My Experience so far

[Bored]

I started a new playthrough hoping to test this mod out after hearing about it a month or so ago. Two weeks and 24 hours or so into the playthrough I have some questions and comments:

First, let it be noted that I'm playing with Horizon, as I generally only play with that mod nowadays. I recognized the difficult spike and played through without starting conquest till level 15, as by then my character was strong/wealthy enough to make conquest viable (due to recruitment costs and combat changes any attempt before this to take a settlement above level 1 will fail).

I wanted to play through as the Gunners faction pack as it was one of the more updated ones and fit my characters armaments better. I tried assaults with both and found the faction packs are in desperate need of support for the following reasons:

- Faction recruitment/starting are significantly harder due to having to wait for 5 recruits per day. This is also buggy, I found it was 5 for the first, then 0-2 recruits on following days regardless of bed, caps, and supply numbers up to 8 total recruits. Unsure why it won't recruit past 8. The raider faction in Concord has 10-20 recruits waiting around.

- The bug that requires each recruit to be talked to, swapped to worker, and swapped back to used for anything is still in the mod.

- During assaults, the faction troops would sometimes become hostile after the battle is won, for no reason, forcing a reload or a total wipe of your own troops. If all troops are killed, the desk at my main outpost would record negative numbers until new troops are recruited and fixed via the role swapping.

Overall the mod was a cool experience though as I learned it. It would be awesome if some of the experienced players here made some sort of guide on how all the mechanics work past the very beginning to help noobs like me along.

Some other things I noticed/were confused by:
First, outposts seem to be worthless other than your first as they largely stop production and turn into spots for your troops to lounge, but seem to do little to actually help? Also it seems that any settlement taken goes from friendly to hostile, meaning you lose the ability to fast travel (Horizon) via caravan, or make changes to the plots which can stagnate growth. Unsure if this is a bug or not.
Second my unconquered friendly settlements are marked as "owned by gunners" but do not send or supply resources to outposts. I'm not sure if there is a way to make them vassals that I can control or some other system to officially swap them into conqueror, but conquering them via force is a big loss (especially in horizon) as you lose control and cannot upgrade or interact them anymore as either Sim or Horizon settlements. Has anyone else run into these issues?

I did playthrough with the main faction and found it significantly less buggy. I kinda wish I could keep them but swap their theme/gear so as to keep it less buggy and have the quests completed. They are FAR easier to start with, as you start with 20+ (free) recruits waiting around before you even start conquering settlements and this army can take everything but level 3 settlements without the player lifting a finger.

Big thanks to kingath and the rest of the community for the awesome mod. Really excited to see how this develops in the coming months.
PS: Edits were made for clarity and phrasing.

 

[bullyrook]

There is almost no information on how it all works

We are all trailblazers here.

Second my friendly settlements are marked as "owned by gunners" but do not send or supply resources to outposts. I'm not sure if there is a way to make them vassels that I can control or some other system, but conquering them is a big loss (especially in horizon) as you lose control and cannot upgrade. Has anyone else run into these issues?

In gameplay options: conqueror: control vassal "on." This should let you build, upgrade, and treat the vassal just as you would a normal settlement.

A vassal won't send any resources/materials to your outposts, but you should be able to use any resources at the vassal for crafting in any of your Outposts/other Vassals. They are all connected just as if a provisioner was assigned.

Half of each vassal's (surplus) food production should be available to feed your outposts. This won't add any food numbers to the workshop however but you should see a full HUD food bar (if enough is being produced and sent) with the provisioner symbol next to it.

 

[Bored]

The vassal control on is a huge boost. Thanks! Any reason to have additional outposts/build up an existing outpost? Seems like I just need some defenses and beds to help with defense of a main outpost and then take everything as a vassal. Also do I assign them a leader from my companions for automated growth?

 

[bullyrook]

Also do I assign them a leader from my companions for automated growth?

No need. Leader traits don't seem to work with vassals.

Any reason to have additional outposts/build up an existing outpost? Seems like I just need some defenses and beds to help with defense of a main outpost and then take everything as a vassal.

Probably, a settlement needs to be in range of an outpost to make it a vassal. I don't know if there is a central location that would let you vassalize every other from just that one.

And if you are playing with soldier needs turned on, then I expect you will need more than one. You need guards and patrols to control vassals. The more your vassals produce the more control you need. Turning warriors into guards and patrols reduces your overall warrior count. Fewer warriors reduces the effectiveness of your patrols. Theoretically, you could just keep recruiting to one outpost (66 Warriors at an outpost with 33 patrols going all over the commonwealth would be a quite powerhouse), but at a population of twenty or so my rig starts to crap. Your results may vary. You can of course get as many recruits as you have beds/drugs/caps for, but space can fill up quick.

More outposts allows for more warriors allows for more guards/patrols to control more vassals.

Vassals also need guards for Defend Vassal quests. If you have no guards, you automatically fail these quest i think.

Or you can turn off soldiers' needs and play the according to the old Phase 1 rules. Vassals are only necessary, then, to feed your troops and you'd only need extra outposts to vassalize settlements far from HQ.

 

[Qerewen]

the most central settlement ingame i belive is Hangmans alley or Bunker hill.
Both are small settlements.

You will need to have more than 1 outpost in order to maintain control, the further away a vassal is the harder it is to control.

for example on Far harbor the National park visit center is a strong location for an outpost since its centralized but i wont make anything big from it due to the limited action that happens on the island.
the same goes for nukaworld redrocket, its the only settlement and it will be annoying to keep it under control unless its a outpost. the best you can get from it is extra warriors to toss into the breach.

think of them as fire-bases instead of main bases.
give them like 15 work slots and 20 beds/residential and your fire-bases will be able to supply a levy of 5 warriors.

If you set vassal cities to self upgrade you can also turn off the requirement for a city leader.
until we get some raider companions or leader candidates (id love to have the toilette king as a settlement leader) you are going to have issues building up your outposts.

for the HQ i prefer to have room for 15 warriors that are also supplied with food/water to be sure i have a full force but as i spread i will reduce that number of idle hands to spread out the warriros over the outposts to act as spares in case they are attacked

Currently i am experimenting with vault 88 as a hub to launch raids from, and i have doubts its a good fit but atleast there is no critters/random patrols that bug out Ophelia and jammers conversations with their visits.