Okay so there is a lot of freedom in building your settlements and it appears that Bethesda is encouraging you to get lost in it. Why is there a size limit?!?!?!? For example, I was reinforcing the huge holes in the outer walls of the Castle because they can easily be exploited by raiders. I hadn't even finished building those up when the notification came up that i cannot build anything else for the settlement, that is odd considering how much freedom you have in this game. I barely put anything else into the settlement except for a small garden, a few power generators, artillery, and defense turrets.

Another thing that bothered me was the max population of 20 people. Why?

Memory Limitations.

Simply put the hardware is a restriction on how much could be built now for the PC its certainly possible to overcome that but even then with a mod out there that allows PC users to overcome it there are reports of this inducing crashes. Why cause those PC users didn't have as awesome hardware as they thought.

The size limitation bug has been confirmed by several players already (read some posts). For example if you go to another settlement and bring a lot of junk, then go back and drop it on the ground and scraqe it there, it then decreases the size limit. But if you scraqe the stuff elsewhere or just place it in the workbench and build letting the game auto scraqe it from the shared workbench, then your settlement can only be tiny in size. It's really not playable. So perhaps try to save your savegame and wait for the patches they are already working on!

I haven't had a crash with mine yet (extended greatly), though some people always attempt to go further than they should. A good PC can handle a lot more than they allowed.

Here's the http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/818/? if anyone wants it (PC only).

That's.... That actually makes sense. I thought my two settlements were just completely borked because they were showing as a huge size and then all of a sudden not anymore. Both places I had scrapped all the armor and weapons on the ground.

I didn't put that one together, so thanks for the post. Now I will go back to the settlement I abandoned because I thought it was completely broken.

Suggest you wait for patches and enjoy a stable product with thumbs up!

Awesome thanks everyone!

There is no need for a mod even (on PC)
Open the console and click on your workbench, type:
Getav 349
Getav 34b
Then multiply those amounts to say 1.5 X or whatever number you want then type :
Setav 349 [amount]
Setav 34b [amount]

Scrapping junk didn't work for me , guns , only scrapping guns on the ground brought the size down , I had the long term idea of building city's !! Bethesda is trying to prevent me rebuilding the world !!

What are these commands doing exactly? (before I start editing my game in a manner I do not understand)

From Fallout Wiki:

"Size Budget

These commands only affect workbenches in settlements. The easiest way to modify a settlement is to travel there and target the workbench with the console open.

The size budget is a combination of triangle counts and draw calls and is configured for each settlement. Each object the player creates in the settlement will use a portion of both in the budget, with more complex objects using up more. The budget itself is tracked as actor values attached to the workbench. Note that in order to use these actor values you must use the numeric id as they do not have a usable console name.

You can see your current usage with these commands. As these are calculated by the workbench, changing them with or the like is not recommended.

- Gets the current number of triangles used by player.
- Gets the current number of draw calls used by player.
These commands will let you change the actual budget. Increasing the values will allow you to build more.

- Set the maximum triangle budget for the settlement.
- Set the maximum budget for the settlement.
Note: The budgets are there for a reason, to keep players from building overly large settlements that could negatively impact performance. Using these commands to ignore the budgets could have consequences"

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_console_commands

So don't build crazy big and watch your FPS and you should be fine, there is only so much you can build depending on your hardware and the engine limitations but the limits were set with consoles in mind since they already struggle with 30 fps.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I think I will be tinkering with my starlight drive-in limits tonight

No there isn't, just makes it easier because you don't have to manually type things, it calls a batch file for you and does all that in the background.

That's what I use, problem fixed. I can make my mega town at Sanctuary.

It makes settlement building so much more fun. If you're interested I know of another nice settlements mod that lets you build more types of things - http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1145/? - making it even more fun.

Any ideas on how to get more people in a settlement on ps4 ? Iv maxed my charisma and I'm at 18 and it won't budge over , I had the idea of creating something like diamond city , full of people , big place , is that possible ?

Because CPU, memory and graphic card are not limitless. Limit is there to prevent you to excess abilities of hardware and make game unplayable or outright crash.

Try to scrap some other objects in the area you don't need. Including default objects not build by you. That might help.

Hmm and what if you haven't gotten around to have shared workbench yet?

Because I have tonnes of junk at sanctuary and tonnes of walls and houses and it still has room for more vs. starlight inn, which does have quite a lot of stuff built, but nearly nothing in the workshop and is nearly full?

There is a base difference in settlement size the different places?

Javan: I tried this trick at Starlight Drive-In yesterday and it worked beautifully (I doubled my build limit). But the same trick didn't work at other settlements, for some reason. Typing in Getav returned the Starlight Drive-In numbers (the doubled numbers), but the other settlements still showed full or nearly full on their meters. It didn't seem that each base had it's own independent setav setting, but I know I must be wrong.

When you say "click on your workbench," can you better explain this? Clicking brings out my weapon So am I meant to go into transfer mode, build mode, or open the console (while looking at the workbench) and then click on it? I assume the latter.

I wish there was a mod that expanded the green boundaries. Some of those smaller settlements need to be expanded, especially in the city.

for console players here is the work around for the build limit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TszQTVO6KpU

Those commands are changing variables associated to that workbench. You must select the workbench who's values you want to change.

While console is open click on the workbench it's I'd should show up at the top of the console. Now any commands you issue in the console will be associated to that workbench.

Sometimes the game wont let me build anything else (Sanctuary) even though the size bar is barely over 50%.

The only way it lets me continue to build is if I go around scrapping all the yellow outlined stuff like trees ans tires.

I've tried the putting weapons on the workstation exploit a couple of times but I'm always afraid that will bug my game or lower the frame rate too much later on.

Ha, I want to combine red rocket and sanctuary into one settlement. I could build a nice sized city then.

I want to take this even further, and move the whole thing through into Concord...and make use of all those nice boarded up buildings.