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Whisper

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Since I'm really cr*p at designing settlements, and since @Koeran mentioned this video on simple how-to-make-stuff-look-real techniques - figured I should chuck it up in a thread in case there are other dummies like me out there.

Here's a simple submission from my Starlight Drive-In: three water-purifiers and several shack bridges, the purifiers turned so that the settlers can reach the taps from the bridge rather than tromping mud through the waterhole. (So insanitary.)

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I've gotta say I recommend the entirety of AdaposeTV's Build It series. You may not enjoy his sense of humor as much as I do, but in my opinion he's a long way from being an obnoxious YouTube presenter. His presentations also contain advice on both modded and vanilla settlement building, so there's something there for everyone.

IMHO, this is the most profound mod for any builder of vanilla assets.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/26028
now you can space near anything.
It dramatically improved my quality of life and therefore my settlers.
With a bit of work, you can also use it to drop the steps one riser height. Just place both as they are, in the example image in the mod. Then remove the one snapped to the foundation, and by toggling the ability to only move horizontally, you can move the lower one until it collides with the foundation. As long as it doesn't snap upward, you'll have an effect that I've long been trying to achieve with stairs.
 
As per the City Builder instructions by KG and co, some simple fenceposts can make a structure look more believeable. These are the posts from the vanilla wire fences, pushed into the ground and made to look like supports (shifted around with PlaceEverywhere).
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These settlers have their heads on straight - a speakeasy is very much required. The table/chairs in the background were placed by me, extra seating. Nick, you drunkard...
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I wanted a walkway across here. I took the opportunity to make a small "pier" and shift the water purifier so that the settlers can get at the tap.
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Scaled a lamp down to 50% size to make it fit the player bed area.
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While most of the build is barnlike (fitting for Egret Marina) I did make sure to reroof and put a small-ish barrier beside the wooden lookout.
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Thinking about it, this thread should probably have gone into the settlement showcase area. I doubt there's much point tho, don't think there'll be much more in here. Blinging things out takes so damn much time that I don't really have to spare.
 
These are the posts from the vanilla wire fences, pushed into the ground and made to look like supports (shifted around with PlaceEverywhere).
That's very effective. I mostly use the posts from the Warehouse and Barn tabs, but that's because I have the DLC. And they're obviously not available for SS (unless they're included in the Project Blueprint files?).

I may have to start using those fence posts. The color pallet matches the wooden shacks better than the posts.
 
I mostly use the posts from the Warehouse and Barn tabs, but that's because I have the DLC. And they're obviously not available for SS (unless they're included in the Project Blueprint files?).
As I understand it, the SS/Project Blueprint files are strictly the vanilla assets. Which makes sense, because (I think) some players release city plans which require DLC, while SS itself attempts to be as agnostic as possible - mostly for new players convenience I guess.
—edit—
Regarding the posts, I deliberately left them irregular in heights - adds a touch of ramshackle verisimilitude to the build.
 
As I understand it, the SS/Project Blueprint files are strictly the vanilla assets. Which makes sense, because (I think) some players release city plans which require DLC, while SS itself attempts to be as agnostic as possible - mostly for new players convenience I guess.
Yeah, that's my understanding also. Though I suspect most of the DLC assets are actually vanilla ones anyway. They have just been unlocked from the CK and put into the workshop menu with snap points and all that jazz.

Regarding the posts, I deliberately left them irregular in heights - adds a touch of ramshackle verisimilitude to the build.
And it saves you from stressing out too much.
 
You should watch Norespawns YT channel. He makes wonderful lore friendly buildings on PlayStation. And before mods appear he made all of it only with vanilla ítems. He also has a list of videos on how to make believable structures.
 
Yeah, I really like his work too. Though I avoid the ones he uses Mods in, as I'm on PS4 too. I believe he has a PC now, as he's posted a couple of settlement mods on the Nexus.
 
A slightly different style tip, colored by personal preferences. The modern world has workshops for a reason, and they look industrial. It’s efficient for doing the job. You see them all through Fallout.

If you’re doing a settlement blueprint or a city plan, seriously think about putting all the workbenches into a single barnlike building near that big red workshop. Slap a sign on the front wall which says “tools”. Don’t scatter them so that the player has to go searching for the things through a rats-warren.

You know it makes sense. >_<

(I’ll put up a few pictures from my failed Starlight Drive-In build as examples tonight.)
 
Okay, Starlight Drive In build. Specifically, why to gather things in an easy-to-find place. In this case I'm focusing on building a barnlike area for the workbenches. (Never shift the Workshop itself. Never.)

To preface, I'm slowly developing a personal philosophy re building. It boils down to the following rules (so far and still evolving, YMMV):

1/ The player is the primary focus of any build.
2/ See #1 above.
3/ See #1 above.

Heheheh! (Yes, I'm tired.) To explain.

From the player's level: Yeah, I'm the focus of the game. It's for my convenience. I'm the player, right? Without me, it's totally pointless? Those damn pixels on the screen, they won't exist if I'm not playing it, right? And they're right. It's all about the player, you betcha.

From the immersion level: The first thing the Sole Survivor does is arrange the start of a settlement to his liking. He makes himself shelter and a bed. He has a place for cooking. He gets water. He puts together a place to hold the tools and benches. (Ever wonder why that house right beside the Rosa residence is scrappable to the foundations?) He then goes through the rest of the settlement area like a tornado, scrapping the hell outta everything possible. He lays down a few plots. He looks around. "Hmmm. Someone might want to come live here, now that I've done the heavy lifting to start the process." He slaps up a beacon and a few settlers show. It's all about the Sole Survivor, the player's character, you betcha.

From the meta-game level: Settlements only exist for the benefit of one of the four plot storylines. The player is quite free to ignore the damn things. Their only real use is to do some tooling up of personal equipment, and you don't need settlers for that. You don't even need a settlement for that, Diamond City will do quite adequately - plus it's central. Again, it's all about the player, you betcha.

So the ground rule becomes: It's All About The Player. Sim Settlements is all about improving the game for the player. Hands-off settlements, as much as possible, within certain parameters of player involvement etc.

Look up at all three of those levels. All three revolve around the player. If the player wasn't playing Sim Settlements, if the player was throwing up a few shacks and throwing down a few sleeping bags and tossing some basic crops in the ground and heading off to play the game storyline - he would arrange everything for his own convenience.

From the immersion/Sole Survivor's point of view, the basics of the settlement are going to be set up for his convenience. Handy. Well-marked. Functional. The settlers that appear later, they can use the tools and kitbash whatever the hell they want however they want around the stuff he's already built. They're not going to rip down buildings and shift benches into weird, hidden places that are away from where he initially put them. That stuff is heavy, for starters. Plus, if they aggravate the Sole Survivor enough - the opportunity that he's given them can be quite easily taken away. ("You. You dropped and broke the Weapons Workbench. What the hell were you...? No. Forget it. Eff off. Now. Before I give you another nostril...")

I'm not saying that the Sole Survivor is the abusive type, or a slaver, or whatever. Far from it - if he was, they'd run for the hills. He's simply gotten the place set up, everything is working, basics of sanitation and electricity, he wouldn't mind some company and the chance to swap some freshly-shot Brahmin meat for a few freshly-grown tato's and mutfruit. He doesn't expect some guest that he's invited in to rearrange the decor in his bedroom, let alone rip the place apart so they can put up some kinda weird-looking shack-thing...

And boy, that's a lot of pontificating. Next post for the pictures of the workshop I put together.
 
Given my general philosophy of "make it easy for the player", I put together a barnlike workshop for the armor/chemistry/weaponsmith benches.

Note: In retrospect, I made a silly layout mistake with my build. I put the Player Home, a couple of hand-water-pumps, and the electricity supply next to the workbench shack. I should have put the tool barn in the same area. It *is* the industrial heart of the entire settlement, it should be close together. Everything else is built around the outside. If nothing else, to protect the most important part of the settlement - the tools that made it possible.

Only when the last settler's corpse is cooling on the ground, should any raider or supermutant or whatever be able to get to that area.

So, the toolshed as it were. Start off with some basic concrete blocks, 2 x 3 structure, 6 squares. A set of concrete steps going up. Slab walls. A ratty industrial-like roof. All of the basic structure can be made from vanilla assets, you don't need Sim Settlements or Project Blue Print to do this. They just make it look nicer, a bit more real as it were. Note that there should be a sink to the right of the entrance, for cleanup. You'll see why.
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Inside, we have the armor workstation...the chemistry workstation...a cabinet...chemcooler near the chemistry station..old car battery on the floor, just a bit of simple color.
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Turn to the right, the weapon workstation. Note the oil slick on the floor. This will be the only area where this makes sense. The barrel is for color, the lantern for when lightning blows half the generators to hell and you have to try and work in the dark to fix things.
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Turning to the left, we see a set of shelves on the wall. This is actually quite easy to duplicate, thanks to Worshop Plus and Place Everywhere. You put up the first shelf, duplicate it with Workshop Plus, use Place Everywhere to move it down by 10 or 20 pixels (I forget how much right now), repeat the duplication and shift with the just-duplicated shelf, etc.
20181018214831_1 (Large).jpg
So there you have a fully-functional, lore-friendly, convenient toolshed for the use of the player. And the thing looks real too, something that has been used heavily yet also has been as lovingly looked after as possible given the circumstances.

You'll note that there's no Power Armor station. That's in the Player Home - settlers aren't going to be mucking around with that kinda equipment on the regular. Besides, the Sole Survivor doesn't want some blasted settler mucking around with his gear on the random...they'll just blow the circuitry, ya know.

So it's in his Player Home, near the bed and the terminal that's wired into the electrical supply for the settlement.

Hope this is of some worth to y'all. Goodnight.
 
Copied from another thread:
I meant to mention that while that's a great mindset to work from, you might want to consider having a mindset for each level of the city plan. Something like:
  1. What would settlers on the edge of starvation build?
  2. What would settlers who have their basic needs met want now?
  3. How would settlers make this place feel like home?
Very interesting way of looking at it. So for city plans:

L0/1 = edge of starvation
L2 = well-established, let's make it nicer
L3 = time for luxuries and relaxing

Which KG and co basically put into the PDF tutorials, though it seems that I didn't really absorb that.
 
@WetRats this almost fits as a platform up the top of Starlight. Use some of the PBP individual supports and you could get something that looks realistic.
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I've used 1 full ladder for the bottom climb, and 1 full + 1 half ladder for the top stretch. The character seems to land pretty hard at the bottom when climbing down a couple of full ladders.
 
I disagree with the statement that you should put all the crafting and workshop benches in one shed.
Sure it is an easy solution with the maximum convenience (and better than the opposite extreme), but ultimately it leads to a situation where the player never really uses the settlement, but only fast travels in and out of that tool-shack.
You want your whole settlement to be functional and not (almost) every interactive element concentrated in one single building.

On the other hand, you also dont want it to be a chore and annoy the player. It is very hard to find the perfect balance between convenience and making your whole settlement functional.
The most common mistake people make when designing their settlement is to make it too big.
Sure it is tempting to use all the available space and stand out by building the biggest settlement possible, but there simply isnt enough interactive content to support that.
A good example for that mistake is witcher3. CDPR did build huge nice looking cities, but they feel really empty, annoying and pointless because there is simply way too much space between the only few interactive elements (merchants/inns and gindstones).
=> It is much more easy to find a good balance if your settlement is small and compact.

It is also a good idea to group stuff thematically or according to crafting recipes.
Examples:
- the user probably does expect to find a decontamination arch near a clinic or maybe the entrance of your settlement
- a weapon bench probably isnt next to a school, but in front of a weapon store, somewhere in the industrial district or in an armory
- when you have agricultural plots for adhesive crafting you probably want a cooking station nearby...

Another important point is that the layout shouldnt be too complex/labyrinth like. The interactive elements should be very visible and pathing between them should be short and clear.
 
@a2raelb

Totally agree re the layout. It's a pain if you or the settlers have to wind through a maze to reach attackers.

Your ideas about putting the various benches near appropriate businesses - while I'm not convinced, I will think about it. If nothing else, it makes sense given that the most important businesses should be immediately visible and accessible.

Regarding players fast-traveling to and away from the inside of a toolshack, bypassing the settlement entirely: I'd not thought of this. However, players with the nouse and inclination to do that will make their own toolshack and shift all the benches into it anyway. A no-win situation, and are they likely to be running RotC?
 
Your ideas about putting the various benches near appropriate businesses - while I'm not convinced, I will think about it. If nothing else, it makes sense given that the most important businesses should be immediately visible and accessible.
If you want to strike a balance between immersion and convenience, I'd recommend having a back alley behind the shops with their relevant workbenches behind each shop.
Depending on the plot being used you may need side streets, or just a back door from the shop to get to the individual workshops behind. There should also be access from the back alley also.
Depending on Plot/Plan level, the workbenches would scale from being completely exposed, to contained within their own dedicated mini sheds.

EDIT: A side issue with crafting bench creation is that it's Perk Locked. It's not a problem for city plans. But from the perspective of the Sole Survivor setting up a settlement, they're not guaranteed to have the skills to ensure every settlement has all the desired crafting benches available. From that Meta, it makes sense that they'd be set up by settlers with the appropriate skill sets, i.e. behind/in their associated shop.
 
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A side issue with crafting bench creation is that it's Perk Locked. It's not a problem for city plans. But from the perspective of the Sole Survivor setting up a settlement, they're not guaranteed to have the skills to ensure every settlement has all the desired crafting benches available. From that Meta, it makes sense that they'd be set up by settlers with the appropriate skill sets, i.e. behind/in their associated shop.
That is true, they certainly won’t at L1 and the like. It then becomes the city designers choice if the workbenches are not already in the area.

A bench might become available when a commercial plot is established. It then makes total sense for it to appear at a particular level of the city, in an allyway as you suggest. If such equipment is available nearby (the ruins of Boston) then it could effectively be scrounged from the ruins from the get-go.

The creator might decide that a place is central enough that it justifies having the benches show up regardless. They might be brought in by traders or scavengers. Or if an industrial city then it makes sense to the designer that they would be available. Or even that a higher-level character with settlements further south on the map, the Sole Survivor has by then found plenty of pieces of equipment in his travels and simply arranges to move some.

Or not, if that makes sense. The place might be remote and only a place for shelter and food/water.

A large number of variables color the creators decisions.
 
I view the crafting bench thing as another benefit for using City Plans(though you won't know if they'll have them all or not). With mine I just had them appear slowly with each level. Foundation had nothing, L1 had one or 2, L2/L3 had all of them. Another benefit for using & leveling up City Plans. I definitively wouldn't suggest having every craft bench just be there at Level 0 though, and I'll probably always give one or 2 for Level 1. Level 3 should have them all for convenience's sake though IMO, I kind of like the idea of having them near city planner desk.

I feel like a Player who works together with Settlers having more options than one who doesn't work together with settlers and just goes it alone all the time, makes sense in a way. Power of teamwork.
 
A large number of variables color the creators decisions.
Which is great. It means the creator(s) can tell different stories as the city develops. Some will have scavenged a lot of the essential tool (workbenches) from nearby, very quickly, while others will have only developed them as needed as various vendors moved in to town. While others only the Sole Survivor uses them, as the rest of the settlement is very low tech.

I assume it's this kind of story telling KG was referring to when talking about VIP plots, and telling stories purely with visual elements.
 
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