So I like to use TCL noclip to get UNDER the floor boards/foundations to 'weed eat" with that Spring Cleaning Mod. I went out past the build line between Red Rocket and the road going to Sanctuary and for fun I just went straight down. It leads to an OCEAN of water!

WTF?

you sure it isn't gasoline?

Some cells that require a lot of water start out completely water-filled, then the landmass is built on top of that and raised and lowered as needed to avoid placing a bunch of separate water pools individually

It's the tears from all the players crying when Preston gives them new missions.

Actually, isn't the sea level just an ocean layer that covers the whole map, with land above it? You'd have to go pretty deep to reach it from Red Rocket, though, that's one of the higher elevations I think.

Depends on cell layout I think. Still could be laziness of placing one giant water element and doing the same as would normally be done with the sea

Well that might explain something that I caught a caravan guard doing just outside Red rocket.

He was doing the briast stroke.

https://youtu.be/gQHLuBXCUvs

I don't think it's laziness. I think it's just how the engine or game world is set up. That water layer has been there since Morrowind. However, in Morrowind, it was just a single layer everywhere. If you wanted water, you had to bring the land down to it. That meant all bodies of water were at sea level. For Oblivion they added the ability to adjust the sea level on a cell by cell basis. That allowed for bodies of water at different elevations. By Skyrim they added flow to the water that could be changed in each cell. Now suddenly the rivers weren't just stagnant ditches full of water. It was still an entire cell at a time, though. That's why you get spots in the rivers where the direction of the flow seems off. That's also why there are so many waterfalls. To change the elevation of a river, they had to have a series of cells with descending water levels. The disconnect between cells was then disguised by animated waterfalls.


So far I haven't really seen anything in Fallout 4 to suggest any major changes since Skyrim. I could be wrong, though.