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Fallout 4 tips - making the best settlements
We offer you 5 tips on getting stuck into making the best and most of your settlements in Fallout 4.
Outside of the basic emergent gameplay loop for Fallout 4, that sees you racking up new mission after new mission – often for just trying to reach a point of interest – the game also lets you attempt to build your own successful settlement. It’s not a requirement beyond a handful of main storyline quests that give you a basic understanding of how the system works, but if you know what you’re doing you can have a lot of fun with the dynamic toolkit.
The problem with the above though, is for all of its intoxicating core gameplay, Fallout 4 does a pretty poor job of teaching you how to make the most out of settlement building. This usually means players will just give up and play the game as a lone ranger, but with a few helpful hints from us on developing a more developer mindset with the tools available to you, you’ll be building awesome settlements in no time, wondering why you spent so much time transiently wandering the wastes, rather than building communities, your own supply lines and, even your own network of artillery placements to really help you out of a bind.
If you build it they will come
This is the generator farm he had to create for it
© Kosta Andreadis
One of the key goals of any settlement you build or expand is to draw in new settlers. Often they turn up just through word of mouth, or maybe you helped someone out in Diamond City or the like out of the kindness of your own heart before eventually erecting a Settlement Recruitment Beacon, either way, people will start to fill out the friendly places you’re involved with, but what does it all mean?
This is a key question because any dedicated settlement builder will be required to maintain the happiness and productivity of each aligned settlement. This could mean abandoning your own missions to fast travel to a settlement in need of help (if you care about failing quests that is), or making sure certain settlements are either growing, or simply maintaining so you can have a productive and rewarding supply line. It’s actually all a bit complicated on paper, but once you know the nuances of defence setups, assigning people to jobs and tasks and, hardest of all, how to power your settlement, trade and resources become easier to gain, and the game becomes less of shopping list grind if you’ve ignored all of the above.
Tip: Sleep in a bed in any settlement before you build anything – the Well Rested buff you gain from sleeping will boost the XP you gain from construction.
Tip: Settlers will arrive to one of your settlements based on the radius of the Recruitment Beacon. If too many settlers are turning up at one site, simply send them to another settlement. Or, turn off the recruitment beacon entirely. Think of it as a virtual ‘No Vacancy’.
Combine all your tools from every yard
The Local Leader Perk is one you should grab early
© [unknown]
You might not realise that creating a supply line between settlements also means all resources you currently have at each now become shared. This can be very advantageous to people shy of a bit of concrete at one, where an abundance exists at another. You might have even gone to the lengths of continually fast traveling between various places in order to simply build a handful of things at a single location. Again, this isn’t a noticeably clear directive, and you’ll need the Local Leader perk in order to do it, but once you have that, you can go and select a settler (or sometimes an inactive companion) and simply hit R1/RB on console and choose the closest settlement for that person to head to to create a supply line there. Doing this to all your settlements will make life a whole lot easier.
Tip: Making a big circle of your settlements as far as supply lines go is best. You’ll end up seeing your provisioners on the road during your adventures too, so be sure to keep that in mind when creating supply lines.
Tip: To stock up on wood, steel, and even concrete, be sure to scrap all the trees and bits of junk littering your settlement. This not only increases the overall build-size of the settlement, but will definitely come in handy when you start construction on the Commonwealth’s very first Trump Tower.
The devil’s in the detail
Little did we know this was a Bethesda teaser
© [unknown]
Believe it or not, the game does actually tell you equipment and building requirements, but for many it’s just not apparent what the symbols mean. Any time you bring up the build menu, you’ll see a red symbol explaining what’s needed for that item to function, or even be useful. It gets particularly frustrating when working with electricity, so it’s best to start playing around with small projects first, like adding power to a house or structure that doesn’t have any. But the numerical value that follows the red symbol also lets you know how much you you’ll need in order for that item to function.
For example, simply placing shopfronts in an area isn’t going to automatically bring in shopkeeps from the Commonwealth, you need to assign each new station a settler, or ensure generators and more are supplying the required power to your various switches and buildings to get them all lit up. It’s easy to miss, but even easier to realise once you know what you’re looking for.
Tip: If you’re prompted something needs 10 power to function, but you only have resources to make a five-power generator, just make two and link them both to the same switch or connector.
Tip: Ensuring your settlement buildings and structures are all lit up not only makes for some sound Commonwealth sleeping (after all, there be Deathclaws out there) but they actually don’t require any power to run. All they really need is to be situated near a power conduit. Power conduits have an area of effect, so any lights in the vicinity will simply work, without your generator taking a hit.
Assign, arm and manage
Remember to scrap as much as you can for resources
© [unknown]
We mentioned defence setups earlier, and for many defending a settlement isn’t even something they’ve ever had to bother with. This would largely come down to how much those players actually invested into any settlements they took on. Basically, Raiders are the number one problem against settlements but they only really trigger if a particular settlement’s food and water supply is more than their defensive capabilities.
This can mean two things: one, if you don’t care and just want to plough through the main story, it’s not really something worth bothering with and two, if you do want to become supreme overlord and organiser of everyone decent person in the Commonwealth, you need to arm settlers with good weapons and you need to assign them to artillery and lookout posts, while making sure you have plenty of turrets and other traps for them to help deal with any settlement raids.
Tip: Remember, you can arm and equip most aligned characters in the game, so if you’re going to take the time to dress up settlements, you might as well dress up settlers, too.
Tip: If a group of Raiders or Super Mutants attack one of your settlements whilst you’re out, let’s say, looting all the cans of InstaMash from the local supermarket, they’ll inevitably be drawn to any turrets you’ve constructed. In most cases they’ll try to get close and smash them up. So, the key to a good turret defence is to place any turrets on a raised platform. Just out of reach.
Happiness and furnishings
Protect your towns and assign people to jobs!
© [unknown]
Happiness is the measurement of your settlement’s output and ability to defend themselves, and is obviously dictated by food, water and shelter (in fact the number of beds you have in a settlement is a measurement of how many settlers can move in). But this is the post-apocalypse remember, meaning people are looking for fun because, you know, they don’t have Netflix. As the sky’s the limit for most construction, feel free to build all of the essentials, but bars and restaurants help, as does furnishing them. The decorative items you can find throughout your jaunts actually go a long way to making your settlers feel happy and sated in facing the decaying world they’ve inherited. Floor mats, mirelurk claw trophies and more will make your friends feel like their local, really is run by a local.
Tip: You can actually pick items up in the game by simply holding down the A/X buttons on console and place them in most areas. If you put a pool table anywhere, you can also place pool balls on it in this way. Heck, you can even show off your bobblehead collection in your establishment as permanent trophies of your exploits.
Tip: During your jaunts out in the wasteland be sure to keep an eye out for copies of Picket Fences magazines. Each issue you find adds new decorative things to build, including potted plants, patio furniture, and even some fairly impressive statues. That particular issue, for the statues, can be found at Saugus Ironworks.
