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Let's Talk Balance

Lystraeus said:
Aesthetics aside:
  • They impede roaming attacks. Like the sentrybot near Murkwater.
  • They provide cover. Such as from highway Gunners near Finch Farm.
  • They block explosions from crashing Vertibirds levelling your resources.
  • Walled-in purifiers and generators are protected in firefights.
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If the cell isn't loaded, you don't get any benefit at all.

Roaming attacks? Same thing as with spawned attacks outside the settlement borders, the bot just goes along until it can get in and if it can't, it teleports.

Finch Farm Gunners - I've not noticed any spare shots coming from them but then again, I tend to use laser and missile turrets and gauss turrets when I've got that mod loaded. The range on these makes them kind of overpowered in that they can frequently take things out long before they get in range of the settlement and before the settlers even react.

Crashing vertibirds levelling resources? I've never seen a sim settlements plot get damaged in a vertibird crash, I'll have to test this.

Walled in purifiers and generators aren't settlement wide walls. I absolutely agree that walling these in is a good idea for exactly the reason you mention. Make the floor space too big and enemies can teleport in anyway though.
 
kinggath said:
That's kind of how I'd expect it to play out. In the early game, when resources are tight, Martial plots should sense. In the late game, when you're heavily producing, the most efficient use of resources would be to automate defenses. So we need to get the Martial plots where they're useful early and become obsolete only in the "late game" of your settlement's growth.
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Thats what I'm doing. Keeping the 4 I've got. I've also abandoned my normal habit of giving everyone armour. Only the martial settlers get armour, the rest get clothes appropriate to their job.
 
Just a thought, but maybe to avoid turret spam, have level 1 martial not need a settler, maybe the player builds them, or settler then gets dismissed when it is built, then when it is ready for level 2 have it need a settler, or just level 1 that are randomised but do not level up.
 
Sisca said:
The problem for Kinggath is that he's basically created a game within the game. The Fallout 4 UI isn't really designed to support the gameplay of the game he's created so he has to work within the limitations as best he can. He's done a good job of pointing people to the wiki, FAQ and the website for the mod on the Nexus page - and I assume the Bethesda.Net page for XBox users - but, as you say, not everyone is going to bother to go there to learn why things aren't working the way they think they should.

About the only solution I can see is to take a page from Bethesda themselves and build a sort of popup tutorial system. Say when you build your first residential plot you get a popup explaining power needs and the upgrade system. Your first martial plot could explain that this one actually needs power to function and also show what it needs to upgrade. Maybe there could be an option in the wizard system to show/not show these tutorials so that you don't have to go through them with each new game.
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Perhaps this could be a Sim Settlement Tutorial Quest that builds a martial plot, a residential plot and an agriculture plot to get the player started. Making the quest something that they can skip would be a good option for those that already know how to use it.
 
AmazonQueen said:
Thats what I'm doing. Keeping the 4 I've got. I've also abandoned my normal habit of giving everyone armour. Only the martial settlers get armour, the rest get clothes appropriate to their job.
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I like to give my martial plot settlers the drifter outfit and an assault gas mask, or some form of spike armor if they are, for some reason, meant to be defending a hot spot where the enemies spawn.
 
I would like to see the assigned settlers level up, (armor & weapons) as the plot upgrades. Plus add a Level 4 (very expensive to upgrade to) that would assign them a suit of X-01 PA and an overcharged focused gatling laser. With 2 Level 4 plots there would also be the added bonus of a guaranteed win if you didn't make it back to "help defend yada yada".
 
kinggath said:
I guess obsolete is a bad phrase. For players who are min-maxing, using settlers for anything other than production is not worth it when alternatives exist. Since we have turrets, turret spam always becomes the most efficient means of defense - it's just not very fun, or pretty. I personally keep Martial Plots around to add some style, but the only way to actually make them useful forever would be to start interfering with vanilla game mechanics - do something like artificially cap the number of turrets you can build (which I'm not going to do).
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one of the addons has a large plot and i use the spider gate at the front of the bridge. Form and Function. I have another one with a sandbag fort. It makes me feel better.
 
I think this mod certainly makes a big difference to game balance. It makes me care about my settlements, it makes me look forward to going back to them, to take some pride in how they look. They aren't just millstones that need looking after with the slight payoff of being somewhere to sell loot. But that's not really answering the question is it.
I've been playing late game, with a high level character and all settlements already unlocked and build up. Rebuilding a settlement has at times seemed a real bind and seemed to cost a lot, especially trying to get enough fibre optics. But then it should be expensive. I've got the most satisfaction so far from building up Boston Airport, the closest experience I've had of building from scratch. I think I've hardy touched the surface and am just starting a new game today to get the most out of the new gameplay (only my 2nd playthrough).
At no point has the mod felt like a cheat. I have started to find I get more goods in the workshop to sell on, but the settlement is costing more so feels fair.
As many have said, one part that feels not quite right is the defence. I definitely agree that spamming turrets doesn't feel right anymore. A theme that I've seen on a few add-ons that seems to feel better are ones where martial buildings attract more defending characters, be that dogs, mercenaries or allies, these kind of characters certainly seem to fit a low tech settlement better than dozens of automated turrets. Just thought writing that, I wonder it's possible to have more gun emplacement type defences like the vertibird door guns, buildings that enhance a defender's ability to defend (bet they would run off and use a handgun instead).
Some people have said they want more food from lvl 1 farms, but I think that it feels right for a low level settlement to be more subsistence and shift to industry as it grows. Farms take time to become efficient.
Anyway need to get back to exploring more of what this mod has to offer.
 
Back from some early game play. Now feeling a bit daft, first play, when picking up the sensors at the first location I just picked up the loose ones, didn't notice the boxes were pick up able, no wonder settlements seemed expensive to get going. Settlement building is definitely now more of a priority (was there someone I was meant to be looking for?) and done so gradually. Really not sure I would turn off beds equal homes, as it just makes sense to make some of my own homes especially where there are existing buildings or not much room. I'm finding the hud is holding my hand from turret spamming as I have a clearer target for defense. The extra options mean my handful of settlements are not just copies of each other, and am aiming to have just a few with top end industry and shopping while being served by other resource focussed 'farms'. Still have hardly touched the surface, but will definitely be a must have mod and am looking forward to finding time have go on the new CS.
 
I'd like the Tool and Die Shop to be able to upgrade the Martial Plots. The Guard post going from wood to bolted metal would be nice looking and add a bit more defense so it can balance out if you take the industrial path and make that shop.
 
I think martial plots could use a buff. Mainly I think the upgraded ones should get a little bit stronger turrets like Mk 3 or higher machine gun turret, the level 1 could have Mk 1 and the level 1/2 plots should give more defense rating. Or perhaps some of the other plots could have a lower defense rating penalty. Level 3 seem to give a good amount of defense rating but Mk 1 turrets may not help very much for a high level player, their damage would be too low to be noticeable if the settlement gets raided by high level Super Mutants and they have very low health(the machine gun bubble turret has 30hp!). I'll add that design wise I love them though.

Right now I still use turrets since otherwise the defense rating will be too low before upgrading them and impact happiness. I actually forgot turrets in a location(although it wasn't a location I particularly cared about) and had the warning message about the settlement "not being allied anymore if things don't improve" although nothing ever happened even though I just ignored this message since I'd never seen that message before in the game so I was curious.

NDCowdy said:
I think this mod certainly makes a big difference to game balance. It makes me care about my settlements, it makes me look forward to going back to them, to take some pride in how they look.
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Same here. I never took settlement building seriously before getting Sim Settlements.
 
I'm curious about why Residential plots don't add more beds as they grow in level? Since the idea is that the settlement will add more settlers, shouldn't the Residential plots accommodate that growth by adding beds rather than 1 bed per plot? I suppose this is why the SS plots are supposed to supplement the vanilla and workshop dlc craftable items, but I don't use them that way. I far prefer to use SS plots and see what will grow out of it than to have to build stuff myself piece by piece.

btw: I love the SS and IR mods! Thank you so much for making them available to us XBox players!
 
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Otherwhere said:
I'm curious about why Residential plots don't add more beds as they grow in level? Since the idea is that the settlement will add more settlers, shouldn't the Residential plots accommodate that growth by adding beds rather than 1 bed per plot? I suppose this is why the SS plots are supposed to supplement the vanilla and workshop dlc craftable items, but I don't use them that way. I far prefer to use SS plots and see what will grow out of it than to have to build stuff myself piece by piece.

btw: I love the SS and IR mods! Thank you so much for making them available to us XBox players!
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You'd still need 1 per settler at the moment, a workshop object can't have multiple settlers assigned to it.
 
Otherwhere said:
Oh - so it would require assigning them to a bed rather than a plot. Gotcha.
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Right, which is a bit of a departure from how the mod works currently (which is why I clarified "at the moment", because kinggath has it on his list of features to add multi-tenant plots, it'll just require some redesign)
 
It should be doable IMO. What about adding an additional object inside the plot like a 2nd bed or making the bedroom have its own selectable mini "plot," flagged as can't be moved/scrapped but can be chosen for assigning a settler. And having the scripts identify the assigned settler as a 2nd resident? Kind of like a tiny plot inside a plot.

mytigio said:
(which is why I clarified "at the moment", because kinggath has it on his list of features to add multi-tenant plots, it'll just require some redesign)
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Wow that would be so cool! I'd envision this as a something like a 2nd story apartment with a balcony, if you snap a small floor piece to the balcony part of the railing disappears and you can use this to build an upper level walkway
 
My .02 cents thus far is completely different from lot of the direction re martial plots. I'm sure you guys are right on that but the first thing that pops to mind as relatively new user to SS is the balance / imbalance of creating food farms in the first place.

Non-SS early game, you actually have to go explore, kill, or buy the seeds you need just to plant the harvest you want. E.g. To get mut fruit, I've habitually made an expedition to grey garden, other places for other seeds, etc.

So while the SS default is fine, given kingath has given us realistic build times, why not realistic farming too?

E.g. Optional toggle for realistic farms where you can't start a razor grain plot without 1-5 razor grain or something like that. Same for all the different plot types - in addition to the junk resource cost, there should be a food cost - consumed at plot creation like current junk cost.
 
The beds issue: Wouldn't settlers assign themselves provided a bed exists in the settlement? So while I may need to assign an initial settler to the residential plot, after that, as beds are produced when the plot levels up, wouldn't unassigned settlers simply assign themselves to an open bed?

re: Realism. It always bothered me that things like missile turrets never required missiles as part of the construction cost. I'm not advocating the ongoing maintenance of needing to load them up with a supply every time they've discharged their supply - that's like the p.i.t.a. of the traps Bethesda created. But as part of the initial cost to create a missile turret, or machine gun turret, etc., shouldn't the bullets/cells/missiles be part of the requirement? That could help prevent turret spamming at the early stages of the game, forcing you to: find/buy supplies, and/or set up an ammunition factory in order to then build automated turrets which would free up a settler for another job.
 
Here's an idea for balancing martial plots in the "late-game" settlements. What if there were branching upgrade paths much like the advanced industrial plots with their own requirements? So having an ammunition factory would unlock a machine gun turret nest and maybe a microfusion garage unlocks a laser turret version. Maybe even one that has a robot pod that activates when enemies are nearby. That sort of thing. A 2-story watch tower would also be cool, but it'd be difficult with the plots size. Since it's already a mechanic of industrial revolution it would be internally consistent as well as giving people even more incentive to unlock certain pathways.
 
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