Settlement roles?

[karangatang-karenga]

Hi, do you guys like to plan ahead what kind of settlements are going to be built in the potential locations? What roles would they fill? Especially to complement other settlements, such as sunshine tidings and tenpines being the food production settlements so that other places can do other roles such as industry or trade (using caravan so they can fill other's needs). What do you guys have in mind when planning out settlements in the commonwealth? Do you mix the roles, or make each of them self-sufficient? Do you guys play with automated gameplay or micro manage them, do you build settlements to benefit yourself (e.g. scrap and glue farms etc) or try to build them in ways that make roleplay sense as places for the settlers to grow and do their thing?

 

[ilmlp9147]

I've been considering using Abernathy for caravan food production, starlight as my industrial hub, and Hangman's Alley for commerce. Not that hangman's would perform better or worse for commerce, just that it makes sense to me to have a commerce hub as close to Diamond City as possible for role play'ish reasons.

Other settlements I'll definitely setup are The Slog, the marina near the south western portion of the map ( i can't remember the name ) and the castle. Just so I can implement Comms stations for Scav Beacon coverage.

 

[Karvoc]

Yes, each of the settlements I make has a purpose and all work to supply a trade hub.
I have grouped all of the settlements into the following territories, north-west, north-east, central and southern.
Each of these territories has a single settlement that is all about commerce.
Starlight or Sanctuary for the north-west, the slog for the north-east, bunker hill for central and jamaica planes for the south.
In these locations, the core of all the build-up around them is where it feels safe and looks clean well as clean as it can get where people are able to live not just survive.
You have to do this so some extent as to have a settlement that is purely self-sufficient you need a population of 30+ Which then leads to further issues which you can only fix with more people and so no and so on so making settlements that are focused is key.

Like my hangman's settlement is all about water. It is a rather large water treatment and processing settlement for only 10 people. It produces enough food for those 10 to have enough to eat and just enough scrap so the water pumps and defence can keep running but it is not a place you go to relax it is a place built for one purpose using the river water and making that drinkable, hooking into the plumbing of the city and working to repair as much of it as can be.

 

[karangatang-karenga]

I forgot about putting comm stations on each corners of the Commonwealth... though it seems having excess settlers from its own system of radio recruitment sounds inconvenient... though I definitely should keep that in mind to support my own hoarding habits lol. Do production industries work across settlements? One I'm trying to remember is some industry plots which salvage weapons, will they affect my commercial plots elsewehere? Also Karvoc's idea of making region groups for the settlements helps alot. I'm definitely going to keep in mind to make commercial settlements on corners of the world where there aren't any traders (so all of them outside Boston I guess :p)

 

[Qerewen]

for me it always starts with Sanctuary to be the a self sufficient and high supplier of food/water and the base industry.
RR abernathy then become the site for the only two cityplans i ever will use (since he has not bestowed us with any more glorious plans)

beyond that i try and make the settlement themed to its surroundings but the few i have predetermined are the following:
Sunshine becomes a massive food producer together with a furniture factory
Starlight/Egret/County/castle into market hubs
Finch farm mechanical parts
Sommerville Rare materials (on the border to the glowing sea i figure they have great access to these treasures.
Warwick organic materials

 

[karangatang-karenga]

My PC is too potato to build up RR, abernaty and Sanctuary at once haha.... but they're all so close together I just keep abernathy untouched besides caravan plots to be the food source for Sanctuary while RR is just my personal treasure hoard

The castle could be a great place for weapons/armor stores and some salvage industries for it totally... Somerville really is perfect for rare stuff...
From more experienced players, how much is the ratio of resource settlements to commercials do u guys have? I'm hoping I can make tenpines and Sunshine enough to feed the northern half of the commonwealth, though honestly with the default settlements so many of them seems to be naturally inclined for subsistence farming. I hope Slog, Tenpines and Sunshine is lore accurate enough to be the agricultural heart of my settlements... there's lots of settlements near water too so I wouldn't know which one is best for being the water, there's even a power transfer municipal plot which I imagine could run through settlements near the big power towers like Abernathy farm. Warwick changing from farmers to organic materials gathering does sound appropriate enough though lol

 

[Qerewen]

unless it is a hub i usualy just keep a general and a bar in the settlement, they don't need much else currently.
just because there is room to stuff more stuff into the settlement it does not mean you should.

 

[NeuBleu]

So I read all of the strategies above me and decided I needed to make a map. I went to google, and lo and behold, there are maps there that others have set up for Survival Mode that will do nicely for zoning. Think I might dig up Illustrator and do a spiffy job.

 

[NeuBleu]

My PC is too potato to build up RR, abernaty and Sanctuary at once haha.... but they're all so close together I just keep abernathy untouched besides caravan plots to be the food source for Sanctuary while RR is just my personal treasure hoard

The castle could be a great place for weapons/armor stores and some salvage industries for it totally... Somerville really is perfect for rare stuff...
From more experienced players, how much is the ratio of resource settlements to commercials do u guys have? I'm hoping I can make tenpines and Sunshine enough to feed the northern half of the commonwealth, though honestly with the default settlements so many of them seems to be naturally inclined for subsistence farming. I hope Slog, Tenpines and Sunshine is lore accurate enough to be the agricultural heart of my settlements... there's lots of settlements near water too so I wouldn't know which one is best for being the water, there's even a power transfer municipal plot which I imagine could run through settlements near the big power towers like Abernathy farm. Warwick changing from farmers to organic materials gathering does sound appropriate enough though lol

I would say yes to Sunshine. You could easily fit two 3x3s there and maybe some smaller ones. Tenpines, i am not sure about. It has a really small foot print. How about building material? Lots of trees around there.

 

[karangatang-karenga]

That's cool! I'm not a survival mode guy but I still don't fast travel and leaving a line of settlements with supply lines is still something I like, if nothing else so I can use IDEK's logistic station mods, but putting down cities with the help of SS2 feels even more rewarding.

 

[NeuBleu]

Yes, each of the settlements I make has a purpose and all work to supply a trade hub.
I have grouped all of the settlements into the following territories, north-west, north-east, central and southern.
Each of these territories has a single settlement that is all about commerce.
Starlight or Sanctuary for the north-west, the slog for the north-east, bunker hill for central and jamaica planes for the south.
In these locations, the core of all the build-up around them is where it feels safe and looks clean well as clean as it can get where people are able to live not just survive.
You have to do this so some extent as to have a settlement that is purely self-sufficient you need a population of 30+ Which then leads to further issues which you can only fix with more people and so no and so on so making settlements that are focused is key.

Like my hangman's settlement is all about water. It is a rather large water treatment and processing settlement for only 10 people. It produces enough food for those 10 to have enough to eat and just enough scrap so the water pumps and defence can keep running but it is not a place you go to relax it is a place built for one purpose using the river water and making that drinkable, hooking into the plumbing of the city and working to repair as much of it as can be.

I noticed your SS1 settlements all seemed themed, like your new SS2 Coastal Cottage being themed for mining.

 

[NeuBleu]

I forgot about putting comm stations on each corners of the Commonwealth... though it seems having excess settlers from its own system of radio recruitment sounds inconvenient... though I definitely should keep that in mind to support my own hoarding habits lol. Do production industries work across settlements? One I'm trying to remember is some industry plots which salvage weapons, will they affect my commercial plots elsewehere? Also Karvoc's idea of making region groups for the settlements helps alot. I'm definitely going to keep in mind to make commercial settlements on corners of the world where there aren't any traders (so all of them outside Boston I guess :p)

I've been a little confused about that. Are caravan plots and com hubs only meant to placed strategically or at all settlements?

 

[karangatang-karenga]

From what I've gathered, I think caravan plots should be placed in every settlement to grant them access to resources from other settlements connected, I'm not too sure on comm hubs besides their usage for our salvage beacons and extra recruitment, another thread recommends putting at least one in each corner of the world to have full radio coverage for salvage beacons at least. IDEK's logistic stations mod improves the SS2 caravan with having cloud storage on the plot

 

[karangatang-karenga]

I mostly play vanilla quests so I got to thinking at least for the northwest corner of the Commonwealth, it seems like a good place to start a network of cities with Sanctuary initially just self sustaining after the Quincy five arrives, before relegating industry to tenpines (nice recommend!) and starlight for being a container warehouse (also Drumlin Diner already being the area's trading place), Using ILS caravan Abernathy farms should suffice to subsidize food to the others, before later on sending Hubert's group to Sunshine to build a mixed farm-organics industry thing. I think those are all the settlements in the NW corner used for its own little bubble of interdependent settlements. RR is empty save for a caravan plot, as it's the base of my real stash where the cloud storage is drawn from. And Graygarden... well it's a novelty settlement, I don't think I would do anything to it besides putting some turrets like in Abernathy. Although highway access is possible from there.

I plan on expanding a new settlement bubble after visiting DC and hangman's alley I think, assuming I don't bork my save that long into the game...

Spoiler: Covenant

probably turn the place into a container warehouse since iirc the corpses dont despawn, make it a bridge settlement into taffington and the NE corner of the commonwealth settlements later on too

 

[Karvoc]

I noticed your SS1 settlements all seemed themed, like your new SS2 Coastal Cottage being themed for mining.

Yeah, I think it really helps when you are making a settlement to have an idea as to why it is even there past this is where Bethesda said I can build.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

why it is even there past this is where Bethesda said I can build.

I was actually pondering this the other night; I came to the conclusion that there's at least a couple of spots that if it were fully up to me, I'd move the Settlers that live out of those places out permanently, since why would you choose to live THERE? Eg Tenpines Bluff, I'd move those people over to live in Sanctuary instantly instead of staying in their little shack miles from anywhere and surrounded on all sides by hostiles.

 

[Karvoc]

I was actually pondering this the other night; I came to the conclusion that there's at least a couple of spots that if it were fully up to me, I'd move the Settlers that live out of those places out permanently, since why would you choose to live THERE? Eg Tenpines Bluff, I'd move those people over to live in Sanctuary instantly instead of staying in their little shack miles from anywhere and surrounded on all sides by hostiles.

I have an idea for ten pines but it is mostly as a lodge for hunters so all the hostiles around it would give the place a wide birth as they know the hunters would love to shoot back and will probably hit.
So with an idea for the location, you can look at how it would even be used by people trying to live there past another adhesive farm for you with some defence and beds so the npcs are happy.

 

[Irealys]

Hi, do you guys like to plan ahead what kind of settlements are going to be built in the potential locations?

Plan? Not before I get a location. Then I decide what I'm gonna do in that playthrough.

What roles would they fill?

Got bits of everything. Farmland, Industrial cities, Supermarket centers, training centers for various stats, specificly Agility training center (I call it my police academy)

Especially to complement other settlements, such as sunshine tidings and tenpines being the food production settlements so that other places can do other roles such as industry or trade (using caravan so they can fill other's needs). What do you guys have in mind when planning out settlements in the commonwealth? Do you mix the roles, or make each of them self-sufficient?

Always make each settlement unique in some way

Do you guys play with automated gameplay or micro manage them, do you build settlements to benefit yourself (e.g. scrap and glue farms etc) or try to build them in ways that make roleplay sense as places for the settlers to grow and do their thing?

Micro manage the shit out of everything. Only because I want to give settlements and even settlers personality. For instance I want the person who lives in an industrial themed home work in an industrial workplace. I don't mind max. I "wing it" every time. It's always a fun struggle for me

 

[Qerewen]

I was actually pondering this the other night; I came to the conclusion that there's at least a couple of spots that if it were fully up to me, I'd move the Settlers that live out of those places out permanently, since why would you choose to live THERE? Eg Tenpines Bluff, I'd move those people over to live in Sanctuary instantly instead of staying in their little shack miles from anywhere and surrounded on all sides by hostiles.

Tenpines i usually turn into my private homestead, i really do like the view and it is not too secluded since the Starlight bazaar is quite close.
but for a settlement with value in SS2 empire? no not really.

Other than that i pretty much do the same by ignoring zimonja, murkwater(this is where i dump settlers i dont like such as Marcy).

 

[karangatang-karenga]

Agility training center (I call it my police academy)

Do recreational plots work across settlements too? Or do you just move settlers to SPECIAL training plots to improve their stats before sending them back? I like your style in handling the settlements, though I prefer keeping things mostly automated past picking buildings plans (and power poles) somewhat.

Where do you guys later on pick settlements to place plots that have very new construction vibes? Things like the New Bugle with an intact glass wall and new brick construction, as opposed to wooden shack style plots which usually fits wherever in the Commonwealth.