Me too. I need a consistent place to drop off legendary weapons, store new power armor frames and build weapons and armor. I also enjoy giving all the settlers items I found in the wastes. They probably think I'm such an interesting person and have all these crazy adventures while they just sit around and farm all day.

roleplaying lol that is such a great answer.

Short version so you can become the Mr House of the west coast, with on demand artillery and infantry Suport

I see it as a very early (very beginning of the game) practically free house. All you need to do is scrap most of the area of its resources and pretty much free house where you can store your stuff right at the beginning of the game. why pay for housing unless its cool housing?

My red rocket gas station mansion is almost now 6 floors and its all mine. my people I keep at Sanctuary, which I can watch them from the roof top balcony of my mansion with a sniper scope. I even have my robot butler and dog there, its great that you can dismiss your companions to a specific location now.

How do you collect said caps? I have merchents set up at a couple settlements and haven't seen any caps from them insofar as I am aware. Are their caps stored somewhere? Oh... do they have the caps on them and I just need to trade them to me?

@Dave select transfer at the work station and they will be in the station inventory.

Where to start?

Steady supply of caps. Easy access to shops and medical treatment if you need. Steady flow of purified water.

XP for building - I've gone up levels just by doing this alone, coupled with idiot savant you can get some great xp this way.

Easy access to crops and crafting materials. Somewhere to upgrade your power armour, weapons etc that doesn't look half bad.

That is all without actually enjoying setting them up, building and collecting materials. I've sunk a lot of time it to which surprised me because it isn't usually my thing at all. Sharing pictures and videos of various structures with friends is actually a part of the game I really enjoy. There are a lot of practical benefits though, nothing essential but practical.

If they can expand on it and improve it a bit ready for the next elder scrolls, that will be epic.

6 floors? I'm sold.

Yes, I'm up to 6 floors now and am almost at the size limit for that area. I'm hoping to at least get all the floors furnished and powered before hitting the size limit. My first floor is fully furnished with a terminal, storage and safes, a pool table as a dinner table, a couple of nuka cola machines (note you have to use the grab function to put stuff in unless you make the ICE chest), seating, and two turrets watching the door. My second, third, fourth, and fifth floors are unfurnished, and I consider the actual gas station below technically as a basemant since I'm building on top, so a total of 6 floors. On my fourth floor, there are balconies on all corners for defense, and a walk way around the rocket ship on top of the gas station for outdoor patio furniture.

Later, I'm hoping to build a mini-Tenpenny tower at the drive-in theater if I find enough materials.

Since there are 30 total settlement areas, I am finding I am scrapping everything at those locations and taking them for use at my main locations. I may build a small pre-fab shack with some storage in them later on.

Just a few quick tips

-attackers will spawn anywhere inside your settlement, build defenses all around

-containers made are best kept to areas where settlers cannot normally reach

-take fusion cores out of unused power armor so they cannot be stolen.

-fence in generators and water purifiers so they cannot be damaged as easily

-build to your style, not what you think your settlers need

-if you want supply lines and stores, take the Local Leader perk.

Just another added feature for the user to take advantage of if done properly. You don't need to do it in the game and can completely ignore it.

I've helped out Sanctuary a little bit by providing some basic water, food, beds, and defense. I also provide power, but only to my house . Other than that, I use Red Rocket mainly for myself and have customized the inside a little bit to make living more comfortable.

I plan on making a huge settlement later on.

Like myself, do it at your own pace if you're interested. Not a requirement that you build anything.

Dude, spoiler tags please.

I would prefer to build only one settlement - the first one, your original home. But without having this limit of parts that can be build.

I have fo4 on both consoles. Building settlements with a un-finished program for it is frustrating. On the both consoles, I can not link workshops, no information on how to do that in-game, nor can supply routes be linked. Almost L20 and I can see this game is totally un-finished top to bottom. Sanctuary with only 8ppl keeps telling me, when I open the workshop, You can not build anymore????? REALLY??....frick-inLAME?

Killing raiders for settlements is like from simply boring to....to many ppl to kill that do not die. A missile shot at a glass window should kill the raider on the inside?....NO....A mini-nuke only kills one raider as the one standing next to the dead one is still alive?

Ghouls you kill inside buildings sometimes spin-around and end up floating in the air outside the building unable to loot them. Opened one door in a factory and if I had step-into that room would of ended up outside or inside the room without any way to get back into game...

Aaaaah....just like in ESO.....I am guessing Beth did not improve the same engine they used on Skyrim....Ooooh did I forget to mention how logging into game on ESO you drop out of the sky and die....it is so common place some brag about the amount of gold they have spent repairing from the drop-dead bug?

So much money made and so little spent on actually improving the games engine?...shame on you again, Beth.

I will admit FO4 is more rewarding than playing ESO......Imagen fishing for over 200 fish you can skin..and getting only one Perfect Roe....why fish anymore?

Never encountered that drop bug myself, and Bethesda did not make ESO.

Uh, it's fun?

That's why you do anything in a Bethesda game. Because you want to.

You feel obligated in a Bethesda game? Huh?

I'm still waffling over what the game considers your property v. general community property when it comes to containers. Because safe storage is designated as your container. But what determines that? For example, building a safe from the workshop instead of using an existing one in the worldspace? What about location like you said? What if you used the existing safe in that underground basemant at Sanctuary? Or built a safe or safe trap door from scratch, but located it in a public place? Like right next to the Sanctuary workshop that has the PA rack at the yellow house across from your old home? Do NPCs consider that public storage unlike say the underground basemant safe?

None of my settlements have been attacked yet. I'm assuming it's because of the high defense to food+water ratio, because my PC's luck is still at level 1. lol. But for those ppl who've been attacked/raided, do the hostile NPCs physically attempt to access out of way locations like the basemant cellar in Sanctuary? I've stored quite a few things there as a test and have yet to lose anything to container re-spawn. But giving in to my PC's paranoia, I made sure to store the most valuable items in several floor safes I built at the RR. Technically, this area should be 100% raid free since it lacks the basic amenities. Even a bed for my PC. Only he and Dogmeat live there while the settler NPCs live across the river in sanctuary.

Still it would be good to know just how far NPCs will go to raid or explore a container regardless of where it's located.