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New game startup questions

smithkt

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I have been away from Fallout for quite a while. I came back and did a fresh install specifically to try out the Conqueror stuff. I have a few simple (I hope) questions for those who have been doing this for a while.

1) Is it best to simply stand in the bathroom immediately after the character creation and setting all the Conqueror options and wait for the all the prebuild stuff to complete before moving out? I ask this because I assumed I could start playing while this was going on in the background, but it seemed like if I began to start all the prewar stuff, I would get random CTD or weird behavior such as the doctor in the vault not moving after saying follow me. I tried this method of simply standing there looking into the corner and I was able get all the way through the prewar stuff and exit the cryo chamber without a problem. Was I just lucky or is this the right way to approach this?

2) I saw this comment from MrCJohn when searching the forums for similar question.

https://www.simsettlements.com/site...nquerer-start-up-debug-menu.11997/#post-82860

Disable conqueror. do the character creation.

Hard save. Exit Game.

Reload... wait.... hard save and exit.

Enable conqueror. Reload.

Should be fine. It isnt mystic pines.
John

I did not want to hijack the other thread, so I will ask here if @MrCJohn or anyone else can answer:

Does this trigger the conqueror setup when you reload the game after enabling Conqueror?

When you say "Reload... wait.... hard save and exit", what are we waiting for specifically? Are you just waiting until status messages stop appearing?

Would this help resolve some issues I saw with custom settlements sometimes not appearing in the War options faction selection lists for prebuilding? Since I had so many CTD issues, I had the pleasure of going through the setup multiple times. I saw situations where a a new settlement, for example: Pra's Fairline Hills Settlement, would either not be present in the list or would appear twice. Would delaying the start of the Conqueror by not enabling it right away make this more consistent?

For these tests, I only used Sim Settlements specific mods, city plans, addon packs, faction packs, and additions settlements that Kinggath showed in his latest Play series mod list. So I am hoping that these are not causing my issues and it is just a lack of patience.

My first attempt had many more of the mods that Kinggath is using in his current play through, but for troubleshooting purposes I disabled all the rest and started again.
 
It's mainly your lack of patience.
To hand build all those settlements that conqueror will prebuild took hundreds of combined hours. All that time is condensed into a couple of hours during the prebuild process. You must allow the process to happen without adding any extra load to it. So standing in the bathroom for a few hours is a small price to pay considering what you are getting in return.

This is the best process to follow to set up a game https://www.simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/bags_2-0-bake-a-game-save.11773/#post-81180
You don't have to do it but it is recommended for the most stable game possible.
 
Personally, I do it before I exit the vault in the elevator.

What I meant by stop... wait... hard save and exit. When you are done with the character creation, your PC will turn around towards doorway. I just meant don't walk. Let the animation turn you around - hands off keyboard and mouse.

Yes, wait for all the messages to stop. Patience grasshopper! :)

I think the intent was you should be able to do things with Conqueror in background running, but (I can make it through and out the vault in 13 minutes with Pre-war) when you do a full Conqueror build (40mins to almost 3 hours depending on options and settings), waiting in a spot is relatively small price to pay.

Yes, I used to wait... but since I do Conqueror Pre-builds (posted on Nexus), I don't wait any more. I load one of them up, install the rest of my mods for the game (outside of the base character creation), let it SIT for a bit... let things settle. Then exit the vault.

It's Beth. It's a fragile pre-war scenario. Not so much once your character is created, but, still... it's like turning back from running towards the vault and get back into sanctuary and the bomb goes off... lol....

The hard saves for me - critical. Quicksaves, autosaves, etc... are not as reliable in capturing all the game settings. I play survival 100% of time... yes, I hard save often at checkpoints.

Example:
savegame "Nora - 23Oct 0900 Vault 111 Outside"
savegame "Nora - 23Oct 1100 Codsworth 2 RR"
savegame "Nora - 23Oct 1300 Museum"
savegame "Nora - 23Oct 2200 Sanctuary"

These type of saves I trust. Not the others in between.

Best thing to do is start game with Character Creation items - face presets, combat eye liner, feral repellant eyeshadow, lip gloss, blah blah blah… do the pre-war, do the vault, and after the elevator comes down and gate goes up... wait... there are a lot of scripts shutting down from all that movement.

I personally do all my other mod enables at that point... get everything set... then I enable conqueror. @RayBo I believe does it the other way around... depends mostly on your load order. Since I enable to my installed mod sequence (how I installed the mods) and per my plugin list, I place Conqueror dead last. Works for me and my mod list... may not for you or others.

If the wait is killing you, you should really just use the pre-builds I publish, get it set, load the mods like Kinggath's Let's play series and get into the game.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/38520

PS - just hit over 2500 unique downloads, so someone is enjoy the fruits of my waiting! Think of the hours and hours... :)
 
I appreciate the very thorough responses. I will take a look at Raybo's post. I am not at all opposed to waiting. This being the first time trying to play with Conqueror, I was just not sure what to expect. I'll have to experiment until I find a workflow/modlist that is reasonably stable.
 
I appreciate the very thorough responses. I will take a look at Raybo's post. I am not at all opposed to waiting. This being the first time trying to play with Conqueror, I was just not sure what to expect. I'll have to experiment until I find a workflow/modlist that is reasonably stable.

There are many ways to skin a cat.
:acute
But, the universal truth here is "patience pays off" in Fo4. :umnik2

Be it walking into settlements fast-tvl less or sparingly
Idling at times in the game
Waiting to install all our mods and get going
Waiting when you activate Conqueror and looking at a wall when you are letting the pre-builts run.

Where you do these things isn't as important in most cases, it is simply "that you do them" :wink

As @Phil_T_Casual says so eloquently: "patience"

And "patience pays off in Fo4" when setting up a stable game.

The last thing I will say is because load orders, settings, and hardware differ so much there is no guide that is a full substitute for a user's own testing.

Take your time and figure out what works for you. If it works please post all the information you can. Excellence comes from generous users sharing there procedures and experiences and it is compounding.

The bottom line is always "what has worked well for you?" :umnik2If you share, it may help others/us learn something new, or confirm what we think we know or :unknwdisprove something where we mislead ourselves. :this

:yess:yess:yess

:yes3
 
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There are many ways to skin a cat.
:acute
But, the universal truth here is "patience pays off" in Fo4. :umnik2

Be it walking into settlements fast-tvl less or sparingly
Idling at times in the game
Waiting to install all our mods and get going
Waiting when you activate Conqueror and looking at a wall when you are letting the pre-builts run.

Where you do these things isn't as important in most cases, it is simply "that you do them" :wink

As @Phil_T_Casual says so eloquently: "patience"

And "patience pays off in Fo4" when setting up a stable game.

The last thing I will say is because load orders, settings, and hardware differ so much there is no guide that is a full substitute for a user's own testing.

Take your time and figure out what works for you. If it works please post all the information you can. Excellence comes from generous users sharing there procedures and experiences and it is compounding.

The bottom line is always "what has worked well for you?" :umnik2If you share it may help others, help us all learn something new, or confirm what we think we know or :unknwdisprove something where we mislead ourselves. :this

:yess:yess:yess

:yes3

As Bugs Bunny would say....

"waaaaaiiiitt a minute, Doc... we are skinning cats now? Where's the memo?!"
 
I strongly suggest following this to a T:
Following this I'm generally able to get all settlements to appear in the menus even though I have over 50, or perhaps 60 in total across vanilla + DLC + CC + mods(I use all my own settlements + Pra+ Yagisan/Neeher + a few others).


I would also suggest if you are on a very heavy load order like 300+ mods &/or a list that includes script heavy mods to wait for a bit longer than usual to give it extra time. Key point to keep in mind here is when getting to a really heavy load order that trial & error will be inevitable since your setup will basically be completely unique so one size fits all may not be a thing anymore at that point. Script lag can occur, though it will be mitigated to an extent by following BaGS 2.0(doing this at least helps reduce chances of settlement startup scripts failing to register them or other scripts to get perpetually stuck) it can still be a factor if you use really heavy mods like Spawn Mods(such as the popular Pack Attack mod, where settings on it might need to be carefully adjusted) or if you just have so many mods all doing stuff at once. Many mods are far beyond what Bethesda ever could have imagined. So what happens is scripted operations for the prebuild might take longer than expected if there's tons of other stuff going on in the background. Monitoring logs can give clues though.
In filepath {C:\Users\Username\Documents\My Games\Fallout4\Logs\Script\User\} there will be AutoBuilderLog.0.log found in it. If you run game in windowed mode with it on a lower resolution than the monitor you can have it take up only part of the screen. During prebuild the AutoBuilderLog will be large and you will see it frequently updating with size growing because plots are being set up all across the Commonwealth. When it slows down it's safe to assume things are done. There will likely be some errors related to assignment still coming up due to more plots than settlers at some locations but isn't harmful or necessarily indicative of trouble.

I use Windows 10 so filepath and other things might vary if you're on a different OS. I don't 100% recall offhand but I believe for INI settings to get this stuff to appear I used bEnableLogging & bEnableTrace. Outside of test scenarios it may be best to have them off until needing to find specific information from the logs for troubleshooting, since logging in itself does add to the game's workload. For new games I just use 1080p Low and idle the game AFK

Aside from that the usual stuff applies like running Quick Auto Clean via xEdit, with xEdit being kept up to date on the stable version, on all plugins besides those where the author says specifically not to QAC. For me that's everything besides Unofficial Patch since I believe there are some intentional ITMs. Fixing all instances of deleted Navmesh.

If the above stuff doesn't make sense then probably the best bet to get up & running is to follow guide like
Sim Settlements Experience: https://www.simsettlements.com/site/index.php?threads/sim-settlements-experience-mod-list.11467/. Keeping things simple/reigned in a bit will make it easier to do mod management. Which then makes it easier to learn more about how stuff works which then can make more complex load order become manageable. This last bit is in case you're a new player who haven't yet put a lot of time into modding overall yet or if a new player checks this thread, we're going on 5 years since game's release so lots of assumed knowledge at this point. 2018 is a while ago but it's just about time spent in xEdit/Creation Kit/Nifskope/ReSaver Fallrim Tools/in-game, oftentimes in that order in terms of time spent. This game is unique in that technical knowledge "from outside of the game" like how file formats work or various record types work can be just as relevant as game mechanics for the player to need to learn in order to make sense of things when bugs happen.
 
OK. So new issue. I followed all the advice given above and have been able to progress all the way through the vault without any issues. I am am waiting at the elevator to go back up. I enabled conqueror and waited for the options to popup, but nothing is happening. Should it trigger automatically at this point or do I need to do something in the console to trigger the menus?
 
OK. So new issue. I followed all the advice given above and have been able to progress all the way through the vault without any issues. I am am waiting at the elevator to go back up. I enabled conqueror and waited for the options to popup, but nothing is happening. Should it trigger automatically at this point or do I need to do something in the console to trigger the menus?

Yeah, it glitched for KG in his video too.
No worries below is the console cmd to fire it up.
Only use inside the vault. Please wait to leave the vault until the prebuilding is done.
Sorry I used a picture but I am at work on a mobile device.
5608B6CA-52C8-4A9F-8261-904D6F51D96A.jpeg


it is the entire “cqf” line. It’s a long one.
 
Excellent, thanks. I'll give it a try as soon as I have a chance.

cqf kgconq_cityplanstarter preparetorunwizard

yeppers, that is it.
 
I am happy to say the console command did trigger the conqueror stuff. I guess that is no surprise. I do find it curious that the wiki, while acknowledging the existence of the command, specifically says the save will be screwed if you use it. Time to wait for the prebuild to finish. :)
 
I am happy to say the console command did trigger the conqueror stuff. I guess that is no surprise. I do find it curious that the wiki, while acknowledging the existence of the command, specifically says the save will be screwed if you use it. Time to wait for the prebuild to finish. :)

:drinks

It's probably ok, the thing is I think we really don't want folks running it outside the vault.

REF:
timestamp: 10:10

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