I've only said it may contain spoilers and people may not have found certain settlements yet etc.

So what is your favourite place to call home?

I usually build a wall around the house opposite my old house in sanctuary (as it already has all the stations and a power armour station). I make that the barracks if you will, then I refurbish my old house to make it liveable. As well as this, I build a fence gate between the two buildings and a wall on the other side to make one small courtyard, from this, I build other buildings on elevated platforms.

I did enjoy red rocket, but there is a lot of stuff in the way

I'm recently deciding whether to relocate to the Castle or Covenant though.

I always end up in the sanctuary because its the default area and I have a personal interest in it. I do fortify the castle though.

though I'm thinking of making myself and my companions a personal home. I kind like hangman alley? I think that's the name, and the lighthouse. leaning towards the lighthouse because of its isolation though.

I'm very picky though, will keep looking, it has to be small, but interesting, be fairly isolated, but in a convenient location, and not to close to bad guys, but not in the middle of nowhere. . .I don't think this exists XD

I'm setting up Red Rocket. The stuff in the way isn't a problem for me; I'm learning a lot about the crafting system by working around it. The whole place is coming together really nicely and I can see it being my home base for the whole game. I've got my armoury/workshop built outside the roller door so it's only accessible from inside what used to be the workshop. The workshop is now my bedroom where I have my display stands, Dogmeat's house, and some Shaun memorabilia. I've also built a generator room on the roof with generators inside and wind turbines on top. There's a barracks type room around the back which houses the dining room and beds for a small amount of settlers for food production (Adhesive manufacture), a supply line back to Sanctuary, and some basic defense to support the automated systems.

I'm currently in the process of creating the wiring grid which will loop around the entire rim of the roof which will allow anything that needs power to access it easily wherever it is on site. I'll build a kitchen area inside the Red Rocket itself using the old counter as a breakfast bar. Then it's just a case of raising a curtain wall, placing the automated turrets and getting some settlers in to do some work.

Should be good once I'm finished. Simple, but functional.

I'll probably use Castle as the heart of my supply network and only develop Sanctuary plus two or three of the other big sites for use.

I've made Sanctuary my main town, as I felt I had a personal stake in the place and it is quite large with plenty of resources to scrap...and of course, it's the place where the game gives you a mini-tutorial on town building, so I was already well on my way to having a town there by the time I had a grasp of the systems.

I'm late into the game now and Sanctuary is huge. I've broken both the object limit and settler limit. I eventually pumped charisma to 10 with level points (started at 6) and then grabbed the bobble for 11...and then just consoled it up to 21 solely for the settler limit (is there even any other benefit? kinda cheaty if there is, but I haven't noticed any other benefit). I'm at 26 population now, but not actively recruiting.. just making space for followers and settler relocations to consolidate. I made a huge bar to stick a tier 3 food shop in. I have all the other tier 3 shops as well. The doctor gets his own building for a clinic. I'm working on specialized buildings for general, weapon, and armor dealers still. I have a couple large power plants (generator sheds). I have lightbar signs for the bar and clinic. I have my own house rebuilt and extended massively to include a power armor workshop (with 14 power armors and 6 workstations) and a massive building that contains a certain plot related construction. Many constructions are situated to act as town walls and lot of the hedge walls are patched such that Sanctuary is about 3/4ths walled now. Eventually it will be fully walled.

Starlight is my second largest town, at 14. It has become my supply line hub...in that much of the population is dedicated to running supply lines. As I consolidate settlements (closing down the tiny ones given by countless quests), it grows and members are freed up from supply duty. I'll likely give it a full array of shops soon. Castle is my third largest at 11 and very defense focused. I have plans to make various themed settlements, but I'm still learning the quirks of the systems and I'm watching what mods roll out to see what can help me along.... mainly I want more objects in a mod that doesn't use tessnip. Fo4edit has sprung up though and is unleashing a tide of stable .esp mods, so I'm hopping to see a 'hundreds of new objects' mod that doesn't use tessnip.

My favourite settlement is the island, cos it's a huge.. island. A massive building sandbox.

I didn't like Covenant, for a few reasons. One, the turrets aren't yours, they don't count to defence, you have to blow them up and make new ones. Which is silly. Second everything in it counts as stealing, and Deezer throws a hissy. Lastly, and most important, you can't remove the gate, and it's annoying as hell if you have OCD

So far, I am still in the phase where I am figuring things out. Sanctuary is still my current home. I have a 3 story just to the left of the garage with pool table, kitchen and living area on the main entry level, bunks on the second level, and a man cave on the third level. Third level has a walkout porch, with chemistry crafting station, a bar, a hoop and a ceiling fan for those sultry nights. Wind generator on the roof of the 1st level that I can look over at from my walk out porch on the third level.

I am considering making my Solo home at Red Rocket, but can't decide on a construction plan. Daiyus' ideas are appealing to me.

Sanctuary is my main home where I store all my gear but I haven't built it up much or added in new settlers
The Castle is where I have done the most building so far
Starlight Drive In has also got a bit of building, mostly shacks with beds and a living area and I use that as my main recruitment location and hub for supply routes

I have added a few extra building, just enough for defense purposes along with lots of turrets at every settlement I have so far that came with settlers in place. I was using Hangman's alley as a recruitment post for a while and have done a small amount of building and crop planting but not much.

I like the look of the Light house as a base but need to work out the best build plan for the existing structures. I may use the house as a gun emplacement (Turrets at all windows) and board up the doors and then use the Light house and boathouse as my settlement area

I was really excited to start building on Spectacle Island until I realized that you can't tear down any of the buildings. It svcks because it's such a huge, and completely isolated, place to build.

It's a cool place! You also get 20 free power from one of the ships, and those are nifty as well. Sadly, the island isn't very flat and building on hillsides requires a bit more frustration. I prefer to have some roads/paths through the settlement and some interaction with the rest of the wasteland, but that's more personal taste for sure. Have you had a settlement attack on the island yet? I assume if it happens, the enemies just spawn on the island, making defensive coverage difficult to manage considering the size... although maybe it can't even be attacked at all! Does it get trade caravans at all? I'm curious how the AI handles the isolation.

I have the island but no definitive plans on what to do with it yet. If we can get mods that add various industries, it'd be neat to turn it into a fishery. I can imagine a mod adding water-placeable fish nets as a form of 'farming' and some fish foods. Realsitically the island would be great for operating a shipping fleet, but boats are bit far fetched, even with mods.... ya never know though!

I'm still learning tricks of building but some general things I've found:

You cannot use a freaking BROOM to clean the leaves out of your house, nor mow the freaking lawn to prevent weeds from springing up through metal floors. You also cannot place doors directly into existing doorframes, nor (easily) fix holes in walls and floors.... so I usually end up wrapping existing buildings inside my own, constructed, buildings.

Couple of exceptions:

(1) The Slog has a great, solid, relatively clean concrete building and I placed a metal Doorway Prefab at each entrance that looks pretty good; it has a pool into which I can place an industrial water purifier and it comes pre-made with a little garden plot. It's on a hill over looking the river, so the only real danger comes fro the one side (although that side IS under near constant fire from the Forged).

(2) Greygarden has a greenhouse (and, oddly, another garden outside of that) but no actual housing buildings otherwise, so it was easy to build around the workstation. I actually built up a stairwell that leads up to BOTH levels of the overpass where you can also place stuff!

I like the Red Rocket station because of the sliding doors, the roll-gate garage, the bar / counter, but it IS a pretty small area and I'm not sure how easy it would be to add your own touches.

You can use the carpet clipping trick to get a wall door frame overlayed with the existing doorframe, which can then accept a door. The gist is that you place a small carpet outside (not near other objects), then place the doorframe section on the carpet. Hold E to grab the carpet AND the doorframe. You can then place the whole thing, but it only considers the collision of the carpet. After you get the combination where you want it, you can remove the carpet.

I can't decide where I want to set my fortress of solitude. I'm sticking with Red Rocket until I find that perfectly isolated, easily defend-able place.

I like Castle the most, but it bothers me that you can't build stone walls. I've put the metal gate but it just looks silly.

I did a few test runs building up different settlements as "home base" with a lot of attention, but then re-loaded a previous save because I wasn't happy with it. Great learning tool though. Red Rocket was cool because you can build 9-10 stories high on the roof for a crazy view.

My latest is Hangmans alley though, and I think I will stick with it. I filled about 80% of the space with a 3 floor living area so that the entire settlement is somewhat like one big building. Ground floor is all the farming/water/cooking/eating area with a bar and tables/chairs. Second floor is beds and couch/tv. Third floor is open with some prefabs with more beds, basketball court, jukebox party room and an undercover area for vendors.

You can also arm the place to the teeth and it feels very safe. Only downfall is I have about 14 people in there and most just stand around in the way by the stairs instead of spreading out and using the space. Somehow also a brahmin made it's way (not a supply one, just a normal one) and he tends to lay in the middle of the main space. Pretty hilarious though.

Had this happen to me in Sanctuary. He got into the living room of the main house/garage were the work benches and PA stand is. He tried to get out for quite a while, then gave up and laid down on the floor. I was going to kill him to get him out of the way, but I thought..what if his dead body lays in there forever!! After a while he was gone. I think he belonged to Trashcan Carla and somehow left when she did.

Haha. Yeah there's plenty of space for him but he chooses to stand in the middle of the main living/eating area being obnoxious. As of now I kind of like it, he's like the town pet. But if it gets old I'll turn him into dinner

Iv finished a second story bar at the castle and am in the process of boarding the entire second floor of it and making a roof above the ground floor , it's gonna be awesome

You mean stone walls like this?

https://goo.gl/photos/RxpzhDrCBEhKXRQA7

https://goo.gl/photos/LYpoTiNBumnXz9gbA

https://goo.gl/photos/LYpoTiNBumnXz9gbA

Wat. You can? Is it a magazine pick up or am I just blind?

It's in the floor section in wood...big chunk that you can use to raise the ground level and fill in gaps

Those concrete foundations are essential to not only building walls, but level foundations over water and turret placement. I don't have any huge settlements built from scratch, a lot of smaller settlements.. my largest in resource consumption is probably the roof of the red rocket. Get too complicated and they can't find their way and just clip through the walls and such. it doesn't take that big a building to house 10-15 beds and the settlers don't much care how close they sleep together. Right now I have settlements set up with some sort of shelter and turrets along with recruitment beacons at these locations..

Sanctuary

Red Rocket

Abernathy Farm

Tenpines Bluff

Greygarden (bots only, no people or beacon yet)

The Slog (No beacon, I send ghouls here that arrive at other settlements and use it as a supply line hub)

Finch Farm (stairway to interstate above is possible at this settlement though I don't utilize it)

Country Crossing (turrets and 2 settlers only, no beacon)

Castle

Taffington Boathouse (built over the shoreline/water with concrete foundations)

Greentop Nursery

Nordhagen Beach

I don't know if I have a favorite yet. I was unimpressed with the "Castle" though for the usual reasons... lots of nonremovable rubble.. my favorite settlements have good locations or buildings with intact roofs and no half broken garbage buildings on them. Sanctuary's buildings are good enough that I use them for all my settlers though and they are plenty happy... 70+ most of the time. Premade large steel structures use little resources and work reasonably well... I do that with the more forgettable settlements and I actually like the way they look more than my own prebuilt boxes. I can comfortably house 6 beds in one large premade steel one and linked two of them together I believe at finch farm which ended up being a semi favorite, centrally located location of mine.

Wow. This is interesting - never knew you could do that. Awesome.

Favorite so far is The Castle because it's pre-wired... except how it has no logical place for a power plant and giant holes you can't fix. Second is probably Hangman's Alley, because it's nicely designed and it's not hard to reserve a power zone - easy to wire. Lighthouse is nice - deep water, toolshed perfect for power (if you can get the wires outside properly), Slog because it's nice and friendly and having an industrial purifier in a swimming pool is hilarious. Red Rocket is special because it has my companion and crafting hub, although half of my power armor gallery is at Home Plate for now. Sanctuary is woefully underbuilt - should revisit that sometime. I should conquer Spectacle for the luck bobble and free power, too, although I wish building on hills were less of a pain in the ass.

I made Abernathy Farm into a decent sized town, no annoying things in the way so you can build plenty of foundations and work from there.

I found County Crossing easy to build a wall around, but it's not so big.

There's a marina down in the south i've just unlocked, near Somerville Place that looks pretty cool.

Outpost Zimonja is my favourite for my personal base, but for building a town either Sanctuary or Abernathy Farm.

Edit: Forgot about the Slog too, one of my favourites, the roof of the main structure is great for building things on

I'm using Sanctuary as my adhesive farm and water purification facility but all my followers (aside from Preston) live with me in Hangman's Alley.

I've just stumbled upon Croup Manor and it might be the leading choice right now. Water at its back so you only have to defend three sides, its already a 3 story house and best of all, it has its own interior space (the Croup Manor basemant) which will help great with radiation storms.