And I've only found maybe 2 magazines for unlocking additional buildings/extras to create from your workstation, so feel free to give better advice if you have more unlocked.

If you plan on really building a nation of settlements, there are really four things that I find critical to create in each settlement:

1. General Store Emporiums - You can buy a ton of junk at these stands that have a lot of rare components (fiber optics, gears, nuclear materials, ceramic, crystals, etc.) This saves me hours of running around the wasteland trying to scavenge this stuff. If you don't have the perk unlocked for the emporium, at least build the highest level general store you can.

2. Gun Store Emporiums - Ammo, ammo, ammo. I always found myself really low on .45 and fusion cells until I started building these in several of my settlements.

3. Build as many water purifiers as possible, I earn 8000-12000 caps a trip every time I come back to check Sanctuary. (posted by Battlebloodmage)

4. Scavenger Stations - One in every settlement. Its not so much finding rare junk as it is gathering a lot of resources/materials. The more idle survivors the more resources will randomly be scavenged.

I have 20 settlements right now and all of them have at least two stores (general/medical/restaurant/armor/etc.) and one scavenger station in each settlement. Having this many stores throughout my settlements, I am raking in thousands of caps each day for doing absolutely nothing. This constant flow of income gives me plenty of cash to buy all of those rare junk items to break down for much needed components and ammo. Its a wonderful cycle that runs itself.

Obviously you need supply lines connected to each one and plenty of food/water/defense/beds to maintain a high population.

If anyone has anything else to add, as far as their ingredients to building settlements, feel free to post them.

---------------------------------------------------

Additional and very useful, in-depth tips provided by Gamefever:

Building Tips,

Use Foundations, Concrete Platform and stilted platform to create level surfaces for building

-Do not build another floor directly over these platforms if you can, causes navigation issues for NPC's

-Best to build a ring with these

-Pressing and Holding the Activate key on a foundation piece grabs all pieces connected to it and can allow clipping into buildings, the ground, and many other objects like trees.

-You can stack Concrete Foundations to create sizable walls or even concrete structures.

-If you build your foundation high enough over dirt and allow an access point, plants don't need sunlight.

Scrapping Weapons and Armor while in the Build Function gives additional build limit.

Bunkers

-One settler can man 3 bunkers and gives a score of 6 defense rather than just 2 when done this way

-Bunkers can be clipped into structure walls by using a floor rug, allowing for the bunkers to be worked into the structure in a more convincing way.

-This helps with noise because consoles cant use mods to reduce turret sound level yet.

Resource Links

-A settlement does not have to produce food and water, if a provisioner links the settlement to a settlement that produces enough for both.

->This means the chance of this location getting attacked is very low due to no food or water here.

-Provides access to resources in Workbenches and Settlement Build Menu

-Can see which settlements have links in Map Menu of Pipboy

-Can Link 6 Settlements

-Distance appears to be an issue

-Best to link all settlements to a central zone

-When making a new settlement consider sending its 1st settler to a resource depoy like Sanctuary rather than send one of Sanctuaries Settlers to provide for new settlement.

Collecting Resources

-Stuff accumulates faster if you empty the bench of that item.

-Place a container right next to your Workbench for ease of transfer

-Place Shops nearby a Workbench for ease of Selling stuff like Water or Produce.

-Diamond City shops restock every 24 hours, you can buy 100 wood from Baseball vender guy.

-Abernathy Farm sells 50 wood dailey

>there is a location near Abernanthy with decent amount of lootable objects for building

-Every 7 days world loot respawns

Vendors

-Stock refreshes 24 hour cycle

-Open from 8 Am to 8 Pm

-Bar, produces the most happiness

>Causes all non-guards to meet at Bar location 6am-8am and 8pm-11pm

>All non-assigned settlers hang around Bar's

>Bars generate a lot of Caps

>Bar has a big radial hang out space

>Settlers will sit in chairs and use animation objects in this space even workbenches like Food Stations

Beds

-Settlers must be able to navigate unobstructed to their bed in a settlement

-Best bed for this purpose is the sleeping bag

>Failure to place beds correctly causes "Sleep in Shifts Issues"

Sanctuary

-Has several Spawn Points in its borders

>Best spot to build on is over by the playground equipment next to River

-Easily can place many Water Purifiers here and a sizable farm

-You can place quite a few generators in a Prebuilt house and then run wires with Poles to where ever you need electricity, this helps reduce noise issues.

-Make your main sleeping quarters far away from the Workbench to avoid "hammering noises"

Dockside Inn

-Can place 4 or 5 large water purifiers here

-1/3 of the buildable space is over water

-Foundations placed in Water wont reach the bottom but are convincing enough for looks

-You cannot purchase stuff from a vendor that is placed over water

-most spawns happen outside of its border except raiders which spawn just to the right of the front entrance and can get stuck under platforms in the water if you place a dock off to that side.

>Stuck Raiders eventually drown haha

-Can build high enough to snipe many different spawn locations from here

Defenses

-1 settler can man 3 bunkers

-Spotlights help direct turret fire

>Spotlights are helpful at night for actually seeing things when they work, derp helps player see stuff.

-Construction Lamp is very helpful for player but doesn't contribute to defense

-Turrets

>Height increases range

>has a Field of View

>Can rotate to fire on targets out of FOV if it knows target is there, Spotlights help a lot with this.

>Elevated is best due to Close Combat spawns and Super Mutant Suicide guy

-Defense needs to equal at least the combined amount of Food and Water Produced or you can expect more quests at this location.

>Defense helps reduce probability of attacks occuring

Pipboy,

-You can check status of settlements here

-If you see that a settlement reads not enough beds even though you placed enough than your beds are not actually accessable to your settlers, the pipboy tells you actually how many beds are being used.

>Settlers wont try to use a better properly placed bed when it is placed if the offending bed they are assigned to is still present.

>Sleeping Bags are the easy to place in this regard.

-Happiness issues in Pipboy are a sign that some resource is not being used properly most likely the settlers cant get to their bed or do not generate enough food or water.

-Venders help keep happiness steady.

Settler

-Will use any item you give them

>Aid items, drugs, stimpacks, steathboys, all of it

-Can use any Weapon forever as long as they have 1 bullet for the weapon, yes they can use Fat Mans.

-Seem to be only killable by the player for now *I've notice a few settlers dead on the ground after mutant attacks, I was nowhere near them when they died, so I be careful. I had the ghoul vault seller die from an attack in sanctuary, so make sure you save often and pay attention.

-Don't shoot them ><

-Can use power armor but eventually will get out of it to use their bed unless they are a guard

-Will access any normal container that has a weapon with ammo when the settlement is attacked even bodies, this is why they have weapons and armor that you didn't give them.

-Will use Power Armor that has a fusion core in it especially if the settlement is under attack

-Are said to use Food and Water from workbench when needed, though I haven't confirmed this.

Junk Objects as Decor

-Toss your Junk, Aid item, weapon, armor, whatever on the ground

>Start Build Interface

>Now use Activate Key

>Object will orientate properly and allow placement on say a Shelf or TableTop

>Much easier than doing it the other way.

>>>Can create nice neat rows of Nuka Cola Quantums this way.

Build as many water purifier as possible, I earn 8000-12000 caps a trip everytime I come back to check Sanctuary.

The extra settlers without jobs are the ones who usually spend money at shops, I believe, from Obama handout.

How many purifiers have you stacked in sanctuary? Beats my cash crops at least because you dont need to harvest

Great advice, tomorrow I'm going straight to the castle and build a fleet of water purifiers there.

Is your sanctuary under attack every 5 minutes?

Settlements....Really awesome when you leave a settlement and the number of beds goes to zero for no apparent reason. Or your settlers unassign themselves from their jobs again for no apparent reason. Spawning on roofs just because. No matter how much defenses you have built they can't defend themselves from anything on their own. You have to fast travel back so the turret horde remembers to shoot at red guys.

My advice for settlements. Bother with it enough to keep you supplied with Adhesive and no more. It's not worth the headaches if you take it farther than that.

No, my Sanctuary has only get attacked twice over a hundreds of hours of game time, but it's because I build a lot of turrets there. The raiders are not likely to target a settlement with high defense. I usually don't have to check Sanctuary too often for being attacked since all of my companions are there. Anyone who dare to attack the place is just asking for a death wish.

I have around 8 or 10 water purifier. I forgot the exact numbers. It's easy money especially since all you do is to check the workshop and there are a bunch of purified water.

I disagree, you're practically swimming in caps if you build the right building, and the money can be used to buy shipments like adhesive and glasses from shops. It's pretty useful, but you don't need to really decorate the place if you don't want to.

Just wondering what you're doing with caps.... i'm not selling purified water and i have over 30k caps, not knowing what to do with :/ I'm still on the construction phase of the castle, and i want to fully have finish it before starting the others, so i'll have to spend some monay in their shops but well, i already have enough caps to build the 6 lv3 shops in at least 5 settlements, and by the time i'll be there, i will have even more.

Buying materials and ammo. Some of the rarer materials like Glasses and Adhesives are hard to come by. Some of the guns are pretty expensive, so it wouldn't hurt to save up some money. Building stuffs like turret, power generator, and purifier already cost a lot of money.

Thank you for the tips. Perhaps I can use it in future playthroughs. I find settlements till now just tedious and never came to more than making Sanctuary green on all needs the first time. Although I like the idea of slowly spreading more settlements I would only pay attention if they had a real meaning, f.e. you could only fast travel to developed settlements and not to every location you discovered. Makes the world so small and boringly easy.

If you pay close attention, the two machine gun turrets have Mk 1, 3, 5, and 7 options.

Mk 1 is standard

Mk 3 is HE

Mk 5 is Incendiary

Mk 7 is Explosive (more powerful than HE?)

You can see the designation before you place the turret. You can scroll through and back to change so you can always have the type you want. I personally use a lot of Mk 7 up front, and then Mk 1 inside the settlement so they don't have collateral damage if the enemy makes it inside of my walls.

As soon as you unlock sanctuary start building industrial purifiers. I started with two, now I'm up to eight. I think attacks happen FAR less in early game - how far you've progressed in the main questline is the determining factor. I have about 20 game hours in and haven't been attacked yet, and I'm playing on survival with only 10 defense. I've done some railroad quests but havent started the main questline in Diamond City yet.

I've only unlocked 2 settlements (sanctuary and Mercer) and have yet to do anything in them other than building the purifiers. Every time I finish a quest I was travel to Sanctuary and collect my 400 waters and go sell them. I already have all the purchase able gear I want and am sitting on 20k caps.

Yeah, seriously, water purifier is a big money maker. You don't have to pick up every single piece of material everytime during quests and you could just buy them at the store instead. This is very useful when you replay the game.

What? How do you "scroll through and back to change"? All I get is Mk 1s.

Edit:Nevermind. Was testing it in Sanctuary where you can apparently only get Mk 1 turrets. Thanks for the excellent tip.

Building Tips,

Use Foundations, Concrete Platform and stilted platform to create level surfaces for building

-Do not build another floor directly over these platforms if you can, causes navigation issues for NPC's

-Best to build a ring with these

-Pressing and Holding the Activate key on a foundation piece grabs all pieces connected to it and can allow clipping into buildings, the ground, and many other objects like trees.

-You can stack Concrete Foundations to create sizable walls or even concrete structures.

-If you build your foundation high enough over dirt and allow an access point, plants don't need sunlight.

Scrapping Weapons and Armor while in the Build Function gives additional build limit.

Bunkers

-One settler can man 3 bunkers and gives a score of 6 defense rather than just 2 when done this way

-Bunkers can be clipped into structure walls by using a floor rug, allowing for the bunkers to be worked into the structure in a more convincing way.

-This helps with noise because consoles cant use mods to reduce turret sound level yet.

Resource Links

-A settlement does not have to produce food and water, if a provisioner links the settlement to a settlement that produces enough for both.

->This means the chance of this location getting attacked is very low due to no food or water here.

-Provides access to resources in Workbenches and Settlement Build Menu

-Can see which settlements have links in Map Menu of Pipboy

-Can Link 6 Settlements

-Distance appears to be an issue

-Best to link all settlements to a central zone

-When making a new settlement consider sending its 1st settler to a resource depoy like Sanctuary rather than send one of Sanctuaries Settlers to provide for new settlement.

Collecting Resources

-Stuff accumulates faster if you empty the bench of that item.

-Place a container right next to your Workbench for ease of transfer

-Place Shops nearby a Workbench for ease of Selling stuff like Water or Produce.

-Diamond City shops restock every 24 hours, you can buy 100 wood from Baseball vender guy.

-Abernathy Farm sells 50 wood dailey

>there is a location near Abernanthy with decent amount of lootable objects for building

-Every 7 days world loot respawns

Vendors

-Stock refreshes 24 hour cycle

-Open from 8 Am to 8 Pm

-Bar, produces the most happiness

>Causes all non-guards to meet at Bar location 6am-8am and 8pm-11pm

>All non-assigned settlers hang around Bar's

>Bars generate a lot of Caps

>Bar has a big radial hang out space

>Settlers will sit in chairs and use animation objects in this space even workbenches like Food Stations

Beds

-Settlers must be able to navigate unobstructed to their bed in a settlement

-Best bed for this purpose is the sleeping bag

>Failure to place beds correctly causes "Sleep in Shifts Issues"

Sanctuary

-Has several Spawn Points in its borders

>Best spot to build on is over by the playground equipment next to River

-Easily can place many Water Purifiers here and a sizable farm

-You can place quite a few generators in a Prebuilt house and then run wires with Poles to where ever you need electricity, this helps reduce noise issues.

-Make your main sleeping quarters far away from the Workbench to avoid "hammering noises"

Dockside Inn

-Can place 4 or 5 large water purifiers here

-1/3 of the buildable space is over water

-Foundations placed in Water wont reach the bottom but are convincing enough for looks

-You cannot purchase stuff from a vendor that is placed over water

-most spawns happen outside of its border except raiders which spawn just to the right of the front entrance and can get stuck under platforms in the water if you place a dock off to that side.

>Stuck Raiders eventually drown haha

-Can build high enough to snipe many different spawn locations from here

Defenses

-1 settler can man 3 bunkers

-Spotlights help direct turret fire

>Spotlights are helpful at night for actually seeing things when they work, derp helps player see stuff.

-Construction Lamp is very helpful for player but doesn't contribute to defense

-Turrets

>Height increases range

>has a Field of View

>Can rotate to fire on targets out of FOV if it knows target is there, Spotlights help a lot with this.

>Elevated is best due to Close Combat spawns and Super Mutant Suicide guy

-Defense needs to equal at least the combined amount of Food and Water Produced or you can expect more quests at this location.

>Defense helps reduce probability of attacks occuring

Pipboy,

-You can check status of settlements here

-If you see that a settlement reads not enough beds even though you placed enough than your beds are not actually accessable to your settlers, the pipboy tells you actually how many beds are being used.

>Settlers wont try to use a better properly placed bed when it is placed if the offending bed they are assigned to is still present.

>Sleeping Bags are the easy to place in this regard.

-Happiness issues in Pipboy are a sign that some resource is not being used properly most likely the settlers cant get to their bed or do not generate enough food or water.

-Venders help keep happiness steady.

Settler

-Will use any item you give them

>Aid items, drugs, stimpacks, steathboys, all of it

-Can use any Weapon forever as long as they have 1 bullet for the weapon, yes they can use Fat Mans.

-Seem to be only killable by the player for now

-Don't shoot them ><

-Can use power armor but eventually will get out of it to use their bed unless they are a guard

-Will access any normal container that has a weapon with ammo when the settlement is attacked even bodies, this is why they have weapons and armor that you didn't give them.

-Will use Power Armor that has a fusion core in it especially if the settlement is under attack

-Are said to use Food and Water from workbench when needed, though I haven't confirmed this.

Junk Objects as Decor

-Toss your Junk, Aid item, weapon, armor, whatever on the ground

>Start Build Interface

>Now use Activate Key

>Object will orientate properly and allow placement on say a Shelf or TableTop

>Much easier than doing it the other way.

>>>Can create nice neat rows of Nuka Cola Quantums this way.

So much useful information, thanks people!馃槂

One thing is for certain, Bethesda cannot be accused of "handholding" when it comes to settlement building.

Several things for cap use.

1. Paying ransoms. Annoying companions, like Codsworth, are difficult for reaching max affinity because they dislike most of what I normally do. If you have enough settlements with high populations/economies you will constantly have kidnapped settlers. When engaged in dialogue choose the "pay 550 caps" options. Companions like him and curie will like this and you don't have to waste time going to back street apparel for the 6th time on a rescue mission. Just hop from settlement to settlement and run up to enough survivors until they stop you for a ransom mission.

2. You can buy a lot of legendary items at any given weapons/armor booth, but they cost thousands of caps each so you can keep stocking up legendary items to improve your companions and yourself without having to rely on running around finding and killing legendary enemies and hoping they drop something useful.

3. Buying stimpacks and ammo. This isn't such an issue on easier difficulty settings, but extremely necessary on harder difficulty settings.

One simple trick I've used on most settlements with a lot of wide open spaces is to build a single piece of bridge and then placing a turret on top. Doing this around the perimeters and anywhere you want to place a turret (where existing buildings aren't a viable option) is cheap, easy and very effective.

Managing your settlers is so much easier if you turn OFF the recruitment beacons. I have just a couple of small outlying settlements with the beacons on- they fill up with new settlers. Pop into the recruitment center, send them wherever they're needed when you start a new settlement or lose somebody at an existing one.

Just want to echo what everyone is saying about building water purifiers. I have a total of 12 of them going between The Castle and Sanctuary and I haven't actually spent a cap since I don't know when. Just using water to barter I'm able to buy more ammo than I can use, keep my medical supplies topped off and clean out the junk dealers.

On a related note I've also started using .38 ammo as currency. I haven't carried a weapon that shoots it in ages but the raiders sure haven't stopped dropping it. Since it reliably trades at 1 round for 1 cap it's a handy way to round off any sales and get every last cap out of the vendor.

this gets my "best thread of the week" award!!

awesome info!

Good tips, however this isn't correct.

If you reach the build limit on your settlement, you can drop any kind of junk, weapon/armor mods, weapons or armor on the ground from your inventory.

THEN you enter the workshop menu.

Then you use the STORE item in the workshop buttons.

You will then see the "Size" bar on the upper right hand corner to move back and you can build more stuff.

However, be careful on how much you build after reaching the size limit. The warning is out there that it could corrupt your game or slow down your performance.

I've used that "trick" on my Starlight Drive In settlement, because I needed to finish my 3rd floor, which is my crafting area. The only think I have notices, but that is also true in other settlements, that some items I place on tables or counters will simply vanish, when I leave and come back. (I'm playing on PC), so it's tough to decorate your place nicely. It doesn't matter whether I place the items while in workshop mode or outside of it.

I also agree that water is a great "currency".

Things I would like to have known, when I first started to build (on PC).

You don't have to hit the ENTER key to confirm your actions, you can just hit E (the use key). Big time saver there! LOL I don't have to take my hand off the mouse!

You can equip your settlers with weapons and armor by trading items with them. The highlight the item in their inventory and hit T (the equip key). It took me a while to figure that out.

When you set up turrets, build a the small, roof/floor prefab structure that's open on all sides and then place the turret on top of it or use an existing flat roof, if there is one. (Elevate your defenses )

Don't trust the settlement stats in your pipboy. For me they are always totally out of whack! For instance, it said that I only have 5 beds and 14 people in Sanctuary. Mind you, that was after playing the game for over 100 hours and I KNEW for a fact that I have 15 or 16 beds there. LOL

Plant Corn, Tato and Mutfruit in one settlement or connect settlements that grow these in large quantities. These items (plus purified water) are used to make adhesive (Vegetable starch). You will be glad to have a good amount of these plants around, so you don't have to fast travel between settlements. And trust me, there will come a time when you LOVE the fact you can make your own adhesives!!

I sure hope Beth will give settlements some more love and more items to decorate with that won't vanish or glitch through surfaces.

one unresolved question I've had since day one...do you get a passive, constant XP boost by having settlements with high happiness/defense/production?

Can't seem to find the answer to this question anywhere.

******I just slept for 72 hours straight on a bed in the castle and I didn't see any rise in XP, whatsoever. I have 20 settlements, all very well built up and have high populations. Probably a good thing there isn't a constant passive XP gain, otherwise leveling would just be way too easy and svck the challenge entirely out of the game.

As stated by someone else in this thread, beds only count if they are accessible. If they are in a congested area, or placed inside of a prefab or on a roof that they can't walk to (like if your stairs or floor isn't level) they are not counted. Try using sleeping bags because they are easier to get to and take up less space.

Nah, when I actually go to that settlement, every bed is occupied and in the actual settlement (workshop mode) screen it shows the happiness and the beds and settlers correctly. It's just on the Pipboy screen that it is portrait incorrectly. And no sleeping on the ground for my people! My settlers come from a rough life and I want them to at least have the luxury of sleeping in real beds for a change!