DO YOU HAVE TO PLAY A VERSION OF THE LONE SURVIVOR?

[KansasScoutNora]

My original Nora met an untimely end and since I am now also using Start Me Up Redux my current toon is Heather Addams, a mercenary residing at Tenpines Bluff. I am currently patrolling around Cambridge with ADA having helped her defeat the rogue robot attack on her caravan. (The Jackson Caravan attack from Automatron only I stumbled upon it after on my own accord clearing out Taffington Boathouse.) I have Taffington Settlement, but I don't think I want to start down there as the bugs in the tunnel nearby are dangerous as are the Super Mutans across the inlet and up the road at the old hospital. I took ADA with me into Cambridge and we cleared College Square before rescueing Danse, Rhys and Halen. Then Ada and I went to ArcJet with Danse and cleared it. Besides Oberland Station and Graygarden what settlements are nearby that are good build sites? I want to start somewhere other than Sanctuary Hills as I am not playing the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 this time.

 

[somnambulist]

What about Hangmen's Alley? It's fun/challenging to build in, centrally located so running north to Jake's hardware store or south to <<spoiler>> isn't a huge pain. Use Hangmen's as a salvaging/crafting hub, use Oberland, Graygarden, or Taffington for farming. Starlight would be another decent option — close to Concord and has plenty of space to build-up a large settlement as the core of your empire. You'd still want to shift your player-home further south during Chapter 2 or just live out of <<spoiler>>

Also Ada will absolutely shred those bloodbugs for you.

 

[Skywise001]

Get the cheat console and move to another location after exiting the vault. You can give yourself some gear and exp so your set up how you want to be.
Alternate start mods are more problematic - SS2 has been made to tie into the main plotline and assumes your the Sole Survivor. It can be jarring sometimes. Like when your forced to tell Jake you were frozen and your husband is dead. My Female Survivor didnt have a husband, she had a wife I had a companion mod for and she was standing right there :P

Good towns to start in (to me) are Sunshine Tidings Co-Op and Starlight Drive In. Both have a lot of open flatish terrain but they have some things to build around.

Country Crossroads and the Slog are other good ones but you occasionally run into enemies strolling down the road with them.

But my favorite is Hangman's Alley. It tends to block line of sight so your settlement isnt attacked much. Dont unlock the side and south door and you never have to worry about enemies trying to path through. Close to DC and Downtown for lots of fun.

 

[KansasScoutNora]

What about Hangmen's Alley? It's fun/challenging to build in, centrally located so running north to Jake's hardware store or south to <<spoiler>> isn't a huge pain. Use Hangmen's as a salvaging/crafting hub, use Oberland, Graygarden, or Taffington for farming. Starlight would be another decent option — close to Concord and has plenty of space to build-up a large settlement as the core of your empire. You'd still want to shift your player-home further south during Chapter 2 or just live out of <<spoiler>>

Also Ada will absolutely shred those bloodbugs for you.

I already took out the Bloodbugs in Taffington and outside the house and claimed the workshop.

 

[KansasScoutNora]

Get the cheat console and move to another location after exiting the vault. You can give yourself some gear and exp so your set up how you want to be.
Alternate start mods are more problematic - SS2 has been made to tie into the main plotline and assumes your the Sole Survivor. It can be jarring sometimes. Like when your forced to tell Jake you were frozen and your husband is dead. My Female Survivor didnt have a husband, she had a wife I had a companion mod for and she was standing right there :P

Good towns to start in (to me) are Sunshine Tidings Co-Op and Starlight Drive In. Both have a lot of open flatish terrain but they have some things to build around.

Country Crossroads and the Slog are other good ones but you occasionally run into enemies strolling down the road with them.

But my favorite is Hangman's Alley. It tends to block line of sight so your settlement isnt attacked much. Dont unlock the side and south door and you never have to worry about enemies trying to path through. Close to DC and Downtown for lots of fun.

Looking like Hangman's maybe the first one. I also have the Riverside Bungalo mod, but that is just a player's house, not a settlement. The couple that lived in it prewar is down by the bank of the Charles River. You have to take out the husband who is now a Feral Ghoul to recover the key for that door. There is a cat living inside. You have a cooking station disguised as a working stove, an armor station that looks like a sewing table with sewing machine, a weapons station next to that that is a small workbench so you use the same chair when doing either. Also in the kitchen is the chemstation. Outside in back of the small brick house is the Armor Work Station. That is usable even if you don't have the mod that adds the interior as it is even in the vanilla game. Hangman's not that far from the bungalo either. I can venture down there and then rest (thank God I am not running this run under Survival Mode, yet.) From the bungalo I just have to search for the north entrance to Hangman's. I am carrying some tatos, razorgrain, gourds and a couple of mutefruit so I should be able to start the settlement with enough food for a few settlers. I may add the Hangman's apartment mod prior to provide Heather with a residence there too that I won't have to worry about settlers stealing her bed.

 

[KansasScoutNora]

OK so Taffington though it is kind of close to two settlements of Super Mutants and a gathering or two of Feral Ghouls. Sunshine Tidings once the Feral Ghouls and Rad Roaches are cleared out yet you have a Gunners' post nearby and the raiders at the Federal Stockpile though you are relatively close to Abernathy's Farm and Trudy at Drumond Diner, which btw I have a mod that allows me to turn Drumond into a settlement. That brings into play the Gunner's post at that highway interchange southwest of Drumond, but in my game I took them out already. Graygarden is nicely located, already has a working farm, would be a good place to build my robot workbench, that rock outcropping to the south of the greenhouse under the highway is a good place to build Fallout's version of a Cliff Dwelling using a mixture of all the structure pieces, and if you take out the mobs at the waterplant to the southwest you can just turn in the quest to Supervisor White and get the xp and access to workshop at GG without too much sweat as I think the Super Mutants there don't spawn until you get the quest.

County Crossing and the Slog (which I have yet to find) are problematic as they have enemies that patrol or just wonder by. Finch's Farm has the Forge and the same colony of Super Mutants you have to clear to find the last fallen BOS member of the team prior to Danse's. Starlight is actually a good spot as it is also relatively level and has a nice pond. You only have six mall... er... molerats to clear from it too. Right now I have to deal with logistics. I have several weapons that use 5.56x45mm and salvaging from Machinegun Turrets only gives up 5 to 6 rounds each. Since I use the Ruger Mini-14 mod from Nexus playerwise I know where there are a little over 200 rounds and another weapon that takes them.

Through my adventures with heather she's collected three M-4 clones, an FN-2000 with an M-203 and the HK M-4 clone the HK 416 has another. Then she has an AK-74 that was chambered in that cartridge as well as another in the usual 5.45x39. One of my mods is the Modern Tactical Weapons mod I loaded off of Steam.This one gives me alternat armor too.Yet at Trudy's I can get some ammo and other supplies. So I may build there or at Starlight since when I left last night I was exiting the north gate of the Gunner's post I cleaned out. The game crashed about then, but I did an autosave when exiting the PIP-BOY after recovering some armor and a really nice M-1911 from a dead Gunner.

 

[Nigel Power]

i would love to use sim settlements 2 but the main story of it being tied into being the sole survivor of vault 111 is a HUGE deal braker for me.... i have mods intended to fix the game so that i can actually roleplay such as removing the player character's voice but if i MUST be the sole survivor of vault 111 then all characters will be identical and the game is ruined.... zero replay ability... i guess ill stick to sim settlements one...