.

do i think some of the sharp edges with repurposing HQ rooms need to be ironed out? certainly, but that's a far cry from "the mod refuses to teach and is unplayable".

 

[Ubin_Timor]

I feel like it's meant to "incentivise" you to build more plots and/or advance up the pseudo tech tree - it seems that it's not until I start getting Advanced-tier Farms and Water plots upgrading past level 1 that I ever start having any 'leftovers' for HQ myself. But considering you can easily make it up to HQ without even knowing the Advanced tier exists (let alone High-Tech) that doesn't feel 'great' either...

I mean, I guess that depends on how your game goes or how you're playing it. This playthrough for me was meant to test the waters with how I plan on doing a build focused playthrough series on Youtube with the idea of helping people understand what this mod can do instead of just blowing through the story like everyone else did and as such getting to HQ took me a long time because I spaced the SS2 storyline with Tales of the Commonwealth, build sessions with each of my player-based settlements (designing the settlement grid layout ect), companion collection, CPD and Nightingales storylines, Heather and Darleen's various quests, and the vanilla storyline (I want each chapter to coincide with each act of the vanilla storyline). By the time I got To HQ I had already unlocked Advanced plots for power, water, and food but that didn't seem like it was enough. When it came to scrap I would dump mountains of the stuff I collected into my settlements thanks to various backpack mods and the universal workbench (hording habits are still hard for me to kick in Fallout 4) so all my settlements generate some kind of surplus scrap even the ROTC settlements.

I would toy around with the city plan plots, but I just didn't want to change a plot and find out it was supposed to be that way to fit the aesthetic of the settlement plus my city plans seem to lack in balance training plots so settler special attributes are lacking the ability to use more advanced plots- I just kind of let them do their own thing.

I've been noticing that my settlers have been doing their own thing ever since I ran the HQ reassignment software to the point where they no longer even auto assign themselves to recreational plots anymore and even change their clothes which is extremally annoying when building employees for HQ.

Yeah, I agree. I'd consider myself to be well into construction, repairs, and development on HQ and I still haven't unlocked advanced plots (just have to get a few more to level 3).

I literally JUST made it to high-tech power and farms last night. For some reason my water treatment plants have been stubborn despite having their needs met they don't want to upgrade to level 3 in the settlements I need them to despite other plots like my high tech power plants upgrading like their going out of business. Even with high-tech plots I'm still struggling with HQ, my food is at 1 now and my power is still 0, however I don't think I'm understanding how power transfer is supposed to work. I thought all you had to do was wire the power transfer plot into your regular power grid but now I'm thinking that I have to use the municipal power pylons to store power and hook it to the power transfer plot. I ran some tests last night and noticed that when I did that my power would go down by 100 then jump back to what it was originally.

This all comes down to what the majority of us have been discussing and that is we need in-game tutorials for this stuff in the same vane of what we got in the first chapter. I'm really hoping that the mod team is at least considering implementing in-game tutorials in the future- I understand that they have a lot on their plate right now with bug fixing and their work on Chapter 3, but it still would be nice to get a better understanding of how these things function. Like, there should have been a tutorial on how production plots work, how commercial plots work with them (like I don't understand how the pet shop works because when I talk to the Vendor- I forgot her name but she is the one who gives you the pet shop unlock, she just sells me armor and not pets), how power transfer works, along with what we've discussed because there are some really awesome things here that people aren't going to bother looking into because they would have to explore the forums or wiki to try and understand it and for some people that's too much work.

 

[Donofgames]

@Ubin_Timor, I did more or less the same thing where I wove my experience between the multiple threads and plots as well as the core story. I'd say I was playing in a balanced-ish way where I wasn't only trying to experience one thing.

@yaugie, even though that might be technically possible, I feel like it is somewhat of an edge case to worry about. One would assume that for the Settlement focused mod that the player wouldn't simply steam-roll the plot and not actually do any of the settlement stuff beyond the tutorial. However, I understand your point about the criticality of in-game tutorials and explanation and I definitely agree, one hundred percent.

 

[yaugie]

I mentioned that because a non trivial number of posts have asked for a "storyline only" version of the mod - and up until the point of HQ where it suddenly becomes mandatory again to engage with settlements after hours of them basically being irrelevant to the plot, I cant disagree with any of the points they raise there.
The fact that you suddenly have to figure out how to make SS2s systems produce more than you would need to build every settlement in the game, through systems that bug the hell out for so many people and are so poorly documented that even I am still not sure how some of it is meant to work, really doesnt help.


But, last time this got discussed, multiple people got forum banned and I was left so disgusted and disillusioned I deleted several half finished mods of my own, so I am just muting this thread now.

 

[Donofgames]

I understand, I'm sorry that happened and that you were pushed into feeling that way.

 

[Tommyk]

Try this mod: Settlement Management Terminal - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/64135
I haven't used it much yet but it's supposed to show you that kind of information.

Awesome! I am late to the party but that mod is awesome! Thank you!