Like a lot of other people who I've seen posting on this issue, I like decorating the buildings in my settlements rather than just have empty shelves and so on. The fact the ability to decorate is there and that we can build stuff like shelves shows that decorating is suppose to be a part of this game. However a lot of people are reporting that the items they place on surfaces like shelves and units and randomly falling off or clipping through objects when they leave and come back. This has never happened to me and I couldn't work out why I was getting so lucky with this until I discovered something by accident.

For the first 100 or so hours that I played this game, I somehow overlooked the fact that you can place items on shelves and so on in workshop mode! I have no idea how I missed that but I did and only discovered it when I accidentally clicked on an item in workshop mode and I was allowed to move and place the item with ease.

The way I had been using to decorate my houses etc was to use the "grab" mode like you can do with dead bodies. Admittedly this is a trickier method of decorating and you have to fiddle a bit to get items turned round or sit upright etc. However using this method has proved that my items NEVER move from where I place them. I have only encountered a small number of items I couldn't successfully place like the globes as they just won't sit upright no matter what I do! Things like glasses and bottles can be tricky but entirely possible. It just takes a bit more patience and thought along with a dose of care when moving things around so you don't knock other items over. It's not like workshop where items can move "through" one another.

I have all my house extensively decorated and never have problems with items staying put. It IS a little more time consuming but it's a sacrifice I don't mind making for the ability to make it work. I even tried the workshop mode to place a few items and when I left the settlement and came back it was ONLY the items placed in workshop mode that fell off the surfaces.

I'm sure I'm not the first to discover this but I'm not aware of how many know about it and having seen other people disheartened with the decorating aspect of the game I just thought I'd share this in case it is of use to others.

I'd share some screenshots if I knew how to get them from my Xbox One onto the laptop to post here.

Mine have fallen through the floor in both workshop mode and normal grab mode. PC.

That svcks I really thought I'd found the solution since it works for me. Although maybe it's an Xbox thing?

I read yesterday that you use build mode to place the items, then exit build mode and grab them briefly and let them settle again. THis 'resets' the physics, or something, and prevents things from "falling through." Haven't tried it yet myself.

I've used both methods to decorate (Workshop mode and just grabbing stuff with E outside of WM). A lot of times, the stuff ends up on the floor for me (on PC), especially when I place it on a table, I find it under the table or half way stuck inside the table, when I return to my settlement after being away for a while.

In some extreme cases, the stuff ends up in strange places. I've placed a table lamp on a cupboard inside the central house in Sanctuary, and when I returned from a quest, I found it outside, in the middle of the streets. lol And one bottle just wouldn't stay put, no matter how often I placed it on a table. It ALWAYS ended up on the floor, so I finally scrapped it for glass. Yesterday, I placed a beer bottle on a counter and it disappeared inside the counter. I didn't feel like moving the whole counter, so I just left it, thinking it might turn up again, maybe on the street even.

I love to decorate my places, but now, I don't invest too much effort in it anymore. It's like Skyrim all over again LOL. At least in Skyrim, I could just drop the stuff on the floor, leave my house and re-enter and then decorate. That way, everything stayed in place. Haven't worked out a good way to do that in FO 4 yet.

@ Kolyana: Nice tip! Thanks! I will try that!

On Xbox0ne and have set items with build mode only to have them fall through as well. I will try Kolyana's 'build mode then grab' idea tonight.

I tried this but sadly it didn't work for me. Those particular items still fell off

I built a "garage" of sorts that has all my workbenches in and lots of shelves with countless tools sitting on them and they have all stayed put me for throughout my time playing the game. I'm not sure how or why but they have.

PS4 thing also. What's the point of having a bar if the whiskey bottles fall thru the floor? How can you play pool with disappearing pool cues? And I used the grab method.

We just need Models that don't have Physics that can be placed via the Workshop like many of the other items such as furniture. Its like this, I have used many a player made home ie UGC user generated content. I don't like it when every item just falls off the shelf or the table spread gets knocked over just because Im trying to navigate around the house.

I tend to prefer all that stuff locked into place.

As far as decorating goes in this game, I have a thing for placing bath tubs around my settlement filled with tires that I find around the area, and I have walked well outside of the settlement bounds to find tires to place in them. I'm considering making a big pool and filling it with guns just cause I have so many of them, I'd like to dive in and swim in the guns, and I can.

Things placed in workshop mode failing through all the time here. On PC.

So no, it does not work.

Nope. Same thing for me on PS4. As long as I grab and place they seem to be fine. The only thing that has ever happened is that a teddy-bear falls off a high shelf in my Sanctuary abode. It does it regularly, but it's the only thing. How do you get vases to stand upright?

I found vases to be one of the trickier items to work with but over time I have become used to using walls and other surfaces to push the item into the orientation I want it to be in, then move it to the place where I want to put it. Some items like the globe, will tilt while being grabbed no matter what you do. Push it against a wall and get it upright and as soon as you move away from the wall it's upside down again. Only found this with a few items though. I can place nearly everything else. Say you are putting a vase on a table... use the edge of the table as a tool to push the vase against to get it the way you want it, then move back slightly and upwards so you are clearing the edge of the table and move forward and place it down gently. This mode is by no means an ideal way to place stuff but it just works for me (and you) for some reason. Hopefully though Bethesda will patch this issue so we can use workshop mode to do it. Way easier if it wasn't so unreliable! Plus this is a feature a lot of people want quite heavily so hopefully they make it a priority issue.

Sounds a lot like working with decorating with Hearthfire and Skyrim.

I will definitely give it a shot! Thank you.

I can't even place things on objects. Shelves, desks, beds, etc... In build mode while holding the object, the object just completely ignores what I am trying to place it on and tries to place it on the floor below it. Lamps/typewriters on desks? Nope. Plates, utensils, cups on tables? Nope. Food, bottles, etc., on shelves? Nope. They all just go to the floor.

Not really sure why I try anyways... The physics in this game are poop tier and if there is an explosion anywhere within like a hundred yards of your placed items (like say, during a raid), they get thrown all to hell all over the place.

I agree that none of that is possible in build mode. I can do it manually though - no problem. Just grab and place. As the OP stated, sometimes it takes some finesse and patience, but I have my place pretty much decorated already. I even have an ashtray, a six-pack of beer and cigarettes on my table on my balcony overlooking the street.

Since my home is always 2nd or 3rd level above everything else, nothing is ever affected by any attacks. Now that I think about it, even the stuff I've decorated my slave huts with isn't affected at all by the raids unless the building itself is destroyed. I must have been lucky so far though. The only thing that has been destroyed has been walls, defensive builds, crops and various water/power equipment. Have to admit that the supermutant that ended up dead, face-down in one of the toilets in the bathroom hut was very funny.

Interesting. I've been manually stocking my own shelves for the past few days, it's actually not that difficult once you get the hang of it. The toughest item is the pork n bean cans because they naturally tilt to the side. I've never once seen an item fall through other objects, thank god for that. But i have never used the workshop to move stuff around other than furniture.

I have a tip for some of you who use quicksaves when stocking your shelves. Sometimes when you screw up and reload, you might notice that the items that were knocked down might still be down. This is because the game engine tries to reposition everything when you reload the save, rather than loading a new game entirely. The solution is to simply pick up the fallen items to your inventory, then quickload. The game will 'place' the objects back into position the way it was in your quicksave.

Items randomly flying off, sinking in floors and generally getting lost has been an issue in Bethesdas games as long as I can remember (that would be since Oblivion) and Beth never has sorted it out so there is no reason to hope that they will patch it.

There is hope only for master race since all games, sooner or later get mod that lets player position and lock items in place. For Skyrim it was Jaxonz Positioner, for Fallout 3 - Feng Shui, for Oblivion - Decorators Assistant (I think). Bottom line is that Beth don't care for that and won't fix that. Its working (or not) as intended.

I discovered the most realistic thing about this game the other day. I had placed some bottles on a counter and Dogmeat stood up on his hind legs and pushed them all down on the floor. Yup, true to life, stupid dog.

I've decorated using both methods (workshop and grabbing) and I've had problems with both. Though, I haven't tried the place with workshop -> exit workshop -> grab and lift slightly -> set down method yet.

I get all sorts of results. A few items stay in place. A lot end up on the floor near where I placed them. Some items either sink completely into the object I set them on, or about halfway into the object. And I've also had the weird occurrence where the item disappears into oblivion, only to show up a few in-game days in a random location. Even the magazine racks are glitched. You can place then into the rack's "inventory" (not sure on the actual term) and I'll still return home to find them on the ground or just gone.

This really svcks. I've just given up and placed all my decorations in a specially designated chest in the hopes that this gets fixed. Until then, all my player housing is full empty tables and shelves.

Well, at least with the older games they could fall back on the excuse, "We provided you with home decorations, that junk you brought home isn't our problem." Now they've given us the option to build empty shelves and tables etc. The way I see it, they're encouraging players custom decorating. I hope they try and fix it this time around.

Strange haven't had any problems with decorating. Well I did have one... Placed some jet and bourbon next to mama murphy and next time I visited it was spread all over the floor in all directions. I just figured mama had a crazy trip.

Other than that everything stays in place.

It's interesting to note how many players in this thread are still having the problem when manually placing items against the ones that aren't having this problem. I can only think it must be a platform (Xbox, PS4, PC etc) issue. What other explanation could there be? Unless it's an issue with how you placed the items originally. Like when I used workshop mode it failed. Then I tried workshop mode followed by grab mode and that failed too yet grab mode on it's own seems to work. Perhaps if you have already placed items in your settlement in workshop mode then you need to remove the items from the entire settlement zone and bring them back in again to "reset" it? Then place them using only grab mode.

Thoughts?

This is true, but it's very time consuming, specially if you have tons of items placed.

Since I mostly have Nuka Colas placed, after a while, though they don't fall through furniture, you can see them vibrating rapidly, grabing them and putting them right back stops this.

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I also noticed that some furniture has more problems with objects that others, it's tiresome to try to find out which items work with which furniture pieces.

I tried to decorate my bar but the stupid settlers took all the drinks from the back shelf. even though they drank all my beer Preston still won't let me kill them.

On that note i'd love to mark objects with do not touch. Maybe they would leave empty bottles alone.

Yep, me too. Very few objects stay where I put them, using either method. I'm on Xbox.