So I've been creating a super Sanctuary of sorts on Xbox, and it got me thinking about this. I've used the glitch that allows you to lower the building cap, and place more things. Now, my settlement is getting huge, and I've been building it since Fallout 4 came out. My settlement, in terms of "limit" is probably 12 times the size of the default max settlement size I figure through guessing based on how many times I had to do the glitch to reset my building cap back to zero. Hell, the wall around Sanctuary alone maxed out the limit initially when it was only half of the way done on the first stage...


?This got me thinking, what exactly is the limit for? It's clearly not for framerate reasons, as my game still plays at 30FPS, only dropping one or two frames if I go into the kid's room. (It's the most heavily decorated room in the town, with everything from a full Vault-boy bobblehead stand, to every toy in the game I could find, even those build-a-bot kits, along with a myriad of decorative items. Probably close to 200 items in his room, lol.) My power grid, and all of the wires that I have almost black out the sky in certain parts of the downtown of Sanctuary at 1,200 power, lol. Is it for stability perhaps? Something to do with memory? My game hasn't exhibited any problems thus far. No texture pop in, or failure to load textures, or NPCs or items going missing, or stuff bugging out etc, etc. The game seems to be entirely fine. I've beaten the game, most quests, am level 112, and the NPCs are pathing fine, the crops are growing, the water is coming in by the thousands of bottles, everything seems fine.


The default limit is pretty harsh if I'm quite honest. Like I said before, I wasn't even able to finish the first layer of junk fence around Sanctuary before I hit the default limit. (using carpets for every piece probably didn't help, since I use the carpet glitch to place everything exactly where I want it, and to fix all of the walls, ceilings, and floors of the starting homes)


?Has Bethesda ever stated the reason for the abysmally low default building cap? I assume "console limitations," but exactly what limitations? In what way does "excess" building inhibit your game? Does it overheat your Xbox? Is it low memory? Processors? Why the low limit?

Frame rate drop.. l have very big settlements with around 20 to 30 people in them. l love mods , even with scrap everything l still get a small fps drops here and there.

I assume "console limitations,"

Yep can't have them PC players with realy big settlements now can we...

A mix on console and game engine limitations, I assume the % risk of the engine doing crazy, wonky stuff increases in proportion to the amount of objects you place, so the limits there to curve the risk.


I could also imagen its there to curve the practical benefits of some of the settlement buildings, but thats much more just speculation on my part.

Savegame size issues/limitations probably (additionally to what the other members posted).

I dunno either, but on PC, never had issues with overbuilding.

OP, we need a video of that Super Sanctuary, btw!

Also probably a pretty good "safety factor" - i.e, the limit is probably a good bit lower than it absolutely needs to be, just to be sure that nothing screws up. (kind of like when you're building stairways & catwalks in real life. You figure out how much weight the structure will need to hold..... and then make it three times that strong. Because you really don't want it to break. )

Using the glitch to increase the limit, the console PS4/Xboxone start crashing and refusing to load up saves at around the 3rd bar. So it's more for safety purposes!

The limit is pretty strict but I've seen some amazing settlements built on console and you can't tell a noticeable performance drop utilizing the limit reducing glitch. Obviously you will start to hit a limit but that limit is fairly fluid.

That being said I think Bethesda wanted to play it safe with the build limit especially for consoles. It wouldn't get severe enough for bricking a console obviously but it was probably fear of crashes and framerate issues.

Possibly the case. I always thought it was to prevent save file bloat. There are mods on PC that remove the limit, which is a nice option. I haven't built anything crazy enough to fill up that bar 100%

Most probably it is a limit upon the Gambryo engine.

I wanna see this kid room.... Bad !

I'm the opposite view - I enjoy the build limit and view it as a challenge.

I cannot have everything at every settlement, so if I wanted a very well decorated set of housing for settlers I may not be able to have it self sufficent for food - that is what provisioners are for as elsewhere I have farm with more minimalistic decoration. But thats not the approach I take and I try to balance my settlements so they have a mix of everything, they normally get a reasonable living space with bar/leisure area as well as plenty of food/water and of course a wall/defense rating off the chart.

Walls are a good way to save building costs, I try to integrate housing with mine where limit is tight (same as how terraced / semi detached housing shares walls) or I may not use all the space. Sanctuary I cut in two early on and abandoned everything North/North East of a line between my house and the river.

That's a good way of going about it. They say if you are not limited, you will do nothing really creative. But once you have limits in place, you have to be creative to work with those limits and restrictions.

Aye when I've been removing a pototo plant to try and squeeze one more turret in, thats funny lol

It's basically just a graphical thing. The limit is likely set at a point just before a minimum spec system starts to become unplayable. Huge settlement builds can definitely cause significant framerate drops. Most systems (including the consoles) are capable of handling much larger builds than a minimum spec system though, so most people can go well beyond the building limit. Eventually you will reach a point where the framerate drops are very noticeably bad.

Does anyone know if the glitch will still be in 1.4, I hope so as Im about to start my 4th playthrough and I am going to need the glitch.

Memory


what else....

Seems arbitrary. I have over 1000 lightboxes active at the drive in and that doesn't affect the framerate.

So just because your frames don't drop means it's clearly not a frame rate issue?


Ironically, that's exactly what the problem is. This is a pretty old engine & when you pack a lot of stuff in a cell, it simply can't handle it all. Obviously hardware has a large role to play also as consoles don't hold a candle to high end PCs.


I've done the size glitch at Sanctuary just once & there's a clear frame drop when I enter my PA building. (On Ps4, with about 30 suits of power armor in the building.)


That being said, I'm surprised that Beth didn't at least set the limit higher for PC.

Yes, the glitch is still present after 1.4. I'm already using it (I'm on PC) and I've used the glitch since installing it. Honestly I doubt that this glitch is going to get patched. It doesn't really affect or change the gameplay in any meaningful way. It's not like the Dogmeat duplication glitch or shipment duplication glitch. These glitches actually did take some of the challenge out of the game. The item storing glitch doesn't really change the challenge of the game.

That's a settlement I'd like to see, OP.


The funny thing is, there are a lot of locations which also show a [censored]load of items at once and still dont limit the game in any way.

I've actually had the frame rate drop with very mild building at sanctuary on PS4. That bridge could really use some work as well. It nearly always gives me grief loading in the textures properly if I fast travel to Red Rocket and manually travel over the bridge. In this instance I think it is more specific to PS4 Architecture and or Xbox One if any users experience it. Possibly some inefficiencies with that particular cell.

On the other hand I love Red Rocket as my primary hangout spot. I've built 4 or 5 stories high on a build and loaded it out using the glitch and the only issue I've ever had is the decreased draw distance when viewing the walls of my structure. That is pretty much par for the course on console though.

Thank you, appreciate the knowledge because as I said I starting new soon and I wanna build everything up properly. I agree completely it is not a glitch to make the game easier in any way.

That has to do with ps4 being garbage that can't run the game. Framerate was an issue with every bethesda game on PS.

Its the limit they set assuming worst possible scenario for memory overload.


so for most ppl even going 4-5 times the set limit wont cause huge problem.