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I love this contest

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67
I really love to see how creative everyone is; I'm so impressed by every single entry! I'm someone who is drawn to sim settlements because I don't have a lot of time to play, and so the fact that I can benefit from other people's awesome designs is really awesome. Someday I'd love to participate in the contest to contribute a little. Idk when, but someday.

How long did it take you folks to learn how to set up/export/release your first city plan?

How long does it take you to create one? (obviously it'll vary quite a bit, but I don't even know what scale it might be on. are we talking like 10 hours or more like 40?)

Just looking for some insight on it so I can keep it in the back of my head for trying my hand at it later on down the line! Thanks!
 
I learnt how to do it all with the first one I entered, now I had built probably a couple of hundred settlements before that but never a city plan.
I can build the structure of an L3 plan in 10 -20 hours, but the decorating takes me much longer as I'm not great at it/don't like it. (if I could get someone to do decorating for me I could churn out city plans).
The regression to lower levels takes about 10 hours.
These numbers can vary a lot depending on what you are trying to achieve, the plan I made for Nordhagen took me 20+ hours to do the regression because I added lots of stuff to the lower levels that were not in the L3. I burnt out pretty hard from that actually.
 
Thanks! That gives me a great idea of what it might actually mean.

I can imagine myself getting burned out also, but we'll see!
 
Ah no, I'm making it sound more difficult than it is. I was also building other settlements on the side with plans to release them on the nexus (never happened), so I just had too much building done by the time it came to that plan and I burnt out.
If you take your time and stick to one it's very enjoyable.
 
Yeah that makes sense! I just also don't love decorating, and would probably feel the need to. But hey, on the other hand if it turns into a labor of love then maybe I'd feel differently! I just remember before sim settlements, I really resented that if I didn't spend ages delicately placing everything for settlers they'd all just wind up in mattresses on a bare floor with bare walls :P
 
How long did it take you folks to learn how to set up/export/release your first city plan?

It's pretty simple really! The guide is straight forward so it really doesn't take very long. I'd say the longest part is waiting for it to export.


How long does it take you to create one?
I guess it depends on how much time you want to put in and how much time you have. When I did the first two contests I entered and won, I had a lot more time than I did with the Master's Contest. My Starlight city plan I probably did about 6-8 a day for most of the month and I suppose it was roughly about the same for Red Rocket. But I also end up going back and second guessing and experiment with decorations. So there is a lot of time for me that ends up wasted lol.

The pressure of the deadline can get a bit intimidating, but it's pretty fun too. For me personally I'll probably go back and do updated versions to finish out the original plans I wanted to do but didn't have the time, especially the case with my Master's Contest one. There is sooo much more I wanted to do but didn't have as much time cause I teach.
 
Cool; thanks for the explanation!

I like to create who they are, name them, all of that, and then decorate.

Haha! no wonder it takes you over 100 hours to do a city plan!

I think I generally have closer to 8 - 16 hours a month to play at the moment, so it'll probably be a while before I can start thinking about that kind of detail :P
 
I think I generally have closer to 8 - 16 hours a month to play at the moment, so it'll probably be a while before I can start thinking about that kind of detail :P
You can do small builds too! I'm actually thinking of doing smaller ones for awhile. Doesn't take as much time, plus I think the variety in size will be kinda nice rather than everything being a city you know?

I'm currently working on Abernathy, I'm just keeping it as a farm. Well a ranch really, rather than making it a town.
 
Someday I'd love to participate in the contest to contribute a little. Idk when, but someday.
Jump in and give it a try.

How long did it take you folks to learn how to set up/export/release your first city plan?
It took me a weekend to get it setup at first.

How long does it take you to create one? (obviously it'll vary quite a bit, but I don't even know what scale it might be on. are we talking like 10 hours or more like 40?)
How long is a piece of string? I can't speak for the others, but I can churn out a 12 settler, 4 level settlement, in my style in about 6 hours. I've live streamed a few of them in the past. In fact, I did just that for my November 2018 contest entry (spoiler alert, it didn't place in the top 3)

Where people end up spending most of their time is in decorating. I keep a more spartan decorating design, mostly because playability and speed matter more to me, then looking like a Picasso. I'll spend as much time as I think it needs for my Commonwealth Engineering plans, but contest plans only get a few hours as I really only work on those on weekends.
 
Man, I love your city plans, so hearing that it's possible to make something remotely near what you do in (theoretically) the time I actually play is very very heartening! :)
 
Man, I love your city plans, so hearing that it's possible to make something remotely near what you do in (theoretically) the time I actually play is very very heartening! :)
Without promising anything (my free time is limited), I tend to live steam builds on Saturday afternoons, JST. Even you don't watch them live, you can watch them later to see how I do some of the builds I do (at least until twitch deletes them).
 
Ya see the thing about me is I hate settlers so decorating for them kills me.......
One of my favourite things to do is float above settlement and admire the structures, what happens inside those structures is secondary for me.
I feel the same
 
I really love to see how creative everyone is; I'm so impressed by every single entry! I'm someone who is drawn to sim settlements because I don't have a lot of time to play, and so the fact that I can benefit from other people's awesome designs is really awesome. Someday I'd love to participate in the contest to contribute a little. Idk when, but someday.

Download the mods for the contest, and build your own stuff you do not have to enter it but getting used to where all the items are and what you can work with will help when you do decide to throw your hat into the ring. I wish I was partaking in the build comps a year ago. I was just playing the game using almost everything the mod gives you to build my own stuff just for me anyway.

How long did it take you folks to learn how to set up/export/release your first city plan?

Download the mods, follow the instructions and build a base worthy of Mordor. I have just started entering and I cut my teeth of the BOS airport, it was simples.

How long does it take you to create one? (obviously it'll vary quite a bit, but I don't even know what scale it might be on. are we talking like 10 hours or more like 40?)

mmmm I do not count I just build save, if i do not like it destroy it and start again. I will say this tonight I was playing in my latest build for the castle from 6pm to 11pm I got a lot done so comes down to how much detail you want to do as the build items to chooses from are extensive.

Just looking for some insight on it so I can keep it in the back of my head for trying my hand at it later on down the line! Thanks!
 
Personally I usually build while playing, building up and equipping the population while I go. I head off to find other things to do, to stop getting bored or burned out by concentrating too much on one settlement. It also means I don't tend to know how long I spend on them. Building a city with the intent of turning it into a cityplan gets me to finish things of more than when just building for myself, putting more detail than I might get around to otherwise.
The actual technical process of turning them into plans isn't too complicated, the guides are pretty easy to follow. Generating the Transfer Settlement scans can be a little time consuming but you can always just set them going and go find something real life to do.
 
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