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My thoughts after completing chapter 2

My point is that it's entirely possible to make it up to HQ without self-teaching yourself ANY of the mechanics of the mod, and then suddenly you have no choice but to go back through and learn TWO slightly different systems at the same time
I completely agree with that. Even for people who "mastered" the normal settlement building, HQ is still a new system. Though not sure what the % of people running into that scenario is. I know it WAS a lot when HQ first came out... And the tutorial haven't changed much if at all. So by some logical manipulations I could come to a conclusion that yes, this is still the case. What changed is that HQ got more content, a couple new quests, some minor (or not) tweaks to make it an enjoyable and worthwhile experience. Getting involved with the HQ system is still the same.
but it also says the mod provides a "reason" to build your settlements
well, it does. the whole story revolves around building settlements. The HQ, the happy feedback and references from NPCs everywhere, from Hubert to Fiona. In the vanilla your settlements are used only once in the main story, that's defending the Castle from Institute. Not counting the Sanctuary revival project and getting ownership of a few rundown shacks (don't have to do anything with them).

Maybe there could be some more "user-friendly" settings like "not using scrap logistics" (that one is probably the most misunderstood of all), "having more water and food in HQ by default" (recent update did a step in that direction), "projects only cause department energy and no resources" (would that finally satisfy everyone?...). Not suggesting "all rooms cleaned and built", that sounds ridiculous to me. Though I might catch some flack for saying that and some people do want it to be that way.
 
well, it does. the whole story revolves around building settlements. The HQ, the happy feedback and references from NPCs everywhere, from Hubert to Fiona.
Except it doesn't. You can literally ignore your settlements and still get up to that point in the story, what you do or don't build in them has no effect on the plot whatsoever, only the difficulty of building up HQ - which is the only point you get a "reason" to build them, and that's just "so I can continue the questline". Even the "gunner attacks" phase, the one point that you'd think would be a test of how well built up your villages are, your defenses are meaningless and it's pure RNG and down to the player to take care of it. Sure Jake might mention settlements in his dialog every second quest or so, but what you do in them has no effect at all.
And if the only 'reward' for all this effort is "happiness is above 80" dialog lines, I could get that without this many hours of effort and burning 10gig of my data cap every month updating the mod.
 
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Eh, you're not wrong. At least most people would WANT to build up settlements, I assume that was the point. And those who already want to do it, would want even more because of new possibilities. Making proper stuff settlers interact with that isn't some crops or a matress or a stall or an operating chair (not counting activity markers that a few settlement mods add). I guess you're right in saying that building up settlements is not strictly required for anything before HQ and you can ignore that altogether. But wouldn't people at least build them up a lil bit or use city plans if they're playing just for the story?
 
I stand by everything I have said here, but there is no point me expressing my thoughts anyway due to nobody actually listening unless I want more people to tell me how I feel is wrong, so I'm just going to Unwatch this thread and move on.

Maybe I really do need to take a bit of time away from this place to 'refresh'.
 
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@yaugie
I mostly agree with your stance. If it makes you feel better, I still have not done the HQ quest line, mostly due to the feedback I have read about ch 2. At least a few ch 1 game breaking bugs have been addressed.
 
I do understand the need for a proper headquarters for the whole settlement management/comhub and preparing for an invasion from the outside or so. Though for me I am now at "Moving Day" and am just building rebuilding settlements, doing side quests, FO4 general leftover quests and so as I find the whole HQ cleaning , assigning, mabo-jambo part, not something i like to do :D So hopefully it can be skipped with an option to a HQ that upgrades automatically and be a place I like to visit to see how it goes and what the people and jake are doing. Afterall I am the leader of the whole gang right ? I delegate stuff to departments heads , so let them do their thing :P and just give me a nice coffee corner where I can enjoy the view and then move on to the next settlement :)
 
I stand by everything I have said here, but there is no point me expressing my thoughts anyway due to nobody actually listening unless I want more people to tell me how I feel is wrong, so I'm just going to Unwatch this thread and move on.

Maybe I really do need to take a bit of time away from this place to 'refresh'.
I swear most people agree with you already (me included). Well, maybe not on everything but still. If you do get tired of investing so much time in something, that's completely normal. People get burnt out.
About what I said, maybe I should take that back - one day we might see "city plans" for HQ with everything built up already. If it's just not fun (and for a lot of people it is, but for a lot of others it isn't), maybe that could eventually be automated. Can't please everyone (and I'm just spitballing with all this) but still.
 
I swear most people agree with you already (me included). Well, maybe not on everything but still. If you do get tired of investing so much time in something, that's completely normal. People get burnt out.
About what I said, maybe I should take that back - one day we might see "city plans" for HQ with everything built up already. If it's just not fun (and for a lot of people it is, but for a lot of others it isn't), maybe that could eventually be automated. Can't please everyone (and I'm just spitballing with all this) but still.
I'd agree, @yaugie - I think you provide and share valuable feedback and while I may not agree with everything you say, I certainly think that even on those points with which I disagree with you that you still point out a lot of things I haven't considered. If you need to take a mental health break from the forums then you need to do what you need to do, but I'd miss you and all the great feedback and participation you do here in helping new folks get oriented to things and understand the mod's systems, the mods you have made and released as QoL improvements, and a lot of other good things you do around here.
 
Having already read the disease thread and reading the issues people are bringing up in this thread makes me glad to likely only be playing this time next year lol

Thanks for clarifying that the HQ building is different from all the other settlement building and just designating one as the HQ, so when it comes to the HQ - can we pick where that's going to be or is there an area specific that's assigned for it?

I know I'm going to have a conflict with Jamaica Plains soon as a hard requirement for Commonwealth Responders going forward down the line, to the point where I'm likely going to have to scrap it entirely when the time comes and hopefully the city plan can rebuild itself back up later.
 
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Having already read the disease thread wand reading the issues people are bringing up in this thread makes me glad to likely only be playing this time next year lol

Thanks for clarifying that the HQ building is different from all the other settlement building and just designating one as the HQ, so when it comes to the HQ - can we pick where that's going to be or is there an area specific that's assigned for it?

I know I'm going to have a conflict with Jamaica Plains soon as a hard requirement for Commonwealth Responders going forward down the line, to the point where I'm likely going to have to scrap it entirely when the time comes and hopefully the city plan can rebuild itself back up later.
It's in a set location and is an interior. It is radically different from settlement building - none of the usual settlement dynamics or controls apply.
 
It's in a set location and is an interior. It is radically different from settlement building - none of the usual settlement dynamics or controls apply.
this is both technically true, and somewhat misleading.

there are no plots or objects to place, but the HQ interaction is all done through the settlement build menu. there are no building plans, but each room has a purpose akin to a plot type and a room plan, akin to a building plan. there is no food, water, or wiring, but projects in the HQ depend upon supplies from the caravan network. there's no recruiting beacon, but you still have a population, just manually recruited by the clipboard. there are no residential beds, but there are living quarters built by the projects into rooms with plans. you're not assigning work or recreation plots by special skills, but which special stats it is important for which departments. there's no copper junk or ceramic shipments to build objects, but industrial outputs from virtual storage and department strength are used to "supply" projects in a very analogous way.

so yes, it's not a settlement in every meaningful way, but it is abstracted from and built on top of your settlements, and you care about the similar things for the most part.
 
The way the HQ sounds actually sounds pretty great i.e. at the level I would enjoy playing at. I'm pretty keen on getting ALL the unique settlers especially for their specials already in anticipation and made a list where I roughly only have about a third of them left from Chapter 1 to go. Have been specifically storing as many of them in my Vault 88 as possible while only spreading out the ones that make sense to where they would logically want to go i.e. Deaf Nadine and others keen on Minutemen go to the castle, Robots and those that love them go to Mechanist Lair etc.

Looking forward to playing it even more now and sounds like HQ is designed not to potentially conflict with other mods as far as settlement areas and systems go.

As long as Im not having to manually make people do janitor and other Sims level type stuff or get buried doing nothing but Disease Whack-A-Mole in the same way as settlement defense can become chore-like (depending) I'll probably be good
 
I can say this - you don't have to hand place objects. The standard HQ dynamic is selecting rooms, cleaning them, and then building something in the room. That is where it starts to pull from the virtual resources of your settlements. As you build out more and more stuff, more things are required like power (which again it can pull from your settlements using the power transfer plot), staff (like from your unique settlers), and the virtual resources. It does offer you the opportunity to do things like research disease cures, which through hospitals basically wipes out diseases if you do all of them, and also to research things that replace crafting perks. Say you don't want to have a high INT character necessary to do things like research robotics expert or science - well HQ has a path for you to effectively get those perks anyway. Right now there's fairly basic things HQ can do, but I anticipate it will be highly leveraged with Chapter 3. I also expect that as people make mods - like Pra's new teleportation add-on -
More functionality like that will probably come in the future as more people make HQ add-ons like many of us made SS2 settlement/building plan add-ons.
 
Some of this discussion has become a bit heated. I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of our Community Behavioral Expectations, please read it. You are welcome to disagree and you are allowed to be frustrated with mod mechanics or decisions, but being rude to others will not be tolerated. If necessary the thread may be closed and formal warnings given.
 
I apologise for my outburst above, and in future will stop myself from letting that much of my actual personality show through on these forums.
In fact, that "taking a break" is a definite now.
 
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Something kinggath has repeatedly mentioned or implied during the Livestreams, is that they did not fully consider or allow for the fact that for most people, the instinctive

Something kinggath has repeatedly mentioned or implied during the Livestreams, is that they did not fully consider or allow for the fact that for most people, the instinctive reaction to getting a new quest in this kind of game is to finish it ASAP - a lot of SS2's design assumes you'll just put off doing things til you feel like it, or work on it over time. Even the very early quests, like the "build 8 houses and jobs for people", was never completely intended to all be done instantly.
Surly not? Kinggath must know his audience/users are going to complete each SS2 quest pretty much as soon as it is triggered; RPG gamers are, in the main completionists, (I include myself in this category) and will race to complete SS2 questlines as quickly and completely as they can. They may mix it in with other quests in the same area if there are any but otherwise it's a race to the finish.
 
Surly not? Kinggath must know his audience/users are going to complete each SS2 quest pretty much as soon as it is triggered; RPG gamers are, in the main completionists, (I include myself in this category) and will race to complete SS2 questlines as quickly and completely as they can. They may mix it in with other quests in the same area if there are any but otherwise it's a race to the finish.
I think those are definitely the two different types of RPG players. I tend to explore more and ignore quests until it's convenient for me to complete them. I'll sometimes have around a dozen quests that need to be turned in at any given time but it's usually not a priority for me unless I have some other reason to go back to wherever the quest-giver is.
 
I think those are definitely the two different types of RPG players. I tend to explore more and ignore quests until it's convenient for me to complete them. I'll sometimes have around a dozen quests that need to be turned in at any given time but it's usually not a priority for me unless I have some other reason to go back to wherever the quest-giver is.
I tend to play RPGs the same way. I don't "get OCD about unfinished quests in my log" like it seems other people do.

In fact, I believe that I probably play much slower than even what Kinggath thinks the average player does. The disease system in this mod kicks my ass every playthrough because I spend so much time just exploring, clearing random dungeons, or whatever else, that I seem to keep hitting disease tier thresholds before I'm ready for them. Hell, in this playthrough I just started, I rescued the Sanctuary 5, sent them on their way, got distracted by deciding to clear out Corvega early (since I knew it was coming).. And by the time I got back to Sanctuary I got a notification there was a disease outbreak there... And I hadn't even put down the first radio beacon to spawn Jake yet!
 
I tend to play RPGs the same way. I don't "get OCD about unfinished quests in my log" like it seems other people do.

In fact, I believe that I probably play much slower than even what Kinggath thinks the average player does. The disease system in this mod kicks my ass every playthrough because I spend so much time just exploring, clearing random dungeons, or whatever else, that I seem to keep hitting disease tier thresholds before I'm ready for them. Hell, in this playthrough I just started, I rescued the Sanctuary 5, sent them on their way, got distracted by deciding to clear out Corvega early (since I knew it was coming).. And by the time I got back to Sanctuary I got a notification there was a disease outbreak there... And I hadn't even put down the first radio beacon to spawn Jake yet!
I don't get OCD about unfinished quests in my log, on the contrary I actively go about collecting as many quests in my log a possible so that I can work out a "map path" to clear them as efficiently as possible. Prior to getting the new Salvage Beacons I invariably end up being overburdened and having to cut the "map path" short to unload the junk.
 
I think those are definitely the two different types of RPG players. I tend to explore more and ignore quests until it's convenient for me to complete them. I'll sometimes have around a dozen quests that need to be turned in at any given time but it's usually not a priority for me unless I have some other reason to go back to wherever the quest-giver is.
I feel like it depends on one condition (well, two) - is the quest really interesting or not? And is the player easily distracted? The latter could probably be said about most of us playing this, while on the former I'd like to say that yes, SS2 quests are very entertaining and when I first did them, I always skipped time to the next. Obviously it gets more boring on replays so I tend to switch to other stuff in the middle of it. Getting a ton of unfinished quests is just a side product. SS2 doesn't help (looking at you, Charles Baker and radiants in Nuka-world)
 
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