Holotape Gameplay Options Immersion
Settings designed around immersing you into the game world.
Contents
Commercial Requirement
By default in Sim Settlements, your settlers will not “build” and “open” stores on any commercial plots you lay down until a “certain” number of your settlers have also built “homes” on residential plots (in the same settlement) you have laid down.
The basic notion (from an immersion standpoint) is that people will need a place to live before they will even consider any “retail/commercial” venture. Additionally, the “certain” number of homes requirement is a simple way to tie the growth of your settlements commercial aspects to the number of “homeowners” - in the real world you need a large enough foundation of residents (e.g. residential) in a town for commercial enterprises to be feasible and/or supported.
Now, if you want, you can change it so just the total “Population” in each settlement determines if commercial stores will be opened. With this option set to “Population” the only way someone's going to come open a shop in a settlement is if it has a reasonable population. Sim Settlements is designed to work with any charisma level (of your in game character that is) so for example, if you're a player who doesn't like charisma gameplay and you just want a charisma of 1, you'll still be able to get stores to open and upgrade with this set to population (i.e. the population requirements are low). This is especially useful for smaller settlement locations where you may only have room for a much lower number of settlers.
Note: Your settlers will be considered “Homeowners” regardless of whether they have a home on a residential plot - they just need an assigned bed.
Finally, if you just hate getting involved in your gameplay at all and you want to build those commercial no matter what, you can turn off this requirement completely by changing it to “None”. On the “None” setting, commercial plots will build and upgrade no matter how many settlers or homes you have.
Options: Homes, Population, or None
Default: Homes
Ignore Factions
By default (OFF), things like available flags will consider the factions you’ve met, allied, or enemied with.
Options: ON or OFF
Default: OFF
Leader Traits
Settlement leaders can have a series of 3 traits: one major, one minor, and one weakness. These will provide bonuses, penalties, and flavor to the settlements the leader is in charge of. Leadership traits are in effect as long as the leader is assigned as the leader of that settlement.
All of the companions have leader traits. Many of the additional leaders in the addon packs have them as well.
Note: Leadership traits do not require ROTC/city construction, they will work even with settlements you have built yourself or imported with Transfer Settlements. Leader traits are a good reason to have a settlement leader even if you are not building with a city plan
Available Settings:
- Options: ON or OFF
- Default: ON
What These Settings Mean:
- ON: Each of your settlements will be impacted by the leader traits of their assigned city leader.
- OFF: Any leader traits your city leaders have will no longer affect their settlement.
Martial Tech Requirement
Martial Tech requirement being ON makes it so that Martial plots only upgrade if you have a certain number of assigned Industrial plots in your settlement (both regular and advanced industrial count).
Options: ON or OFF
Default: ON
Residential Job Requirement
Options: ON or OFF
Default: ON
Realistic Build Times
Enables realistic in-game build times for plots. It is OFF by default and plots will build in approximately 60 seconds in real time. When using Realistic Build Times, times take much longer by using a randomly generated time per plot (upwards of 36 in-game hours). This can lead to more immersive game play.
Options: ON or OFF
Default: OFF
Residential Job Requirement
By default (ON) your settler’s homes (e.g. Sim Settlements residential plots) will not be eligible for “upgrades” unless those settlers also have “jobs” (e.g. they are also assigned to Sim Settlements job plots - agricultural, commercial, industrial, advanced industrial, martial, or recreational - you have a lot of options).
The basic idea behind the "residential job requirement" is to increase immersion, to make it so that it feels like your settlers have to have an advanced economy around them before they're actually investing money into their homes (upgrades).
The calculation/difference this option makes is that at least 50% of your settlers have to be using Sim Settlements “job” plots in order for their homes to be marked as eligible to be upgraded from level 1 to level 2. The number is higher (75%) for eligibility to upgrade from level 2 to level 3. Please note, this is only one factor in deciding eligibility for upgrades for the residential plot type, the other requirements still need to be met.
Note: vanilla work objects will be counted by Sim Settlements as “jobs”.
You can turn this option OFF and Sim Settlements will no longer use how many of your settlers have “jobs” as a factor when determining if a residential plot is eligible for upgrade (other factors will still apply).
Options: ON or OFF
Default: ON
Visitors
As your cities/settlement builds progress and plots upgrade, visitors will be drawn to them to make your cities/settlements feel more lively and generate extra income at your stores and commercial plots.
Available Settings:
- Options: ON, Limited, OFF
- Default: ON
What These Settings Mean:
- ON: Visitors will come to your cities/settlements over time to breath more life into them. They will also boost your settlements income levels while they are there.
- Limited: Will cap the number of visitors to a low number to help with performance.
- OFF: Visitor will no longer come to your cities/settlements. If your are in a city/settlement when you turn this off, any current visitors won't vanish but they will be gone the next time you return.
