I don't know... I left Preston at the Museum, this go-round - went far enough to get the T-45, but never want back to Preston to finish the quest. Didn't bring him to Sanctuary, at all. Instead, I decided to live alone at RR, develop Abernathy farms, and connect Sanctuary, RR, and Abernathy via Provisioners. Now Abernathy is a nicely functioning settlement, Sanctuary is empty (edit: Codsworth is still there) but harvested for resources, and I live at RR with Dogmeat and am really loving life. No MM quests pestering me. Won't get to use bombardment, but never really used it that much on my last character anyway. Loving it so far, still haven't met or joined either BoS, Institute, or RR..... may get them all three going for the basic quests, and not pursue the MQ for a very long time...

I forewent this on my second playthrough for 2 reasons.


1) Not being able to connect a supply line to it made it borderline useless. I don't want to tote hundreds of pounds of junk there just to be able to outfit it.


2)Residents of Diamond City are by and large arrogant jerks. I got so much "I don't know you, scavver." and "Do I look like I want to talk?" just from *walking by* and not even trying to talk to them that I just went "forget this place" and decided to build a massive trading hub just north of them that will probably eventually dry up their commerce.


I wish there was a house in Goodneighbor because I might actually bother to stay there some even with no supply lines.

I wonder if you couldn't give it a go living in the hotel. Would be a little weird, but could be an option...

Well the hotel is kind of creepy. It's too bad you can't shack up with any LIs that actually have their own place like you could in Skyrim. Otherwise, I'd probably do a Hancock playthrough at some point and just hang out with him.

Just to be clear, I settled Sanctuary after Concord, did the "Settlement Tutorial" tasks for Sturges, but REJECTED Preston's offer to join the Minutemen. No Minutemen quests to worry about. I built the beacon, and the camp is now 16 members (I have no Charisma in my build), and it's working really nicely. As I went with a focused mid-range marksman build using a semi-auto, haven't been hurting for supplies (I tend to stockpile ammo and then sell it off and buy anything I need).

So, rather than running around trying to keep 10 settlements safe (largely unsuccessfully) like the first time, I sort of turtled in Sanctuary. Good range of crops, Preston and Codsworth make decent guards, all my crafting needs are met, safe place for the power armor, and 0% Radiant quests. (I'm presently level 23 or 24.)

You shouldn't need to tote hundreds of pounds of anything. One trip in power armor should allow you to carry enough wood/steel/cloth to completely furnish it and craft the other stations (provided you have the perks). Then, you're downtown, Get back in the armor and scavenge around the Boston ruins for anything you need. The hardware area alone has tons of junk.

P.S. -- You can wear a power armor frame with no armor pieces. Allows max carrying capacity without having to repair expensive gear or anything later on.

It still stinks as a home base because I have to tote all the junk I need for weapon upgrades, not to mention I have to carry all the crap I need outside with me in order to upgrade or repair my power armor.


And then if I want my settlements to have access to any leftovers, I have to tote all that junk back.


Maybe I just stink at resource allocation, but I consistently keep running out of this that or the other in the Home Base and couldn't outfit it the way I wanted without going to pick up stuff I already had at Sanctuary or rummaging around for 15 minutes.

It uses an engine new to Fallout, not new to Bethesda games. It is operating off a modified Creation engine, whereas Fallout 3 was Gamebryo and FNV was a tweaked Gamebryo.

As far as I can tell, many if not most of the settlements can be "allied" with while never even agreeing to 'escourt' Preston and the Quincy Refugees to Sanctuary. I once skipped Concord _all together_ until about level 25 and already had half-dozen settlements.

Not sure but, I suspect . . . if you do not mind allying with one of the other factions, you can probably finish the entire game without having done a single Minuteman quest.

I would think that is entirely possible. There is really only the institute that is a required faction as far as I can tell, regarding interaction. You might still have to deal with the other factions, at least the most prominent threat, at the endgame.

You do not need to join any of the factions to finish the game. There is a neutral quest-line as well.

Which makes all the histrionics about "This game has no choice" that pervaded these boards during the first couple weeks all the more melodramatic.

Umm a real chance for an XBox One user to bash a PS4 user, hard to come by. XBox One allows you to play your Xbox360 Fallout 3 game on it. Not NV yet but I suspect it will be soon.

Pretty useless in my opinion. You can't connect it to your settlements and there's no real reason to crash at DC. It's a trading hub, and if you really need to spend some time there, 10 caps for a bed seem like a reasonal deal.

People argued that the game has "no choices"? I mean, really?

I'm the first one to offer blunt criticism, but that statement is utterly ridiculous. Guess the whole [create your character from scratch - and customise your skills to your liking - and choose from 1 kabillion weapon and armor combos - and modify each layer of your character and gear - and go it alone or join any of 4 unique factions with unique questlines and unique endings - and roam anywhere you desire - and craft settlements exactly as you envision - and engage in story missions or Radiant quests at will - and choose from any companion character you wish - and here's three solid screens of perks] thing was just lost on them, hm?

Jebus.

I think it's nice to have a little nook that's totally separated from the rest. I'm considering it my safe-house.

Are there other houses like this, or is that the only one?

I guess it's the only one. But you can sleep in any free bed at one of your settlements. And if you spread out, they're virtually in walking distance of DC.

I just finished building 12 foot thick concrete walls all the way around the Red Rocket station. Also built a nice community barracks type building right next (and sort of connected to) the station. I put 4 beds in there. This is my private settlement simply for lodging of any companions that are not with me. I keep Curie, Codsworth, the Vault Tec Rep, Strong and Dogmeat there. Cait lives with me in my fully decked out HomePlate house in DC. I still think HomePlate is wonderful after adding the missing workbenches. I have a private place to store all my collectibles. It's SOOOOOOO big after you clear out all the junk (scrapping everything).

It is. But not being able to connect it with any other hub, your workbenches are pretty useless, unless you know beforehand what to create and hoofing every ingredient there.

You get a little room with some factions you help. I got a nice small cosy room in Vault 81 all to myself, and I have a locker and Power Armor gantry in the Prydwen (I'm supposed to have a bed as well, but the bed which my locker lies in front of is always occupied...). There are lots of other places you can use for yourself, but these two are the only ones I have so far which have been explicitly given to me.

I wish we could buy Kellogg's house. It does look much nicer and has that secret room in it too...

I've never relied on settlement supply lines. I just dump all my junk in the HomePlate workbench. Works fine.

If you continue with BoS, there is another, more private option that becomes available later. The Institute has something as well. Not sure about the Railroad. Unfortunately, none of these alternate options allow any workshop building like at Home Plate.

I too found it strange that you couldn't build a few crafting benches in your Diamond City home. But then I found it downright immersion breaking that the things I could craft in any settlement make no sense at all and I don't even know where I am supposed to be suspending my disbelief. When I look at my build menu it is clear that I am dragging rusty sheets of iron, broken furniture, and gore-soaked bedding and furnishings from 200 year-old irradiated garbage heaps back to my settlements to be assembled into "raider / super mutant" like dwellings of rust and filth. But this is opposed to both the story and the build mechanics. The story is of a man or woman who has just woken up from a life of clean sheets and manicured lawns and actually voices this when he/she tells Piper that after 200 year (which is how long ago the Napoleonic Wars ended just to put the time lapse into perspective) "You are living in rusty shacks and killing each other." So the story itself tells us that in "rebuilding the Commonwealth" the Sole Survivor would not be putting settlers into rusty shacks with broken furniture. What's more, the game mechanics of chopping down trees for raw timber, mixing up concrete and melting down steel supports this. Why would I melt down a shipment of steel to make a simple flat steel roof but end up constructing part of an airplane wing? Could someone please explain what I am supposed to imagine when I apply a coat of paint to Power Armor and it comes out with 200 years of fading and scratches? I am able to suspend disbelief but I just don't know what it is I should be believing.

I like the home, it's got a cozy kind of feel to it. The main thing I wish is that I could send companions and special NPCs there like dogmeat, the kid, drinking buddy, etc. It would be nice to have my whole little post apocalyptic family there with me in my downtown pad.

I really wish I could dismiss my companions there. Actually I wish I could dismiss them back to their origin sites when appropriate. You know send Piper back to her paper. Send Nick back to his office, etc.