We build settlements to make adhesives, have a place to store stuff. Buy/sell stuff. To call a home.

Settlements are an example of self-producing consumeable content, because we reap what we sow and have fun doing it.

A game with a finite amount of consumable content will eventually reach the "when all is said and done" stage, where you question the point of exploration and self-improvement.

The Dilemma that any powerful entity faces is being bored of not being challenged enough, therefore why be powerful at all in a game if that's boring?

So, what's the solution?

The player, like Yoda, is a thread or constance that binds great episodes of saga together. Settlements, like lightsabers, are a tool towards a self-created destiny very personal and specific to it's creator.

Therefore creating a DLC involving the progression of settlements towards a greater goal is not only sustainable entertainment (read self producing content...), but also offers an opportunuity to make the choice players have made in the commonwealth to matter more then just having eliminated venues of interest (like destroying whole factions in favor for one).

For instance, Institute fans can create settlements with institute tech. Teleporters, lots of aparture lab white, and produceable synths to supplement the work force at settlements.

Or Brotherhood Fans can create airships, and supply lines with vertibirds. Brotherhood tech, powerarmor production, and all.

Railroad fans can create underground bunkers, underground settlements, stealth tech and supply "runners".

Lastly, all factions ought to be able to build a colony ship for a settlement on the moon, which opens a moonbase storyline.

Ya know?

except, besides maybe the institute, Space ships, unless i am mistaken, do not exist anymore, or at least, there are none being made and the ones that DO exist are falling apart.

Starship construction is merely Synth construction at a macro scale. Food for thought.

Yes to faction buildables. Although there should be optional quests to unlock the other factions' buildables, either by doing favors (probably for neutrals/Minutemen) or stealing/scavenging plans.

As for the moon - can we not just have aliens on it? Let us hijack a real, usable alien spacecraft, not the gimped quarter ship of the Zeta DLC. Take over a Zetan moon outpost and colonize space. Build an orbital death ray to rain artillery strikes on heads. You know, cool stuff.

Well, surely Nevada wasn't the only place with repairable rockets in it.

I would most definitely like to see the settlement alliances not be strictly minutemen. I hated expanding the minutemen empire while I was working as a BoS Knight.

Heres what I'd like as a single DLC. Settlement expansion, with new parts, locations, furniture, and optimization ETC, with additional side quests added to all of our companions, to further their stories (And relationships) with us. Tack on a few *the morning after main quest* quests to the main factions, to establish the current goal of their continued presence- and I'd call it good.

Story content wise, it would be good to have companions scooped in with settlement DLC stuff, since your sort of starting your life over with them.

Come to think of it, if you side with the Brotherhood, why can't you control your settlements anymore? It's ridiculous. That one sidequest utterly breaks the settlement system if you let it run long enough, to the best of my knowledge. Especially by the end of the BoS questline, you should bloody well own every single settlement the Brotherhood has taken under its wing.