So I'm not sure why I should build up any settlements. Does it really have advantages or is it just sort of a side activity? I can see the advantates of food and water but I must be missing why I should build up a settlement. What am I missing/

Not every feature is for every person. If it doesn't do anything for you, leave it be.

As for "who cares".... I'd guess the people who downloaded mods like Real Time Settler are fans.

Once you build up and get some shops going you get caps from there activities. Plus the food and water build up for you to be able to sell.

To me...That's not Fallout I guess, more Fallsim which is why I didn't by the game. In the end to each there own I guess.

What are people doing with the food they collect in the wild like sugar bombs etc. Sell it? Who's buyin?

Quite a few consider it fun all in itself. But there is a point besides that. Water purifiers are a goldmine, they literally pump up a ton of caps in the form of cans of purified water. Scavenging stations supply you with a random amount of crafting materials each day. It adds up. Shops brings in a healthy supply of caps, scaling by number of residents.

You may not need the extra caps and materials, but it's there if you want it.

You do know it's basically a side activity? Sure, it's tied to the Minuteman sidequest-line, but there's nothing about the game that requires you to deal with that. You can play the game just like FO3 & NV, if that's what you want.

Once you get artillery, those settlements really pay off.

Bethesda says you can ignore settlements, which is true... but only if you also want to ignore the entire Minutemen questline. For a quest completionist like, I can't ignore settlements

Hence me saying 'To each there own", And I ignore it lol. Except on my 1st PT with Minutemen of course. But just MO, they didn't do a good job on it IMO. Just looks tacked on, should've been a DLC or content patch. But they were committed to release so it's all good.

It's a voluntary side activity. Some people like to build settlements (hence Minecraft and all the survival games), and there actually are people who enjoy the busywork that comes with making the settlements in F4 function.

Who cares? People with empathy.

Personally I dig the very Fallout thematic rebuilding after the end thing.

You can build your own Junktown which is totally sweet in my opinion.

I happen to care immensely it's one of my favorite features.

I *love* the settlements and am hoping for a "Hearthfire" type DLC later to improve on them. The settlements are just one more thing that enhances and makes changes to the game world. I feel that my character is really making a more permanent life and a home in the Commonwealth rather than just being some random adventurer dropped into the world for the sake of the story.

But yes, outside of a few minuteman quests, they are entirely optional, but what is so great is that they *are* an option!

I care... I've made a character so far that's done nothing but unite the various settlements with the Minutemen. I eventually want to connect every settlement with a supply line, build Artillery in each one, and fill Sanctuary with nothing but unique named NPCs as settlers, like Sheffield.

Well, I don't care for it, and have only build a few things related to a faction quest that wasn't the minutemen questline. A few turrets at the red rocket, where I have base, and that's it. I may later experiment with it, when mods or Bethesda iron out some of the flaws in it.

Ah. I was assuming that "which is why I didn't buy the game" meant you weren't playing it, solely because of settlements.

Oh hell no the games great...Screw the haters....

I mean you don't have to build settlements. To simply put, your missing out on a lot of nostalgic experiences if you don't. For example, standing back, watching your turrets, your settler's and your companions defend a stronghold against twin death claws. Quite the experience, and I probably wouldn't have seen it happen if I hadn't spent a few hour's to make a settlement.

About 50% of my play time so far has been building settlements. I enjoy making them self-sufficient and well guarded. Any purpose? No. But there's really no "purpose" to playing video games in the first place. Or watching movies. Or doing anything fictional.

You gain XP for anything you craft bro.

Im like you; when i heard of fallout 4 back at announcement, i assumed id be a l o t more interested in settlements than i actually am if i go about adventuring and killing..
To test, i made sanctuary functionable and safe - not overly decorated, just enough to pull in what SHOULD be considered as a decent gradual payout in terms of caps, food to make starch, purified water to sell, junk from scavs..

Ive found that they CAN work - but not in the way youd hope.. Like, 2 kinda settlements
- food/purified water farms to sell for caps (water purifiers only need 1 person for 5 maxed purifiers or so, they basically just put into workshop what the purifier makes)
- shop-stop where EVERY other settler that isnt farming or being a merchant does nothing (you gain more caps per unassigned settlers) as a medium for that; 9 people unassigned with 7 people farming, guarding and scav jobs and 4 traders in emporiums (one of them was a special merchant; vault tec rep) will net you about 200 caps, 20 purified water per REALTIME hour..

Plus, if you join the minutemen over anyone else.. Theyre basically a group wholly dependant on getting settlement allies, building them up..

OP, to answer your question, you are missing role playing a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world trying to rebuild itself. Yep, the entire point of the game.

Hope that helps.

I personally don't find much amusemant in settlements, however my brother loves them.

He's more creative than me, he likes building something and simply watching the result.

There's definitely in game advantages to building settlements but they aren't required. They're there for you if you enjoy that type of thing.

He's level 25 with a couple established settlements, I'm level 20 with absolutely no participation in building settlements, but we're at the same part of the game and both loving it.

In Morrowind I could build a settlement. It felt like it mattered.

Settlements are here, but they don't feel like they matter that much. They're just... places with random faces and no story centered around them, safe for "fend off attackers". There's potential to be had here, but it's not been made the most of. Now if we could build a city around the factions or something like that... I'm talking more then a "pit stop". I mean things like "Move the Brothhood to this place I built" and having more then just a mortor. I'm talking about things like assigning them houses for personal use, random quests generated depending on the surrounding environment (Give me light in my house?). Basically everything that was in Morrowind Bloodmoon where you make a settlement, only more randomized depending on location/environment. *Builds settlement around cave. Gets told to clear deathclaws and gather eggs*. Things like that.