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Balance Thoughts & Questions

Natalie

New Member
Messages
15
First off, if the creators of the mod ever read this, thank you for this amazing mod and I'm so hyped for chapter 2!

So I've been playing a while now and I had some thoughts I wanted to get off my chest, and things I still have questions about, mostly regarding the difficulty and balance. (As a note, over the past month I ended up playing one playthrough, mostly focusing on completing base fallout 4 but also using SS2, and now I'm on a new playthrough where I intend to build up settlements a lot more seriously)

I started off with the default settings, but I was really struggling to get my settlements going, especially with getting to all the advanced stuff I'm supposedly able to unlock at some point. The first thing I did was turn off non-plot maintenance, and then later I ended up switching to simplified resources. I mean I guess I am having fun this way but I feel a little bit like a fraud. I'm not the partner you think I am Jake!!

I noticed that the difference is far greater than just the complexity of the management; On simplified, you have about three times greater production from industrial buildings than it seems is intended just because on default, only about a third of the resource types ever get used for upkeep. Everything seems to take oil and ceramic primarily, and other stuff is mostly wasted without much means to specialize. On simplified, all that totals up and is useful. Not as sure about mechanical parts because I never got that far on default. Also it seems that all high level residential plots use up about 3 or so ceramics daily. Is there an option to beat my settlers over the head until they stop smashing pots? This isn't a zelda game!!!

I also wish there was a way to tell what resources are used for upkeep, because I'm starting to think that now I'm getting my caravan network operational and branching out, I don't really need many construction industry anymore because it's never used for upkeep. But if I ever switch back to full complexity, would that suddenly change?

On my first playthrough (i was using default settings), I kept getting Sanctuary shutting down due to lack of upkeep, even though I had mama murphy on a max level organics plot. Is it that high level industrial buildings won't produce unless powered? My power plant was shutting down to no upkeep, and also the municipal power box kept breaking for some reason. That sounds like you could get into a real stuck postion, especially with non-plot maintenance also on. I haven't run into that issue this time around but I still wonder what I did wrong.

Lastly this may just be a bug but I was working on setting up County Crossing yesterday, with the Powells, and after hooking it up to the caravan network food went to "999" and everyone's unhappy about starving. I've got 13 food produced for 6 people, and as far as I know no food defecit in my other settlements. Is someone embezzling the food stores? Is Old Paul's secret finally revealed??

P.S.
When is Jake going to be romanceable?
My character is in the market for precisely 1x Husband+Child combo and you can't just dangle that in front of her like that!!
 
Don't feel at all bad about what level of settings you have the mod on; I only play on the "four resource types" level myself unless I'm testing something specific to file a bug report on. And I personally find that the "non-plot operating costs" and "operating costs plot" settings make things WAY too hard to keep up with too. Thankfully those settings even exist, and you're completely free to use whatever combination of options works best for you.
Something worth mentioning, though, is that there's a couple of known bugs in the 'waiting to be fixed' list related to maintenance costs not displaying correctly in the "resources HUD" up in the top left and/or the "reports" you can get individual ASAMs to show you.

Regarding the "999" though, that usually means the game's trying to actually display a negative number - and failing, because it can't show those. If it doesn't go away after giving it a few minutes to recalculate, that means you likely ARE running at a total of a deficit. Don't forget that plots themselves can have 'costs' of food/water, Caravans in particular take up a LOT (to feed the brahmin, I guess is the explanation?), as do upgraded Residentials and some of the Training types, although you can turn even that off too - that's "Dynamic Needs" in the settings.
 
Thank you, I think I understand now what was going on with the food. Of course the brahmin need to eat, how inconsiderate of me!
 
If you go up to the individual ASAMs on Plots and hit the alt-activate, you get a little animation that I guess is meant to be your character picking the thing up to read the screen on it; that shows you the pluses/minuses on those needs for that specific plot.
Looks like this:
ScreenShot86.png
 
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