ok, so without all our glitches, us Console Players are stuck building our Settlements the Old fashion way. So I figured I'd start a thread were we can discuss tactics and share some support to make it easier for everyone else. Now, I prefer this to be a BENEFICIAL thread, meaning offer he to those in need.


Things to include:

How to build your settlement

Great places to get resources of every type

Great way to raise happiness

Best ways to defend your settlements, both with you there and without you there


Again, please be nice and courteous to other players, and no trash talk, unless it's about where to get junk. Please try to be descriptive and detailed, and remember this is to help us.

Look up norespawns on YouTube. He only plays on the console and has a ton of tricks from the rug glitch to creative uses for floor and roof pre fabs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE5EfIAD-aI

Don't DELETE/DESTROY/SALVAGE (whatever the word is) things you build. You get less materials back that you used to create it.

You can STORE them in your Workbench and reuse them later.

I don't know the command to do this on your Console Controller, its just TAB on the PC.

That is a really great tip. In the beginning I was just scrapping things if I messed up while building. I didn't really understand the whole "store item" mechanic. You can really deplete some useful resources by scrapping stuff you don't need to.

If you start to get frustrated, just take a break. Listen to music and calm down, comes from personal Experiance.

General build tips.....

1) Use the snap Part 1 - I will surround a settlement with a wall back onto itself, it makes things look nice and neat and later you can bring the wall in if you've started too ambitiously

2) Use the snap Part 2 - A combination of Foundations, 2nd Floor Floors and Walls let you go up and down hills. Its possible to partially bury walls which saves some build space as you dont always need a foundation

3) Minimal defences until at least 2 attacks - Generally attacks come from 1 or 2 spawn points, sometimes inside the wall if you have bullt big enough. Wait for a couple of attacks to work out where is best to place defence.

Focus on Building one settlement at a time. If you discover a new one, leave it till you finish the first one.

Use your settlements to grow oil and adhesives, missed this trick on my first play through and just planted mutfruit because it was easier and I had loads of it. I also didn't realise how important Brahmin were and killed them for food because they were in the way.

Brahmin can be killed in attacks also, they arn't invulnerable like settlers. I had one firebombed which was cruel but at least we had BBQ Beef to celebrate afterwards (-;

Build beds for settlers first before you make yours. Then wait until bed time, they will sleep there and it's time for you to assign them to the beds.

Once they know where they belong, build yours.

You know I never assign people to beds, I just make sure I have more beds than settlers. I also dotn share a settlement with other settlers so thats not an issue.

Does assigning beds have an effect, beyond making them sleep in the same bed of course?

Not really unless you have the "people are having to sleep in shifts" bug, but it means you don't have to wake up to Mama Murphy's hideous face in the morning.

Build radios! If you don't like the music overcoming the main noise, then a radio is perfect for your settlement.


Keep your resource areas separate. Have a farm here, but keep your shops over there. This lessens the clutter.

K cheers. I got a single comment from 1 settler about shifts but they had plenty of beds, they've been quiet since so hoping Ive dodged whatever bullet that is.

When building beds, make sure they are evenly spaced and settlers don't have to step over other settlers, is what I learned.

You can use the wireless raiderpole in combination with a wooden conductor pylon to create lamp posts (if you add a lamp) and to neatly get wires across your settlement.

(to get the wooden pylon to stick with the raiderpole you need to built a shack foundation up to the raiderpole and place the pylon on it. Then store/scrap the foundation but the pylon will stay up there.)

Ah yes, because Laws of Physics and Gravity do not apply in the Commonwealth

Wanna build 2 stories building without secondary floor?

There are two types of wall. Make sure use the taller one; you can see it usually is thicker and takes slightly more resources. Then snap an Upper Floor part to the wall and stack another before removing the Upper Floor back off. This will result a gapless tall wall, unlike a regular wall would do after you remove the floor.

Example:

- Wall on the right side of the pic: http://imgur.com/zK0o7gK

- Wall on the left side of the pic http://imgur.com/n1i9vEJ

If you have the resources the unlimited size build glitch still works, but be very careful, there is a limit to how much PS4 and XBO can handle. Seeing as I can't find nothing about how many times you can do the downsizing glitch before things start to go wrong, so I took it upon my self to build the Biggest & Best dang Sanctuary I could possibly build until...well... I couldn't build anymore. So try and keep it below doing the glitch 15 time, I lost count after 15 so that's the number I'm going with, I'm sure at this point I've done it more then 20 time and you may be able to get there and be fine but take caution when doing this. Check out this post of mine that explains it more in detail. (http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1596710-why-take-away-the-consoles-access-to-unlimited-resources/?p=25060292) But since I've had to abandon Sanctuary for now I have started building in Warwick and I have already downsized that settlement 6 times and still going. I think I have a problem with large builds. LOL.

I learned early on not to build a settlement on the ground. Between bodies lying around (on XBOX1 console, you can't sweep them away using brooms, like PC players can), and the grass poking through the floors (irritating to me) and enemies sometimes getting through defenses to walk right into buildings (that happened to me once and I lost a settler), it's just better to build up. I always start with the floor that has a ladder attached to it. That's my basic foundation at the majority of my settlements (I actually used the houses at Sanctuary, The Slog, and Taffington Boathouse, but everyone else was a build up situation for me). As many people have pointed out, Fallout's build feature is unrealistic in that structures can be suspended in the air with just the ladder in place, but this 'cheat' it makes sense, given the build limitations. For that reason, I overlook the gravitational impossibility.

In any case, after that initial ladder-floor goes in, I build a second floor off of it. The second floor is always for a dining table or two, and a living room with couches, side tables, some plants, pictures on the walls, rugs on the floors, a cigarette machine, and a radio. Lots of lights. That's the settler's main lounging area, typically, as it satisfies much of the their needs for seating & basic entertainment (they stop saying, "my feet hurt, my back hurts, everything hurts" and "work all day, nothing ever changes" when you make this a good place for them to gather).

The third floor is bedrooms and the bathroom (complete with privacy wall to screen the tub, a box of Abraxo, a metal or enamel bucket, a dishrag, a hairbrush, and a bar of soap, all stored inside a small container in the bathroom. I never put in a toilet, as it's unnecessary for their happiness, but the tub and soap ARE necessary to get them to stop complaining about having dirty fingernails). In the bedroom, I typically stack their beds end-to-end or in rows with a bit of room on all sides between each bed. I throw down at least 1 container for their clothing (storing casual, non-combat clothing in here seems to up their happiness rating as well).

On the top of the roof, I place level 2 machine guns all around. The height advantage allows the guns to find enemies further off, which alerts your settlers well in advance as well. Usually, this structure is tall enough that I put my engines on the roof and connect them to either towers or wall outlets & string the wires along the outside of the building. This is also the place for a recruitment beacon, if the settlement is large enough to allow for more bodies (like Spectacle Island and Kingsport Lighthouse).

Obviously, this is just a standard template that is modified, depending upon a specific settlement's space requirements & needs (for instance, at Kingsport Lighthouse, I have a metal wall going across the whole front of it, with a small space in between for settlers to go in and out. Gun turret towers sitting on the tall walkways are placed behind the metal walls, facing out, so they can get at any direct assaults. Gun placements are also on the top of my settlement roof, facing the other 3 directions to protect those sides. I don't use the boat house or the dock area at all, but my water tank is down there with 1 engine to run it. I do use the house, too...this is where my bathroom and level 3 bar are located, along with some sofas and the cooking stove).

As for decorations... On at least one outside wall of each of my settlements, usually facing the main way in, I put up flags (U.S. flag, Minutemen, Brotherhood, and Railroad) to let everyone know it's a safe haven for all those factions (I put up the Institute flag once, and my settlers happiness went down a few points...once I removed it, it returned to normal). Inside, I toss down onto the floor of the living room and dining area a Chessboard, a globe, a Blast Radius game, some vases with flowers in them, and maybe some coffee mugs/drinking glasses, and an ashtray or two. When you go into build mode, you can pick those items up and they will rest on surfaces. Your settlers' happiness factor IS affected by you throwing down items or putting them into storage containers on site for them. If there's enough room to build pictures onto the walls, I do. The stuffed animal heads gross me out, so they never appear anywhere at any of my settlements.

Somewhere on property, I always build these (as they increase settler happiness):

- level 3 general trader stall (necessary in general to raise settlement happiness)

- scavenger rack (brings in caps & scavenged items...your settler finds these things & just gives them to you. If you pick a good scavver to assign this task, you could be hauling in thousands of caps within days)

- level 1 medical stall (necessary to get the settlers to stop complaining about having blisters)

- level 3 bar stall (necessary to get the settlers to stop complaining about being hungry/thirsty if you don't have enough food/water put down for them or can't put those things down due to there being no place for them on the settlement's grounds...also, raises their happy factor immensely)

- a trader stall for caravans (once this option opens up later in the game - allows Doc Weathers, Cricket, Lucas, Kat, Stash, and Trashcan Carla to come to your specific settlement, which ups settler happiness, too)

Optional: other stalls. The higher the level, the happier settlers are. The problem is manpower. Some of the smaller settlements don't have enough people to farm, man stalls, and go out as supply caravan routes. You have to balance those needs vs. the happiness factor.

Some settlements are large enough to allow a build of the following, too:

- a dance floor with rotating mirror ball and flashing lights and jukebox

- a pool table (collect all 15 balls + the cue ball, at least 2 pool sticks, and a rack and throw them down on the table, arranging them using the build function)

- a magazine rack (where you can store all those Grognak, Mass. Surgical, Junktown Jerky Vendor, Survival Guide, Hod Rodder, etc. rather than sell them -- this goes a huge way towards making settlers happy, too)

- a bobblehead stand (I put this in Sanctuary, since this is the settlement I most go to, personally)

- Nuka cola machines (store Nuka colas in here and the settlers will swipe them, but it'll make them happy, too)

- Ice machines (if you throw in meat and purified water, settlers stop b!tching about being hungry & thirsty all the time, I noticed...this is a good fix for settlements where putting down water resources is difficult, like Boston Airport or Hangman's Alley)

- a basketball court (you can set up the net, then place basketballs on the ground near it)

- a baseball diamond (works best at Abernathy Farm or Egret Tours Marina - put down 3 bases, a home plate, and in a nearby storage cabinet, some balls, gloves, bats, and if you're really cool, baseball outfits & hats, too)

- a kickball diamond (same as baseball diamond, only put down kickballs)

- a mini bowling alley (you can actually build this using the mini wall spacers, and setting up the pins in a triangle shape at the end. put down a few bowling balls nearby and voila! I would recommend setting it up outside on a lawn space or paved area and leaving the back end open so the bowling ball can go through & not bounce back and knock down pins)

- an outside party/gathering area (I did this at Starlight Inn, because of the limited build opportunity...set it up underneath the settlement to protect it from the weather. Put down some rugs, some couches, some plants, some tables with benches/picnic tables, a jukebox, and the level 3 bar stall and cooking stove. Put lights everywhere, including a mirror ball. Settlers love gathering here at dark).

Oh, and don't be discouraged by how small the build area is for Coastal Cottage, Oberland Station, Outpost Zimonja, or Hangman's Alley. The build up function works fabulously for these spaces. Coastal Cottage can also have that little hill to the left of the barn used for a trader area (just build metal walls around it and a roof over it and put some turrets on top and you've got a little nook for a gathering space & trader stalls). Hangman's Alley actually lends itself to walkways (using the smaller quarter-sized floors and ladders...they just hang in the air & you can put turrets on these easily). Oberland & Zimonja lets up build up to 4 floors tall, if you plan it out right.

When considering defence for your settlements, don't concentrate too much on a heavy perimeter. Currently enemies often spawn inside settlement perimeters - rendering any weapons pointing outwards useless.


Site some turrets so they point inwards and use plenty of mines.

I think settlers always [censored] about those things. I have high level bars and surgery clinics in all of my settlements and they still complain about blisters and how their back hurts, their feet hurt, everything hurts. However, if you ask the bartender or shop keeper, "how's everything going", they'll say that everything is fine.

Someone mentioned not to start multiple settlement builds at once. I agree but I usually pick 2-3 settlements close together and build a small network. (usually a food farm, junk farm, etc) When building I only build as needed, if I only have 5 people i only create stuff for those 5 people. Continue to expand as needed that way I can pre plan what I want to do next instead of getting exhausted building a whole set up in one sitting.