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Interior Plots where it's just placeable furniture (desk + chair, etc) for those who actually want to build and decorate their settlements.

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Kreiger48

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So the Interior Plots are great but for someone who likes to build their own buildings and decorate them they don't really work well when paired with my own less "rustic" decor. Which is why I suggest simple non-clippable furniture (with ASAM's if necessary) such as a desk and a chair to serve for things like municipal plots or a counter with some light decor for recreation or just a simple bed as a "settler home" would be awesome for those players that still prefer to build and decorate their own buildings/structures but still likes the dynamic functions that normal plots provide. Thanks guys!
 
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i use some of the above linked plot packs, and i'd like to throw in Tiny Living as having several 1x1 exterior plots that are suitable for interior use as well.

however, i think the poster was looking more for a half-width interior plot size, which is something i'd certainly appreciate my self. i like using the existing buildings to give the settlements a bit more local flavor and a bit less bull dozed strip mall feelings. some of the rooms in Sanctuary, for instance, are just a little too small for an interior plot and there's no guarantee the 1x1 plots are suitable for low ceilings and indoor voices.
 
Plain Plans by Ms B are 1x1 interior plot plans, and I believe most of the Bare Essentials plans are 1x1 interior plot plans also.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys so aside from the "I Made Plans" and the "Bare Essentials" mods I still can't find any non residential/recreation interior plot mods. Especially ones that snap or at least fits within stuff like the warehouse structures as the thing is those mods only really cover residentials and maybe recreation whereas there aren't really options for things like industrial, defense and municipal. Hence I wanna leave a suggestion for the implementation of non snappable-furniture that would basically fill the roles of municipal, defense and/or industry plots which ideally should allow players to use these plots while also being able build and use player-designed buildings. Thanks in advance!
 
If you have identified a need for a type of plot that you want there is Zero reason why you can't make those plots yourself and publish them for everyone else to use.
All the tools are available for free from the SS2 Wiki page. I am more than willing to provide links is requested.
 
i think the core of this suggestion is that there is a gap in the types of plots that are available in the framework, not that specific plots are missing. specific plots, as Freddrick points out, are RELATIVELY extensible, but there isn't a way to add a half-interior or furniture-sized plot type; that's kinda the exclusive space of the SS2 Team.
 
SarahAda said:
i think the core of this suggestion is that there is a gap in the types of plots that are available in the framework, not that specific plots are missing. specific plots, as Freddrick points out, are RELATIVELY extensible, but there isn't a way to add a half-interior or furniture-sized plot type; that's kinda the exclusive space of the SS2 Team.
Click to expand...
Yeah that makes sense. Hopefully the team takes it into consideration. It'll really be a great feature for those players who still want to do their own building while wanting to use SS2 for the story and features. Thanks guys
 
No. I stated that if you have identified a need then you can create a solution for it.
There has already been a discussion of different sized plots.
It is possible for plot designers to only use some of the space when designing plots. Plain Plans and Bare Essentials do this with their beds. Junktown does it with their interior hobo plots that are designed to fit withing rail cars. SirLack's Apocalyptic Additions has interior residential plots that are just a bed so only use a small portion of the plot space.
There is no reason for the SS2 team to insert addition plot sizes in order to do what is being asked for in this thread. It is scope creep and will cause unnecessary bloat on a mod that is already fighting with size limits.

As a mod designer, if you wanted to, you could take a 3x3 plot and add a single chair and publish it. There was even a discussion about creating plots with nothing in them not that long ago.
Nothing is preventing you from creating the exact interior plots that you want.
 
I very much get what @Freddrick is saying - and these questions are exactly the sort of thing that led to the creation of bare essentials as a proof of concept. While it may not take up the entire 1x1 space, there really is nothing stopping you from following the tutorials and creating a plot that had just a desk and a chair or just a chair as the only spawn, and did it for all three levels. Boom - you have what you are asking for. It would provide all the benefits of the plot type and subclass you designated. You could go and create dozens of building plans like this, each featuring a different chair or desk or sofa if you wanted to! There really isn't a need to create a plot type that is just "furniture" sized or ".5 x .5" size when you can essentially design that within the existing framework. You should give it a try! You might even have fun with it and provide a gift to the community for players that want something like you do.
 
at no point am i suggesting we need more sparse designs.

i am suggesting there is a conceptual gap for a smaller interior template, in line with the smaller 1x1 exterior plot template, which might need to be added to the framework to enable plan designers to make smaller interior plans.

the current rubric of 2x2 external, 3x3 external, 1x1 external and 2x1 internal is DEFINITELY missing a larger and smaller internal size. the larger size could be argued that it's internal space, so multiple plots in a room is fine, but that only works for the larger.

for the smaller there is not even a way for the plan designer to communicate a "sparse" plot design to the settlement mayor. you have to use the "wrong" size template, ignore half the space in the template in your design, and use out of band communication to transmit those expectations and coordinate with the settlement designer or player. they then need to clip the wrong size plot into the geometry, which requires other mods, hope they have the correct half in the right place, and manually specify the building plans that are used on a plot by plot basis (since bans, tags, and themes are whole settlement granularity and not generally suitable for places like sanctuary, where the pre-war houses have 3x3-ish rooms, 2x1-ish rooms, and 1x1-ish rooms).

your argument here, by analogy, means we shouldn't have ANY of the plot sizes that exist today, because plan designers could just create a 2x2 plot and under-use or over-use the plot space, so it's unnecessary bloat to have anything more. in a similar pattern, the interior plots is unnecessary bloat, because you could just tag the plan as interior and force the user to pick the right plan every time they want to make or use a separate roof.

this is a little off topic, but we already have expectation problems with building classes and oversized tags that cause a lot of faffing with the sensors that could be avoided if those expectations were more strongly typed and moved up to the settlement build menu. how many people have put down a municipal plot to solve power shortage and come back to realize the plan selection picked a caravan plot instead?

there is human interface value in setting a expectation to both the plan designer and player that describes the available space and usage through the game's systems in a way that is easily understandable and actionable to both sides.

telling people "you don't need new standards, you can just coordinate with the whole world such that everyone uses the existing standards incorrectly in the same way" seems like an almost malicious way to misunderstand the request.
 
SarahAda said:
at no point am i suggesting we need more sparse designs.

i am suggesting there is a conceptual gap for a smaller interior template, in line with the smaller 1x1 exterior plot template, which might need to be added to the framework to enable plan designers to make smaller interior plans.

the current rubric of 2x2 external, 3x3 external, 1x1 external and 2x1 internal is DEFINITELY missing a larger and smaller internal size. the larger size could be argued that it's internal space, so multiple plots in a room is fine, but that only works for the larger.

for the smaller there is not even a way for the plan designer to communicate a "sparse" plot design to the settlement mayor. you have to use the "wrong" size template, ignore half the space in the template in your design, and use out of band communication to transmit those expectations and coordinate with the settlement designer or player. they then need to clip the wrong size plot into the geometry, which requires other mods, hope they have the correct half in the right place, and manually specify the building plans that are used on a plot by plot basis (since bans, tags, and themes are whole settlement granularity and not generally suitable for places like sanctuary, where the pre-war houses have 3x3-ish rooms, 2x1-ish rooms, and 1x1-ish rooms).

your argument here, by analogy, means we shouldn't have ANY of the plot sizes that exist today, because plan designers could just create a 2x2 plot and under-use or over-use the plot space, so it's unnecessary bloat to have anything more. in a similar pattern, the interior plots is unnecessary bloat, because you could just tag the plan as interior and force the user to pick the right plan every time they want to make or use a separate roof.

this is a little off topic, but we already have expectation problems with building classes and oversized tags that cause a lot of faffing with the sensors that could be avoided if those expectations were more strongly typed and moved up to the settlement build menu. how many people have put down a municipal plot to solve power shortage and come back to realize the plan selection picked a caravan plot instead?

there is human interface value in setting a expectation to both the plan designer and player that describes the available space and usage through the game's systems in a way that is easily understandable and actionable to both sides.

telling people "you don't need new standards, you can just coordinate with the whole world such that everyone uses the existing standards incorrectly in the same way" seems like an almost malicious way to misunderstand the request.
Click to expand...
I just don't agree with this. It seems you are arguing that 1x1 should be split into 1x1 exterior and 1x1 interior. Most of the 1x1 plots I have seen designed by a lot of the other add-on authorsso that they can be interior or exterior - they are agnostic in terms of whether they are used either way. Many of Freddrick's are designed that way as he is the most prolific 1x1 creator. Also, several of them have skins that add an exterior structure if you place it outside vs. inside. If we created a 1x1 interior and a 1x1 exterior, that would mean that every add-on author who has designed these would either have to choose, or create duplicate entries and put them in both. When a building plan is created, we have to choose which bucket to put it in. It would also put a burden on all existing add-on makers, many of which have moved on, to now go back and recategorize everything they've created. Few are going to be willing to do that. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and you are saying there should be a 1/2 by 1/2 or something like that, but really you would only be able to place a single piece of furniture, and even a good share of the furniture in the game aside from single chairs wouldn't even fit in a 1/2 by 1/2 space.

There's also a fairly easy way to communicate what you've just stated to the player or the settlement designer - it's in the building plan description. I will 100% agree with you that there is a problem that when a player selects a building plan, it does not show them the whole description or even ever allow them to look at it at any point after it is built. For some reason this only displays when you choose a subclass or random and only at the point of construction - that is super infuriating to me as I often have lots of placement notes and information in those descriptions that no one ever sees. That gets to your human interface value question and I really do wish there was some means for people to see that information in-game - even if it was dynamically added to a holotape somewhere. Most of us created and provided an extensive amount of it that is hidden away from the player.
 
Captain LaserBeam said:
I just don't agree with this. It seems you are arguing that 1x1 should be split into 1x1 exterior and 1x1 interior. Most of the 1x1 plots I have seen designed by a lot of the other add-on authorsso that they can be interior or exterior - they are agnostic in terms of whether they are used either way. Many of Freddrick's are designed that way as he is the most prolific 1x1 creator. Also, several of them have skins that add an exterior structure if you place it outside vs. inside. If we created a 1x1 interior and a 1x1 exterior, that would mean that every add-on author who has designed these would either have to choose, or create duplicate entries and put them in both. When a building plan is created, we have to choose which bucket to put it in. It would also put a burden on all existing add-on makers, many of which have moved on, to now go back and recategorize everything they've created. Few are going to be willing to do that. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and you are saying there should be a 1/2 by 1/2 or something like that, but really you would only be able to place a single piece of furniture, and even a good share of the furniture in the game aside from single chairs wouldn't even fit in a 1/2 by 1/2 space.

There's also a fairly easy way to communicate what you've just stated to the player or the settlement designer - it's in the building plan description. I will 100% agree with you that there is a problem that when a player selects a building plan, it does not show them the whole description or even ever allow them to look at it at any point after it is built. For some reason this only displays when you choose a subclass or random and only at the point of construction - that is super infuriating to me as I often have lots of placement notes and information in those descriptions that no one ever sees. That gets to your human interface value question and I really do wish there was some means for people to see that information in-game - even if it was dynamically added to a holotape somewhere. Most of us created and provided an extensive amount of it that is hidden away from the player.
Click to expand...
The (ideally non-snappable) 1/2 by 1/2 plots you mentioned where it's just a single piece of furniture like a chair pretty much sounds like what I'm hoping to see yeah. If it has standing animations on invisible mats or has sitting animations where NPC's sitting on chairs are either typing or writing like Settlement Activity Markers (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/20651) then essentially the player can supply the rest in workshop mode like a desk and terminal if necessary.

I understand it's not something that's really been considered so I'm happy to leave this as a suggestion for you guys (hence this post is on the make-a-suggestion forum) or if it's as easy as you guys say it is I'm happy to receive any materials/tutorials for me to look into creating a solution as an add-on for you guys to upload or something.
 
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As a request has been made by @Krieger48 (i am unsure if it was deleted or just not showing atm) I am providing links to the tools necessary to create your own add on.

Create Addons: Guides and Tutorials

List of guides and tutorials for creating SS2 addon content.
wiki.simsettlements2.com wiki.simsettlements2.com
The first link is for the text tutorials on how to create plots and a whole list of other things.
The second link is to the videos KG created to help teach the Creation Kit (which is available for free on steam if you have a steam copy of FO4)
There is also a very helpful discord for add on creators to help each other that it is possible to join.

Often times the best resolution for a suggestion is to make it yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you.
 
ok, i'm going to necro this, because i am much calmer now and something in the questions forum reminded me of this problem.
Captain LaserBeam said:
It seems you are arguing that 1x1 should be split into 1x1 exterior and 1x1 interior.
Click to expand...
i am suggesting they are already so divided, that the 1x1 interior is just absent, and that the authors that are using 1x1 exterior plot template for an interior plot are already coloring outside the lines in an effort to fill this conceptual gap and create the artistic vision they have in their head. the only 1x1 plan in the base game is external only (i believe this is your "protect and serve" advanced defense plot, right?)

there is a distinction to be drawn between interior plots and exterior plots, and a distinction to be drawn between plot sizes, and having the current T-shaped size chart leaves holes for 1x1 interior and 3x? interior templates is creating a technical debt for downstream authors of plots that is starting to show through at the seams. once again, i feel the 3x? plot size is probably ignorable; large interior spaces are sub-dividable to provide for multiple smaller plots, but the reverse isn't true and the 1x1 interior size is needed.

Captain LaserBeam said:
There's also a fairly easy way to communicate what you've just stated to the player or the settlement designer - it's in the building plan description.
Click to expand...
the point that the mayor would ever see the building plan description, the plot template has already failed to do it's job of filtering a reasonable default plan for the plot to the end users satisfaction. manually picking a plan, or even a class of buildings, is a failure state for some automation focused players, and i find myself on the borderline of that group.

i know how much effort authors, and you particularly, put into the plan descriptions, and for people who are fine-tuning a city plan, or carefully selecting plots for their vision, or are passionate about building plan style and model looks, that's great value. the same could be said for style tags and theming, which is great for one group of passionate creators to communicate to another group of sophisticated consumers.

for the non-passionate players who want a reasonable default answer to the question of storing these settler corpses in this vanilla building space so they can move on to solving other problems, the building plan description is too little too late. a municipal plot where i know i have to manually pick a plot a class is a minor but predictable failure of this automation, but having a residential plot pick interior plan for an exterior plot or vice versa is the worst case scenario because not only do i have to do rework on the plot, but it adds a bunch of additional work filtering plans that isn't otherwise required.

as a consumer of plan packs, i run into this problem with almost all of the 1x1 plots that are interior-designed, but are selected and built on exterior 1x1 plots unless the i carefully and manually selects plans. nobody wants a well apointed marble bathtub under the stars or an outhouse in their prewar home.

i'd argue this is also a lesser problem with building plans that assume some foundation, such as water-based and earthen-works plans, such as Wasteland Venture's Baron's cemetery or your own Float On tarberry bog. both of these plots, and many others, violate the conceptual expectation that the space inside the plot and the space outside the plot are modular and disconnected. getting either of these plots as the default plan selected by the framework on the 4th floor at hangman's is a failure state of the framework, not the author or the player.

a case i didn't think about at the time is this alignment problem, where exterior and interior plots have different vertical sizes, which can't be resolved by anything in the building plan.

but onto solutions:
a graceful migration depends duplicating the existing plans to the new template and a way to mark plots as legacy or deprecated in some way, so they continue to work for city plans and existing users, but can be prevented from being used for new manual or automatic selections. if there isn't any "legacy" flag for this type of migration then i have a new suggestion and the choice shloud not be to break existing users, but instead just have both plans available.

the ss2 team:
  1. SHOULD add a new half-interior 1x1 plot template at the framework level. this new template should share the vertical size, depth, and back-wall alignment with the 2x1 interior template, but be half the width to fit a 1x1 space.
  2. SHOULD encourage mod authors to migrate existing 1x1 building plans that are designed to be used inside to this new plot template, ideally with the legacy thing i lay out above.
  3. SHOULD NOT create new plans for the base game. 1x1 external is basically unused in the base game, 1x1 internal should be the same.
plan authors should do one or more of the following:
  • do nothing. their plans continue to be 1x1 exterior plots, as they are today.
  • do migration. mark their existing interior designs for the 1x1 exterior plot as legacy and copy the plot definitions to the 1x1 interior template. if the plot is already designed to fit interior to a building, this should just be low effort. if the plot violates the sizing of the new template, then that at least will be a fail early warning that the design was already oversized for internal use anyways.
  • do new things. if they feel so inclined, create new 1x1 interior plots for this new template format, now that it's been made clear, the space is open and invites people to fill it.
players and city plan authors should do one or more of the following:
  • do nothing. their current selections remain as is.
  • put down new 1x1 internal plots in internal spaces. these are guaranteed to pick a plan designed for internal spaces.
  • put down new 1x1 external plots in external spaces. these do not have the same guarantee until all plan designers they use are done migration, but they are no worse off then they are today.
 
@SarahAda

Please stop and think about what you are asking.
Firstly, you appear to the dictating commands to a group of volunteers working on a labor of love. I hope you know how incredibly rude that is.
Secondly, you are creating an issue of a non issue. You are asking for an rework of the ENTIRE plot system, on a mod that is already having to cut content due to hitting a size restriction. At this point in time the return on investment for making these changes at such a late stage just isn't there. It just doesn't make sense due to the the freedom designers have in making plots now.

  • The original SS had far more restrictions on how add on authors could build based on ASAM & power pole location. The SS 1x1 plots were strictly martial plots. Interior plots are 1x1.5 and everything else was 2x2. Due to this restriction it made sense for the internals to be separated like they were. Even with these restrictions there were SS1 interior plots that didn't use the entire space. Not many, but they did exist.
  • With SS2 creators have much more freedom with their designs. ASAMs can be placed anywhere and power poles can be removed. My guess is at the time of release the community (SS2 team included) didn't realize the level of creativity we would be able to reach. The SS2 team provided plot sizes based on whatever project discussions happened WAY back when SS2 was just being started.
  • Due to the level of creativity the community was able to achieve, it is possible to get design bloat with the number of available plots. Hopefully mod authors (I know I try to) can apply themes to their plots and the player can limit the allowed themes in their settlements. This will eliminate some of the issues you claim to be a problem.
  • As for your concern for random plot selection, anyone that doesn't want to control the design of their cities/plots will be using city plans. 95% of the time the plots are preselected to fit those city designs. For the players building their own settlements, they accepts a level of fine tuning in order to make the plan look like they want too. With the fact the plot design is selected on placing the plot (this an entirely different issue and outside the scope of this discussion) anyone building their own city plan will Have to manually choose what plots they want or ensure their theme settings are accurate.
As a mod designer, if I wanted to build an interior plot that doesn't use the entire 1x1.5 space I can. If I want to build an interior plot that needs a warehouse wall instead of a normal wall I can. Or I can (and have) design a 1x1 plot and label it as player only build so it can't appear as a random plot. The plot sizes are nothing but suggestions and introducing more/alternate plot sizes does noting to actually solve the perceived problem.

If this issue is something that YOU feel is so important then the tools exist for you to modify the game so you can play it the way you want to without forcing major redesigns on the thousands of other players using SS2.
 
@Freddrick this is the third time you have done this to me, and it is very very frustrating, so i am going to have to very pointedly ask you to stop putting words in my mouth and then getting upset with me about you think i said.

first, i am not demanding anything; this is a suggestions box and i am making suggestions. i was very careful to lay out a suggested plan of action for which two of the three audiences have the option of doing nothing. "YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY DO NOTHING!" can hardly be called an imperative demand of prompt and timely action.

second, i am not calling for an "overhaul of the plot system". i am SUGGESTING there is a gap in the current system that could be addressed by expanding the vocabulary provided by the framework. authors are already stretching the definition of the existing 1x1 exterior plots to make smaller internal plots, and city planners are asking for smaller internal plans to use. there is space here, and demand to use that space, so the language should adjust to permit those conversations.

third, i was very careful in the suggestion i laid out to make it as little adjustment as possible. nothing would change for any of the existing plans, and nothing would need to be done with any of the existing templates. a new template would be created, inviting authors to design for it, and players to use it, and any existing plot designs that would fit perfectly into this new space would be encouraged to move into it.

fourth, at no point anywhere in this thread have i advocated for anything related to ASAM locations, power poles, designer creativity, or half the other things you are accusing me of calling for. the expanded designer freedom of the new SS2 system is a BOON to creativity over the restrictions of the SS1 system, and better for everyone. the fact that people are already using the 1x1 exterior plots to do interior spaces is a feature, not a bug, but it does point to the fact that there is hole in the conceptual space of the framework that plan designers are already moving into. admitting this and creating plot size templates to facilitate that INCREASES the creative freedom, rather then hampering it.

fifth, wither we admit it or not, the plot sizes and colors are a implicit contract between the plan designer and the player or city planner and the communication between the player and the plan designer is limited by the vocabulary supported by the base mod. if i put down a 1x1 residential plot, and the building plan spawned the wasteland theater, this would be a violation of that implicit expectation. you absolutely could design a panamax sized cargo ship as a caravan building plan design and put it in the 2x1 interior agricultural category, but you should not be surprised when people are frustrated by the fact that your design doesn't fit their expectations. similarly, if i put down a 1x1 agricultural plot inside a building, i am necessarily communicating some part of my expectations about the use of this space to the framework, and if i design a greenhouse table 1x1 plan, i am necessarily communicating some part of my expectations about how this plan is to be used to the framework. the current framework inhibits this conversation in this corner case, obscuring part of the expectation of "small ^%#$($ space for agricultural use" between the participants, and adding a new interior plot size for small internal spaces sides permits better outcomes for both sides with minimal changes to the base mod, or the vast majority of designers or players who won't use it.

sixth, this isn't something that can be addressed by plan designers, or even advanced modders; it is a gap in the standards laid out by the framework of SS2. defining new standards doesn't fix the existing standards, and this is something only the base mod that defines the current vocabulary can expand. someone else adding this plot size WILL split the community into "haves" and "have nots" for this new mod, and now both plan designers and city planners have two problems instead of one.

finally, your assumption that anyone using random assignment will also be using city plans has at least one counterexample: me. i have used one city plan the five and a half years i have used Sim Settlements in one version or another. i love placing my own plots and building all the civil infrastructure and then watching with surprise what my citizens build in their spaces. This is how SimCity (the nominative reference of the SS2 mod) works also. you make a roadway and then put a zone down, and are surprised by what gets built. you CAN adjust the building if you want, but any condition that REQUIRES you do so is a bug. you CAN load a pre-made city, but any condition that REQUIRES it is a bug. building a small residential zone and getting a wall-less collection of furniture designed for interior use would be a bug there also, but not a bug with either the city design or the space design, but with the framework that has a category for internal and a category for small, but not a category for small internal.
 
SarahAda said:
the ss2 team:
  1. SHOULD add a new half-interior 1x1 plot template at the framework level. this new template should share the vertical size, depth, and back-wall alignment with the 2x1 interior template, but be half the width to fit a 1x1 space.
  2. SHOULD encourage mod authors to migrate existing 1x1 building plans that are designed to be used inside to this new plot template, ideally with the legacy thing i lay out above.
  3. SHOULD NOT create new plans for the base game. 1x1 external is basically unused in the base game, 1x1 internal should be the same.
Click to expand...
Putting on my SS2 team member hat. The existing 1x1 plot already does what you want. Remove the power pole if you want to use them indoors. Your suggestion is a duplication of existing functionality for marginal gain. If you truly desire just single furniture items - please just use base game items for decoration.

I agree that you appear to be making demands of our free time. I am not the only person reading this that feels this way.

Finally, I don't see any further constructive input in this thread. So I'm gonna lock it before it gets more heated.
 
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