I haven't much bothered yet using the clunky building system.

Should I? Is there a point or advantages to having a nicely built settlement?

Building up a few settlements with high level shops provides a nice Cap income. In one video I saw the player was earning 1,500 caps every 10 minutes from around 5/6 settlements.

It is nice to be able to come home after a long day plundering and relax in your own personal kingdom. But as for practical purposes? If you don't find it enjoyable, there's little reason to expand beyond Sanctuary.

I think that the best consequence of setlements, regarding pratical purposes, is having lots of purified water. I have 5 setlements and get around 20 PW every now and them, more than enough to never use another kind of Aid. Right now I have 56 PW and 38 Stimpacks (I only have to use them to cure limbs) and Im only level 10.

Roleplaying. It's something that some of us like to do.

Pretty much, I have found it REALLY helpful now that I don't have to depend on what the game gives me, now I can create a settlement that fits my character. It also adds several roleplaying opportunities as well.

Basically I have spend my time in FO4 with settlements!

Different endings

Artillery, minuteman signalling for help, more cash, more shops to sell to.

Ive read unassigned settlers automatically "scavenge" for junk items.

More settlements = more settlers = more junk items = more stuff to craft with,

Settlements also provide crops, which can be used to make vegetable starch at cooking station (under UTILITY), ameliorating the scarcity of adhesives. Requires a supply network to be really effective unless you enjoy painful micromanagement.

The advantage, for people with a bit of a creative side, is that it's really fun to see your settlement grow up into a really cool looking post-apoc village, entirely shaped by you.

There are a lot of advantages: steady income of caps (provided you have high level shops), food and water source, source of scrap (if you have scavenging stations built), and you can also build

to help you with world encounters.

You can also sell crappy items to your shopkeepers and buy cool weapons, armor and clothing to gear up your settlers. I currently dress my settlers in minuteman outfits which is pretty cool

Cool. Didn't know it could make me money.

That's like saying what's the point in playing the side quests?

It is just fun to be creative and build stuff I guess.
But you can earn good caps from stores, and TONS of purified water from water plants.

You can also turn that water into adhesive via the cooking station and some crops.

Not really.

After linking 25 settlements, each now with over 10 members.... I was wondering the same thing. All they give me are chores. I have to constantly waste all my resources building them new stuff and what do I get back? Some purified water and corn in my inbox...... thanks a heap.

It's there to supplement good writing a to make money easily.

If you're not into the roleplaying elements or just the fun of building stuff it's still pretty useful for building extra shops to sell to, bringing in some extra caps and junk items (for crafting) and some story related added bonuses if you go through the minutemen quests and build up their settlements. The biggest downside is that the Charisma 6 perks are necessary to get most out of it. I honestly feel like it isn't worth building up much of anything beyond sanctuary without those perks, since finding caps and crafting materials isn't exactly difficult to do on your own and the micromanagement needed to really keep up with lots of settlements without supply lines is a bit tedious.

Well, it's a single player game, so you can mess with this aspect or ignore it as fits you personal playstyle.

I was mostly half-assing the settlement building, but now I am finding messing with them the hour before I log off, rather than getting wired doing an objective before going to bed is kind of soothing, so I am kind of liking this new aspect of the game.

Muahahaha.

As said above, adhesive farming is very useful. Oil is now the big resource i look out for. Aside from that, leveling? Popping down a turret nets about the same XP as popping a raider's head. going through and mass producing stuff can get you a few levels real easy.

Also, the raids against your settlements can be hilarious. had some mutant appear in the middle of Sanctuary and get lit up by ~10 heavy machine gun turrets.

Side note, is it just me or are turrets best placed on the edges of settlements pointing in? I am starting to feel more like a Warden then a community leader. especially as i assign them menial jobs to do for no pay...

I have 3 PC's I switch between when I get tired of playing one and I RP with each of them.

My first PC Cody, has accepted his wife and kid are gone. He will not do the main quest. He has joined the Minute Men and is devoted to rebuilding the area through settlements.

My 2nd PC Derrick, is a stealth character who goes at it alone and he is hell bent on finding his son. He built up the Red Rocket as his operating base and that will be the only place he builds up.

My 3rd PC Jack, is an ex Navy SEAL who has joined the BoS and the only place he uses is Sanctuary.

IMO settlements are not worth the time if you are not going to invest in the Local Leader perks to gain access to supply lines and high level stores.

you can also "cook" oil and adhesive to use for crafting and build crafitng stations for further scrap material - so in a nutshell:

- oil, adhesive and other scrap material for mods

- money and items buying/selling from stores

- purified water and other food/aid

I was gonna post this. Haha. I've got 6 large water purifiers and a couple of pumps in sanctuary putting my water supply around 249 or so and I get 150 or so purified waters every day or two in game. They sell for 10 each with 10 CHR boosted with clothing so caps and ammo are no issue.. I buy ammo and misc materials at vendors.

Other then that the settlement thing is too broken for me to spend lots of time on it... I'll wait for modders to bring along better building materals and a way to track which settlers are doing what so I don't have to guess.

lol well there's your problem