I just want to start with a disclaimer before I give a short apologetic for my reason for not using in-game exploits and glitches to get unlimited resources. I in no way am attempting to pass judgement on somebody else's playing preference. In setting forth my own, I am merely expressing my playing preference and the reason for it so as to then give my strategy for success within the system and world economy that Bethesda has created. With that out of the way, let's begin...

The reason I don't use the glitch is very simple. The Fallout 4 world economy is very attractive to me. I enjoy looting valuable junk and hauling it back to my settlement for scrapping. I love the added strategy of choosing between carrying that legendary piece of gear the raider boss just dropped or my 7th typewriter. The moment I use an exploit to get needed resources I completely eliminate this new and refreshing aspect of the game. So for the sake of preserving my own feeling of deep immersion in the Fallout universe and the multi-facited economy that comes with it I have chosen the strait and narrow approach to the game, including base-building. The only exception is I will use the workshop glitch to expand the building limit. I don't see this as eliminating the need to gather resources but rather expanding that need. So to me, it doesn't break the sense of immersion and accomplishment.

Now, the first thing we have to realize is by gathering resources within the framework of the economy Bethesda has created for us it must be acknowledged that it will be more time-consuming and labor-intensive. If it were not, glitches would be irrelevant. So if you are looking for a quick fix without circumventing the system then I am afraid you will be disappointed. That being said, there are things you can do in order to minimize the time needed to collect all the resources you will need. That is what this post is for.

There are two ways to look at your settlements. You can work for your settlements, or you can make your settlements work for you. If we work for our settlements chances are the entire settlement feature will seem like a burden to us. Indeed many have already complained about their experiences with settlements on this very forum. But if we learn how to make our settlements work for us, then they go from being and end to being a means and become a tool in the hand of a master craftsmen.

My suggestion is you focus on grabbing a select few strategic settlements and build them up one at a time, rather than a dozen that will eat an equal share of your resources and time. If you follow that advice, focus on Sanctuary Hills, The Castle, and Abernathy Farms. The reason these three are highlighted is that the first two give you access to tons of water and the last one gives you access to a very strategic vendor, Connie Abernathy. Although she will still deal with you if don't have Abernathy Farm as a settlement, she gives a discount if you do. You will need to complete her husband's quest in order to secure that discount.

There are three main ways to make settlements work for you and all of them involve mass producing an aid item that you can then use to barter on a massive scale and purchase nearly everything in the game. Those three things you can mass produce are food, water, and drugs.

Food is the easiest, and subsequently the least profitable, of goods that you can mass produce. I like to mix it up for cooking purposes but the most efficient way to get bang for your buck is to mass produce mutfruit. They are .1 weight which allows you to carry a near infinite amount at a time and they sell for more than any other crop. Get all three settlements working 30 or more mutfruits and then fast travel in a circle harvesting them.

The second most profitable, and certainly less time consuming, is to mass produce purified waters. You can do this with the smaller water purifier but to really maximize your water production you will need the science perk level 1 so that you can build industrial water purifiers. The two obvious locations to build these are Sanctuary Hills and The Castle. I usually can get 100+ purified waters from my workbench every time I visit either of these settlements.

The third, and most lucrative way, to get caps is to mass produce jet. To do this travel to Abernathy Farm and buy the fertilizer shipment x2 from Connie. Then go to to Diamind City and buy the fertilizer from Percy and Myrna. Note that though they work the same shop, they have seperate vendor inventories so once you buy from the one, have a seat at the bar, wait for 12 hours, and buy from the other. Then head back to one of your settlements and start crafting jet one after another at a chemistry station. Not only do you get tons of jet to sell for loads of caps, but you level pretty fast this way too! Congratualtions, you're now a filthy drug dealer but at least you're swimming in caps and didn't have to glitch to get there!

Now you can barter for anything you want but since we want resources, you are looking for two things, shipments and junk. Shipments are obviously the more strategic purchase and will cost you more overall. I usually will buy all the shipments of wood, steel, and fertilizer I can, and occasionally any other resources I am running low on. Those three however are not very expensive and you can never have enough of them. When it comes to junk items however, I indiscriminately mass-purchase everything. Sure I could look at the price of each item and see if it's worth the resources I would get, but I don't have the time. The fastest way to horde a TON of junk through bartering is to have as many trader shops in your settlement as possible. Just clean out their junk tab. If you use Sanctuary Hills as homebase then Trashcan Carla is available as a junk dealer as well. Clean her out! You will have multiples of every junk item in the game in a matter if minutes!

Make your rounds, clean out the junk dealers at Diamind City, Bunker Hill, and Goodneighbor. Just make sure not to surpass your carryweight so that you cannot quickly fast travel back and unload. Also don't forget to put two points into the cap collector perk since you will be doing a ton of bartering! This way your personal scavenging suppliments the goods your settlements are able aquire for you through the mass production of food, water, and drugs.

The final note is that although you will need a lot of turrets and a large defense total to cover your food and water production, such is very easy to build since you have all the resources you could ever need.

Strategic resource shipments I hit an average of once and hour...


Percy in DC: Steel 100x4, Fertilizer 25
Myrna in DC: Steel 100, Fertilizer 25
Moe in DC: Wood 100
Connie Abernathy; Wood 50, Fertilizer 25x2

Great tips. This is basically what I've done. I mainly stick to the purified water though. It's far simpler. Just build a bunch of big generators and wire them together, then build a bunch of industrial water purifiers and wire them together, then connect the whole thing to the generator bank and you're in business.

Also, you should max out the Strong Back perk so you can fast travel while over-encumbered. It makes doing things like this much more efficient.

Make sure you're wearing a charisma boosting outfit when doing the transactions with the merchants. My charisma outfit is Reginald's Suit (+3), Fashionable Glasses (+1), and a Trilby Hat (+1). With the bigger transactions this price difference can make a huge difference. One can also pop some graqe mentats before making the transactions to get 10% better buying and selling prices. I don't generally take this last step though. I don't want my character to be addicted to chems. I've only used them twice.

Excellent additional tips!

I find it easier to use the glitch. My settlement in sanctuary is disgustingly big.

Erm I have a strange question I hope someone can answer. I have 300 purified water or the capacity to produce this amount. But it is not appearing in my workshop. Yes it's all powered I checked. Just wondering if anyone can give me a tip. Oh yeah and they don't need repairing from attacks I just checked.

Did you make sure that everything is switched on? It's in the 'on' position by default after building it. The first time I built a radio beacon it took me a while to figure out why it wasn't working. It was because I thought I had to turn it on, but it was actually already on...so I'd actually turned it off.

I think you have to leave the area for a period of time before excess food and water is stored into the workbench. Sleeping and waiting don't count.

This is true.

When did you build them? You have to actually pass time in the game, rather than just sleeping/sitting for a period of time. I think it's based on actual time spent exploring or doing quests.

It certianly is easier, I'm glad you've enjoyed using it.

Mine resets after fast traveling around to my 10 settlements. I think you kust have to leave the area for the reset timer to kick in.

Iv worked it out I messed up my wiring. Am a bloody moron lol. Thanks for the help anyways guys.

Glad your in buisiness! That wiring is a but messy sometimes.