I'm starting my second play-through and am hoping to avoid the Minute Men ever even appearing in my quest log.

It's a very carefully planned spec build and I'm reliant on getting a couple of the SPECIAL Bobbleheads early on to get the perks I want.

So. Can I get in to the museum at the start and grab the Perception Bobblehead without starting that whole loathsome chain of quests? I'm totally fine with killing them all if that's what it'll take!

The story quest is at "explore Sanctuary Hills with Codsworth", and I don't plan on that changing any time soon! I've grabbed DogMeat, the only companion I plan to have, and am giving am head right around Concord to head straight, albeit slowly and with many distractions, to Good Neighbour.

Not really, as when you reach the museum the game automatically just skips ahead and give you the quest to help them anyway. I think tho if you say no to helping the first settlement he asks about the quest still finishes and ya dont have to deal with Preston any more.

What you could do is save them, and then do the Corvega factory quest for Preston. When you hand that in say no to become the General of the Minutemen nad never speak again. I don't think you can kill them, they are essential. If you are not up for that, you can just say no when he asks for help and then leave. You will have the quest in your log though.

What's annoying is that you can't complete the museum quest without starting the next one. Although joining Preston is the last part of the Museum quest, actually it won't be completed if you do that but refuse to help the minutemen. So you can leave them in the museum forever, or send them to Sanctuary but never talk to Preston (since even if you refuse to help, he can still point to settlements worth exploring).

If you want to avoid the minutemen completely, you'll have to avoid Concord too I think, or at least stay far enough from the Museum. You could visit the Abernaty farm instead, which actually helps making sense RP wise: for instance you can learn the usage of caps from the daughter (doesn't make sense to accept caps as payment without question), what kind of people are raiders (instead of shooting random strangers on sight because their name is red), and learn a bit about Diamond City.

Thanks! Just realised I need to start the play through again anyway, thankfully I'm only a few hours in!

Thought I needed the first rank of Lockpick to be able to tackle Novice locks and was relying on the B/h to get me to level 4 Perception. Now I know I don't need that, I can take perception down to 1 and put the points where they're needed more!

Yeah I'm trying to stay clear of the minutemen too, after experiencing the never-ending quests on a previous playthrough. Note that even if you don't join the minutemen, settlers will still ask for your help (you the complete stranger): for instance, I had already cleared the Corvega factory before I visit Tenpines (I went there only because I saw Gene with a dog for sale arriving there at Tenpines), and the settler asked me to save his kidnapped sister (by raiders from miles away of course)...

And another thing that bothered me was practically needing at least 6 charisma and the leader perk to manage settlements properly. Actually it's still annoying now that I only want to take over a single settlement, since I can't build workbenches (so places like Starlight Drive are pretty useless). I wanted a more central location than Sanctuary (in which I didn't activate the workshop) and even wasted time going all the way to Diamond City before I realise Homeplate svcks, with no workbenches and the ones outside so tedious to use without sharing components.

Just ignore the minutemen and the bobblehead.

You can probably just walk in, grab the bobblehead and leave without responding to Preston.

You can safely take the booblehead, just don't return to Preston ever, after you killed the deathclaw.

If you do that, normal settler quests can be cleared without reporting to Preston at all.

I did the same as a few others. I went in and grabbed the bobblehead than went outside grabbed the PA and beat the deathclaw down. After that I left the power armor right in front of the door and left. As long as you don't go into the building after beating the quest it can't finish. Tho a simplier trick would be ignore preston and his oh fine just walk away grab the bobblehead and leave.

Imo beth really dropped the ball tying so much into preston like they did. I dont mind the guy and I even have the guy as a companion as a 2nd char but I just really dislike that I can go to trade gear in the middle of the woods and he'll go oh just got word of a settlement in trouble. How would you know Preston we've been hunting stags and molerats out in the woods for days. Did that raider we just killed tell you? Shame on the groupchat thinking this was good design choice at their dev team meetings