My gripe with the minutemen faction is, that in order to choose their ending, I have to build stuff. I'm really not that all into this building hype, so I will postpone that ending until a mod changes it to something more edible for me

As far as being forced, it is only if you want to do the minutemen quest-line / ending. You can at anytime (like I did) pretty much just ignore them, and also ignore "settlement is under attack" messages. On both my playthroughs, including a ongoing now, I just did the quest in Concord, sent them on their merry way to Sanctuary, to be forgotten.

On my current play-through, I avoided the whole mess like this:

1. Went to Sanctuary, spoke with Codsworth, looted the town.

2. Walked to Red Rocket. Met the dog, and banished him to Sanctuary.

3. Built Red Rocket into my personal fortress of solitude.

4. Gained roughly 4 or 5 levels just building.

5. Built up Sanctuary a bit, in anticipation of sending the Concord knuckleheads there. Beds, power, etc.

6. Went to Concord, spoke with Preston, grabbed the power armor, and vanquished the big ugly.

7. Spoke with Preston, and Momma Murphy, and waited until everyone agreed to go to Sanctuary.

8. Agreed to nothing. Didn't volunteer to join the Minutemen, or become the general. I backed away.

9. Waited until I received the "Meet / Speak to Preston in Sanctuary" quest. (this is the quest you must not complete).

10. Never spoke to him again. This is the critical thing.

11. Planted Mutt Fruit, Tatos, and corn in sanctuary, for my personal use *Vegetable Starch / Adhesive). The citizens tend those crops without me assigning them. It keeps Marcy busy.

12. Dropped a water purifier in the river at Sanctuary. Water accumulated in the workbench, and it's a lovely cash crop.

12. Ensured that the defensive value of the town exceeded the food + water production.

13. Avoided talking to Preston and everyone else there.

14. Went and encountered Trashcan Carla, so that she'd start making her rounds. Now I see her at

Sanctuary, and often on the streets between Red Rocket and Sanctuary.

That's it.

Other information you might find useful:

1. Each settlement you encounter will have a quest that unlocks it for you.

2. If you don't complete that quest, then you won't be responsible for the location.

3. If you complete the quest by accident, (some locations have stealth quests),

then don't turn it in.

4. If you do turn it in, and the settlement comes under your care, then remember that these settlers

are invincible. Ignore them.

5. Don't use the workstations in the settlements you discover. You can wait until you arrive home. I could

be incorrect, but I believe that using a workstation could unlock the settlement in some cases.

Alternately, do all the above, but then pick one settlement as your own, (not Sanctuary), and make it your base.

Enjoy.

Preston and Minutemen are not forced. No quest is forced. It's silly to want to say "no" to a quest or not have it in a log, especially when quests are not the point of a BGS game, anyway. You want to say "no"? Easy - ignore the quest and you have just said "no".

You can go to Concord just fine so that you can recruit Codsworth. Just don't go near the Museum of Freedom so Preston cannot call to you for help. You can loot everything else and return to recruit Codsworth. I did this on my first play.

Also, you do not need to get into the Power Armor for the quest to continue once you meet Preston. My first play, I ignored the Power Armor (PA is useless to me as it is pure ugliness) and went back downstairs. Raiders still spawn outside, Deathclaw spawns after them, etc. Same sequence regardless of whether you use the Power Armor or not. Frankly, I find it much easier without Power Armor (on Survival, mind you). I like to actually be able to MOVE my character. I always hated "clank, clank, I'm a tank" approaches.

I seldom do any quests in BGS games because they are not the point of the game. I role play.

Now, if we want to call Todd and Pete "liars" due to false marketing claims, we can do so because of the horrible character visual aesthetics both for physical character design and for costume design. So much for "be who you want and do what you want" but this has always been the failing of BGS games so it's nothing new. Modders have always had to fix these issues.

Thank you all for responses. Kudos to falloutfan for the step by step..

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Yeah, my next playthrough will involve a large detour around Concord...

Or you can use the Stealth Boy the developers put in the Goodsprings Schoolhouse for you and sneak past the Cazadors on the path the developers put to the left of the road north, and easily bypass the "certain death" to go north early on. The developers even put treasure caches on that path, so it was an intended way north for clever and inventive players to find. You can also head east a ways and then head north and hug the mountains, again using the Stealth Boy if need be to help get past deathclaws at a certain point. I believe you can usually find a second Stealth Boy in Goodsprings as well. They put a lot of story and companions to the south, so it was the "default route" -- just like in F4 the "default route" gets you to settlements, the MQ storyline, and three companions quickly (Dogmeat, Codsworth, and Preston), but in both games the developers provide clever and/or experienced players other ways around the "default route" so they can go at the pace and direction they want.

As for F4, glad OP figured it out that they won't be forced to join MM. I do wish Beth would let us "fail" quests -- remove them from our journal/mark them as complete when we refuse them. I think what does get annoying is if you decide to ignore a quest, it still usually clutters up your quest journal forever, which is irritating. But you can still ignore them at least.

I like Preston but maybe it's because I'm doing a minuteman play through.

We'll see what happens when I play my other usual characters, the scientist and the BOS knight.

I just went straight to diamond city without talking to Codsworth.

I think most people like Preston at first, but then every conversation he has with you is sending you on another milk-and-eggs run. He's like that friend who asks you for money every time you see them. It gets old fast.

The mistake Bethesda made, I believe, is that Preston is the only assigner of quests in the Minuteman faction. Unlike the other factions that have 5-6 or more NPCs that dispense quests. So unlike other companions that just chat with you, Preston is constantly going, "Hey, General! Do this." "Do that." "Need another favor, General!"

Oh, and there is the fact he often sits out the errands himself, or that HE is the last survivor and most qualified Minuteman, but makes you leader, seemingly to duck responsibility.

Why all the Preston hate?

Actually, he ISN'T the only assigner of quests in the Minuteman faction. Settlers can also directly ask you for help, and if you--god forbid--turn on Radio Freedom, you will also get settlement quests that way. I turned on Radio Freedom to get some artillery help with a Deathclaw matriarch I had suddenly rather unexpectedly found myself facing, and while the artillery fire certainly helped, I left the radio on a BIT too long and suddenly I was being asked to report to Nordagen for a ghoul problem (which turned out to be ghouls nowhere near them and in fact next to a different settlement entirely). That's the problem with the Minutemen quests, there are TOO MANY ways to get them and if you aren't careful you suddenly find half your quest journal filled with "go kill the raiders at X."

Easiest fix would be to take out Preston's ability to give quests entirely, and leave it to the settlers themselves and Radio Freedom (as annoying as it can be, it at least suits that purpose much better). I expect he would be a LOT more likeable.

Alternately, once you establish a certain number of settlements, I think you should be able to order Preston to go take care of things for you, along with a team of Minutemen. It can randomly generate success or failure using influenced by an algorithm taking into account settlement defense, number of settlers, etc.

You can of course take Preston WITH you on the quests in which case he is more than happy to help ... but I tried that once, and after deciding a cold bowl of unseasoned oatmeal had more personality, went back to Piper.

THIS.

"Hey, Preston? We have 10 heavily armed guards and 25 turrets at this settlement. It doesn't need your personal presence. That call for help against a pack of ghouls? Yeah ... YOU go do that. That's an order. I AM the General after all!"

Had been simple to add had not the dialogues been hard-coded note that you never get any of the radiant quests in dialogues just as none refuseable orders.

Then you talk to the settlers its the same dialogue depending on enemy type.

While it is very annoying that these quests pop up so often it is at least an unending source of quest/kill xp if you complete the story and still want to heavily level a character up.

The fact that a settlement with 100+ defense will simply die if you don't come help is pretty annoying though. I have 115 defense (could be MUCH higher if I took the time) at my castle + like 6 extra companions to help defend, but it auto fails if I don't come help. And by help I mean watch my turrets instantly gun down attackers lol.

I would prefer to have Preston come up and say something like "General, when you've got a moment, there's a settlement I have to talk to you about" and that's it. No more pestering until you talk to him and agree to whatever crisis needs fixing this time.

I found it amusing to wander around wearing an armored bathrobe. All I needed was some bunny slippers and a mug of coffee in my hand to complete the picture.

So next time, just leave 'em at the museum? I discovered that I could easily sneak past them after getting the power armor and never have anything to do with them. That way, they're never at Sanctuary at all. On one of my earlier playthroughs when he started to get on my nerves, I took him as a companion and told him to wait somewhere down by the Glowing Sea and just never went back for him. I don't think I saw him for the rest of the game, although I'm sure he headed somewhere eventually. If you don't want the castle, then don't worry about him. Once you do get the castle, you can easily ignore him as well. Frankly, the castle ain't as great as everybody makes it out to be.

or simply go to the Cambridge police station, and forgo much of the stuff about your son.


This game has a lot more option to it than people give credit.

My biggest problem with the settlements is there inability to defend themselves despite having a defence of over 200+ with every settlers armoured and carrying high end weaponry (lasers, plasma, miniguns etc) and I still have to personally travel to every settlement to defend it, or travel there after I get a 'failed to defend' notification without ever getting an attack notification to repair every damn turret, power, food and water resource. Although on the last occasion when I arrived, the 'invisible monster' destroyed all the crops in front of me again, everything needing repairing and I got to work on fixing the crops everything else self repaired which I thought was a myth when someone else mentioned it.

Oddly, this doesn't seem to be a problem for me. I've had exactly 2 "Defend the Settlement" notifications with 9 settlements at this point, yet, when I come home to many of them, I find dead supers, critters and raiders all the time. I'd say they're doing a pretty good job all on their own.

It's not too difficult to pass the supermutants if you do it sneaky. Go left of Neils hut, sneak and avoid the street as long as you can, then climb the pass with all those bear traps ( be carefull of the rock ) , sneak until you reach the RNK outpost, and that's it almost. The rest of the way towards New Vegas isn't difficult anymore. This way I reached New Vegas with a Level 2 Char quite often

That is odd, it doesn't seem to matter how strong my defences are if I get a 'failed to defend' I'll arrive to find absolutely no damage for a few seconds then all of the power and defences go down and the 'invisible monster' stomps around individually destroying every plant in front of me. I've never had a successful defence unless I'm there, even if usually when I arrive five second later all the attackers are dead. My settlements are massively over defended which makes it annoying that it doesn't really matter, I could have used the resources elsewhere since the more massive defences in the world don't seem to make a difference in how well the settlement survives attacks.

Actually the weirdest 'defend the settlement' was a recent one that had Raiders and Molerats attacking a settlement......oh and the Brahmin jumping over a picket fence and charging into attack the molerats, I just sat down and watched the fight.

Artillery is pretty useless anyway, I only build 'em cuz they look cool and boost happiness a bit.

The minutemen quest for the artillery has you use the radio but it isn't needed after that.