Well, good news for anyone playing the game and enjoying it, but like myself looking for an even bigger proliferation of mods. The Creation Kit is in Beta! YEA! That means mods are sure to follow in droves once it passes to a fully refined state, although I'm sure there are many anxious developers out there who will grab it as is and make their own fixes, thus is the way with the Nexus.

The next patch (1.5) and DLC, Far harbor are also both in Beta, so there's sure to be a release on those relatively soon if they follow Bethesda's earlier release schedules. I've noticed several updates come through the Steam auto-loader over the past couple weeks, guessing those are either prep for the upcoming content or polishing of the previous - Some of their smaller updates tend to be mysterious.


Hagatha,

I still use the junk fence gate, but because the entire settlement is almost completely enclosed and the way I deploy turrets, I don't see much in the way of damage to the settlements unless it's one of those "enforced" incidents written into Bethesda's sneaky code that doesn't care how strong or strategic your defenses are. I put a heavy machine gun turret at ground level on each side of the gate (outside) and have Heavy Laser Turrets in an elevated position flanking those positions. I've noticed that foes tend to go after machine gun turrets right off the bat. I'm pretty sure it's because their constant rate of fire keeps the attackers attention. So, while they are beating up on the Machine Gun Turrets, the flanking Heavy lasers can cut them down to size. I do a similar pattern all around the settlement, adding missile launchers where they can hit the largest area. Also, right inside the gates I'll plant a couple of ground level Heavy Machine Gun Turrets and again have Heavy Lasers at elevated positions to flank bold attackers. No missile launchers though, too much rick of area damage to settlement buildings and residents. I also alternate arming (Holy alliteration Batman! ) the settlers with compensated Combat Shot Guns and beefed up combat rifles. So, I pity the fool raiders who try to get in. Lately, I get the message "Help Defend *fill in the blank* Settlement!" then like 15-20 seconds later the message "Successfully Defended *fill in the blank* Settlement!" Proof that you can never have enough turrets.

Grey Garden can be a great settlement. I terrace the hillside with foundation pieces, turns it into fairly huge place once you open up that area for building. You can also build on the bridges to a certain point. If you haven't already done so in the past, make sure to put up defenses on both levels of the bridges. I had fairly consistent raider attacks occur from those locations. Crazy sons of guns appeared out of nowhere, but I saw a couple actually fall to there deaths trying to jump on adjacent platforms I had built nearly level with the bridge. That can be a fun settlement if you beef up their defenses to handle the regular Raider attacks. Their happiness level will just drop one or two points during an attack and then pop back up again shortly thereafter.

UPDATE: So I'm assuming that patch 1.5 was just loaded on Steam. I had an update that was over 600MB drop about 9am this morning and didn't see any additional DLC appear so.... I'm off work today and will be playing FO4, will let you know if I see any major differences.

I've been building right up to the edge of the building zones with concrete foundations, so there is little room for gates. What I've done is make a long entrance corridor lined with turrets so that anything trying to get in has to run a gauntlet.

My Greygarden is huge now, but I wasn't aware you could build up to the second level of the bridge. Sunshine Co-op is clumsily built, but the last time the robots attacked them nothing made it through the gates, so they are sitting at happiness around 89.

My biggest surprise is Murkwater. I decided to see what I could do there, and realized that you can foundation over the entire area, with a central space running up through it for generators, electrical connections and water. I've built a five-story city there, with each settler getting their own private room. Now I have to make some Grape Mentats so that I can send many people there. I'm aiming for about 35, though I have room for much expansion. The entire top floor is empty.

On the other hand, Jamaica Plain is still, even when completely covered with foundations, a rat hole capable of supporting only a few people.

Now I need to figure out how to get screenshots and post them.

Just position yourself so your view is framing the area for which you want a screen shot. Then hit, the Prt Scrn/Sys Rq buton on your keyboard (usually to the right of F12.) You'll get verification text at the top of your screen that says something to the effect of Screenshot [insertname# here] stored or something along those lines. You can find your screen shots by going directly through the Steam Screenshot link near the bottom of your Library page and then hitting the "Show on Disk" button. That will bring up the folder that has your screen shots. If you haven't already join Dropbox , it's free and has so far been working well for me. If you download the app it will put a folder on your hard drive, then all you need to do to load a pic is drop it in that folder. Once it's up on Dropbox they will give you an option to get a link for the picture that you can post and it will lead folks only to that picture online. After I'm done downloading I always exit Dropbox so it's not always running. I also have the settings so it doesn't start when Windows opens. That way it doesn't use up resources. You might have to play around with it, but it's pretty intuitive.

I'd like to see Murkwater, I've never developed that one, sounds like an awesome set up you have!

Murkwater is definitely worth the effort -- with two or three layers of concrete foundation, you get a massive flat area with no junk. Perfect!

I've tried to rebuild some of my other settlements, too, but most of them are difficult to work around (Croup Manor, eg, with its tall ruined house).

EDIT: By the way, have you noticed that with each game update, Travis has more to say? I haven't turned him cool yet in my game, as I'm waiting for the final DLC before I resume playing (as opposed to building) but I'll be interested to see how that goes.

I only just really started listening to Travis in this last play through and found he could be pretty hilarious. I've never done his quest, I'm guessing it intersects with another one, because every time I go to see him he's not very sociable and has no real dialogue interaction.

For this run I haven't done any Minutemen quests, just sticking with the Railroad and BOS for now. I know, pretty much polar opposites, but what the hey. Been using Deacon as a companion more, he's got some great dialogue and is good with terminal unlocks, at least from what we've hit up until now. Did he glitch out for you at all? We'd be sneaking through some area and one moment he's got hair and the next he's bald. At one point he lost all his cloths, still had the armor on I gave him, but only with his undies Cait is my favorite so far due to her combined fighting and lock picking abilities with Dog Meat a close second, mostly because they did such a great job with the dog mannerisms I find myself talking to the screen like he's real dog...

For those who are interested, here are the Patch Notes for Update 1.5 that was dropped yesterday. Survival mode has gotten a whole lot more difficult.

New Features
•New Survival difficulty
•Survival adds additional challenges including no fast travel, saving only when you sleep, increased lethality, diseases, fatigue, danger and more. See the in-game Help menu for more details.
•Characters set to Survival difficulty appear under their own Character Selection filter
•Third person camera movement improvements when player is close up against walls and other objects

Fixes
•General stability and performance improvements
•Fixed rare crash related to reloading a save that relies on Automatron
•Fixed issue with the robot workbench camera not moving properly immediately after canceling out of the menu
•Fixed issue with perks being repeatedly added when reloading a saved game while in robot workbench
•Fixed issue with Ada not properly traveling to an assigned settlement
•Robots can now be assigned as settlement vendors
•Fixed issue with "Appropriation" where blueprints would not appear properly if the container had already been looted prior to getting the quest
•In "The Nuclear Option," entering the Institute using the targeting helmet on Power Armor no longer inadvertently causes the player to go into combat, and become stuck in the Institute
•Fixed distance check with Robotics Expert perk
•While in Workshop mode, if the Jump button is remapped, the Y or Triangle button can still be used to jump
•Fixed issue with "Defend the Castle" where speaking to Ronnie Shaw would not properly complete the quest
•During "The Nuclear Option," fast traveling away from the Institute immediately after inserting the relay targeting sequence holotape will no longer block progression
•Fixed issue where Workshop placed light bulbs would occasionally not light properly
•Fixed occasional flashing issue with entering and exiting Power Armor
•Fixed issue where terminals would not work properly after downloading and initializing an Add-On from the Add-Ons menu

Trail, Travis' quest comes from someone else. Keep doing quests in Diamond City and you should get there eventually.

Ah, cool thanks for the hint Hagatha!

After the update I like what they did with the main menu. It's interesting that Bethesda is taking such an active interest in modding and link in game right to an update site. I think I recall they started hosting mods awhile ago and it may have caused a bit of a stir over at Nexus, but if I believe they have been in communication with each other and are working together nicely now... Although I could be talking out of my...er...hat because I haven't frequented the Nexus forums as much as I did I the past. Have to look into that...

Update: Just read an article about the 1.5 update causing issues with multiple mods. Ah, yes... Here we go!

Funny you should mention that. I only JUST noticed the Main Menu link to mods. I might try the odd one eventually.

I did use mods with Skyrim and never had any problems. Hopefully that will be the case here, too.

Argh. Now every time I go to one of my older settlements I just HAVE to rebuild the danged thing. I've developed a pretty standard build if I don't feel too creative. I'm willing to redo Egret Tours Marina, for instance. But Murkwood Estates (Fine Residences in the Swamp) is looking pretty sweet now.

I'm noticing some new, odd glitches, one of which is fatal. I was rearranging a couple items in the upper work shop of the Red Rocket and after exiting the Workshop mode my character fell through all floor levels to his death. This happened three times right in a row when trying to position a non build item (microscope) using the workshop function. At first I thought I scrapped a floor panel in error right beneath me, but not the case. All I did was select a microscope off the floor in workshop mode, place it on a Chem work station and then exit workshop mode. Next, I'm seeing a tumbling view and my character falls through all floors and hits the ground. I also noticed that some objects are not "auto-righted" (placed right side up) when engaged with the workshop mode any longer. Looks like the 1.5 update has a little instability left in it.


UPDATE: Game crashes have begun since I started building the Sanctuary Settlement. I started a new game, Friday evening and held off on doing anything for them until I picked up the BOS quests. Finished off that really small farming settlement no problem, reported back to our friendly Minuteman, started building a new place for them to sack out and BAM CTD. Happened over and over again, but only when I'm in Work Shop mode or exiting Work Shop mode. Had to continually stop and make new saves to get through the dialogue with Sturges. As a result my build up of Sanctuary will be very, very minimal.

Did some research on the web and found that this isn't uncommon. Most are focusing on people with mods, but I've seen posts on 2-3 forums for folks running the vanilla game that can't even get the game started. This is not good. So, save game often.

That's too bad about the crashes. I've had to abandon a few games because the game became unstable, notably Gothic 3, which I had invested many, many hours into. Hopefully the next update will correct this.

I've had few issues with the game, though I have noticed that items don't automatically turn right side up any more when they're picked up.

I'm busy rebuilding older settlements. It's so funny; I was so proud of some of my earlier wooden settlements, and now they just look like junk. This is partly because the ground is so awful, with the weeds and un-junkable vehicles and odd bits of uneven ground. Having a nice, flat, clean surface to build on makes such a difference. Finch Farm, In particular, has such a gross surface that I've always done the minimum, even though it has that nice beach access. Now they're getting the full treatment. I guess Greentop Nursery is next.

I'm just going to keep rebuilding until the new DLC arrives; then I'll resume the game itself. Funny, I'm already at level 56 and I've done no BOS quests, only a few Railroad quests, and the basic Minutemen on-demand rescue quests. In Short, I've barely started the game. If there's a next time, I won't ever use the Work Shop unless I'm in God Mode because otherwise you level up far too quickly.

I completely agree with you on the leveling piece. Plus it's kind of annoying hearing that "cha-ching!" cash register sound every time I lay a piece of flooring or put up a light.

For this last play through I did the bare minimum on the Minuteman quests, didn't accept their offer, completed only the first "chapter" of the BOS quests and went straight into the Railroad. I'm just at level 18 right now and the only settlements on my radar are Sanctuary, Tenpines Bluff, which I totally enclosed, Hangman's Alley-the only reason this one is on my list was because I killed the raiders and used the workbench to break some stuff down to lower my carry weight, no quests involved, so I'm not really monitoring it. Then the other is Outpost Zimonja , but I don't really consider that a settlement since I didn't have to do anything except slap a few turrets around. I've restarted so much I don't even know if that area ever gets attacked. I figure I'll do the railroad stuff up until and then move back to BOS just to get a few goodies, then start exploring some more.

Oh, and I think I found that awesome combat rifle you mentioned awhile back. It shoots two bullets at once so does double damage. It keeps getting more devastating as I level. Glad I found it so early, it's making for an awesome close quarters "ninja" gun when sneaking with a suppressor on it.

Whoa! In completely rebuilding Finch Farm I discovered just how high you can go! Or, rather, I haven't yet hit the highest point. Up and up we go. Hopefully my settlers won't mind climbing, because way, way, way up top is where their individual suites will be, with an awesome view of the harbour -- and, incidentally, reminding me of just how lame my Nordhagen Beach settlement really is. I have noticed that the settlers are remarkably resistant to certain paths, but I figure if ALL the beds are up there (with a bar) they'll have no choice. And if it's no good for that, I'll just make that my home base.

I'm taking some screen shots of it and will post when done.

Hagatha, you'll keep 'em hale and hearty with all that exercise

They also tend to ignore doors. I usually build a sleeping quarters for Sanctuary right next to the building with the workshop. Come night fall, even if I assign the beds, they surround the building and just walk into the outer walls until something with the AI clicks and they use the door. Earlier today I saw Cait phase through a wall in the original Red Rocket building. I've got her bed set up behind the counter that used to hold the cash register. Instead of rounding the counter to leave the station, she just walks into the wall for a certain period of time and suddenly pops out in the workshop/garage area. Then she makes a right angle turn out the door of the shop. Weird eh?

I'm seeing dialogue glitches since the last update. There have been several occasions where my character and the person with whom he is having the dialogue just stop and stare at each other. I have to hit buttons or try to move my character out of the setting to unlock the discussion. Another odd one happened at Railroad HQ. The guy who gives you the dead drop information kept following me around spamming random non-quest line lines every time we got within dialogue range until

Talking about height limitations, check out this video. This guy goes to great extremes when building his g-mode fortresses. Here is his tips and tricks vid, but check out the buildings he's done, crazy stuff. 50 Tips & Tricks for Building Settlements ...

I'd seen that video before. Impressive! I had forgotten that you could use those light boxes to emulate windows. Next settlement will have them.

I focus more on the insides. I try to make them places you could actually live. Beach barbecues, art on the walls, that sort of thing.

EDIT: Now, I've never been able to get The Slog's happiness over 70, no matter what I do. I'm rebuilding, and sending all non-ghouls to other places. I'm working on the theory that the ghouls that set up the settlement might be -- um -- segregationist, since they seem to make a big deal about the fact that it's the only ghoul settlement around. Maybe they just don't want anyone else around. I can dig that. I'll turn off the beacon and repopulate with ghouls from other settlements.

I am rather happy about my placement of foundations around the buildings at Slog. I got the alignment almost perfectly square around the building and its foundations, just a tiny bit out of whack at the front steps after going all the way around the whole property.

Ixnay on the light box windows, though. WAY too fiddly. They attach to each other, but not to floors or edges, so placement is a bear.

Just make an entire building out of light boxes...wait a minute...I'm on a mission.

What caused the stir was they attempted, along with Steam, to start charging people for mods that, up until then, had been completely free.

Ah, that explains the issue. Mods are much better when they are free.


GRRRRR, had a fatal glitch pop-up last night. My character was up to level 30 and the game was working as well as expected, until I tried to leave through one of my powered doors and *Bang* crash to desktop. No error or warning, just shut it down completely. Did the same thing for every switch AND even when I tried to activate the switches through a terminal! The CTD also happens when I try to scrap anything through the work shop. So as opposed to abandoning a game session that was going awesomely up until this point I archived my saves, deleted the game and downloaded/installed everything again. Hoping it was something with the engine and that the save games aren't corrupt. I'm going to be really PO'd if I have to start all over again because I had one heck of a collection of power armor going and my dude was really kicking tail in battles. We'll see what happens, keeping my fingers crossed...

Update: Bad news is the all the save games with the level 30 character are corrupted. Good news is my archived save games with an unaffiliated level 6 starter character and the Red Rocket Fortress works fine. I'm not happy that I lost that character, but I would be even more PO'd if I had to abandon those starter games with the fortress. Sigh, I looked at Dogmeat and said, "Well, here we go again boy."

Ahhh, Trail, that is the worst. So sorry!

Trail, that is terrible.

There are some glitches, that's for sure. I haven't had any really bad ones yet -- if I lost this game I would also lose about four week's worth of fortress-building. Maybe I should back up my last few game saves.

I've now rebuilt most of the settlements, leaving only Sanctuary and Sentinel Island. I hadn't really done anything with the Island so I might work on that one next. The thought of doing anything with Sanctuary just exhausts me, so it can just stay as is (with a concrete wall around it).

Yeah, I get the same way with settlements. That's why I've been avoiding Sanctuary altogether even though their happiness level is at 4. I haven't bothered going back there in this game play so haven't even begun anything with the Minuteman. I just headed straight for Diamond City, helped the BOS on the way and met Piper and went straight into the detective quest. Now I'll pull back and just start doing odd miscellaneous quests and exploring for a dozen or so levels.

I noticed the dialogue glitches happening again. Piper's dialogue is all over the place from a timing perspective. Aside from that I'm finding her to be a mediocre companion. I haven't figured out her specialty yet (i.e. Cait=Lockpicking, Deacon=Hacking), but have only run a couple quests with her so far. Bethesda is really creative, but they need to think things out. I mean how hard is it to correct the fact that you get steel back when you scrap a lead pipe, DUH!

I maxed out my relationships with all companions in the last game, so I'm only doing Ada and the other ones I really like. Everyone else will get stationed somewhere pickin' corn until I feel like picking up their perk -- if I need it, that is. I've been rescuing settlements under attack in God Mode so I don't rack up any further levels before the expansions comes.

I redid my Somerville Place today. Very fond of this one -- concrete, but less industrial looking than my other constructions. I would live there.

Honestly, if it weren't for the persistent radiation, death claws, giant cockroaches, killer dogs, super mutants, psychotic robots, brutal shellfish and violent beer producers, I wouldn't mind taking up residence in the Commonwealth myself.

At least the rent would be cheap.