Great post Gus. :thumbsup:Vegetable starch, experience points, merchants where you want them, loot from combats, materials scavenged by settlers, gun emplacements, and purified water, in that order.
All weapon and armor mods except the basic ones require adhesive. If you have a thriving settlement network, vegetable starch will provide all the adhesive you ever need. Otherwise, it's a significant bottleneck. You can't really scavenge enough, and buying more from vendors only somewhat closes the gap.
This is particularly true if you enjoy using explosives. Making grenades and mines require adhesive, and since they're consumables, you can't really afford to make them if you don't have that limitless supply of vegetable starch.
Every time you build a settlement part you gain experience. That's a fairly substantial benefit - I know I've gained several full levels just as a side effect of building up housing and defenses for settlements. Doing this primarily uses up wood and steel, which are plentiful. Defenses use additional materials, and there's some small overlap with other crafting needs, but it's not a big deal.
It's extremely convenient to have a set of merchants set up near your primary stash of loot. You can pop a Grape Mentat, load up, and sell much of it all at once. No need to keep your load down to fast travel limits. You also get to buy ammunition whenever you feel yourself particularly short of a type. There are ways of getting some of this effect without settlements, but settlements make it easier.
Those "defend this settlement" missions can seem annoying, but it means you're fighting a large group of enemies with LOTS of fire support from turrets and settlers. This yields experience and loot. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
In the same vein, there are settlements where you can set up a wall of turrets and then lead hostiles into them, because there's an enemy-held location very close. Not so important in the late game, but it can make clearing tough spots much easier. Finch Farm and County Crossing come to mind.
Eventually you do get those artillery strikes, though I never liked those much. They're free and do a ridiculous amount of damage, like carrying around a delayed-launch Fat Man.
Less visible is the materials gathered by unemployed settlers, and settlers assigned to scavenging stations. This income is relatively small - 1 or 2 units per settler per day, of any possible crafting material - but it adds up when your population gets large across all your settlements.
Finally, those Industrial Water Purifiers produce a ridiculous amount of Purified Water. Which you can sell, for example.
I have completely neglected bones, thanks!Also oil from cutting fluid at the chemistry station. While you don't produce the mats in the settlement the bones you pick up are only used here. It also takes acid, water and steel, but you'll likely have plenty of those. Bones will likely be your limiting resource (takes 8) so pick them up if you're short on oil.
A slow sneaky approach culminating in a shot into the mini nuke is very satisfying.
Also, anyone else find the Gauss Rifle annoying/weak? even fully modded out it does not seem to be that good.
Same with the Cryolator... does not seem to be that good other than slowing down the enemy
Seems likely that you didn't take the corresponding perks. If you have points in Gunslinger but none in Rifleman, rifle-type weapons are going to look really weak.
Vegetable starch, experience points, merchants where you want them, loot from combats, materials scavenged by settlers, gun emplacements, and purified water, in that order.
All weapon and armor mods except the basic ones require adhesive. If you have a thriving settlement network, vegetable starch will provide all the adhesive you ever need. Otherwise, it's a significant bottleneck. You can't really scavenge enough, and buying more from vendors only somewhat closes the gap.
This is particularly true if you enjoy using explosives. Making grenades and mines require adhesive, and since they're consumables, you can't really afford to make them if you don't have that limitless supply of vegetable starch.
Every time you build a settlement part you gain experience. That's a fairly substantial benefit - I know I've gained several full levels just as a side effect of building up housing and defenses for settlements. Doing this primarily uses up wood and steel, which are plentiful. Defenses use additional materials, and there's some small overlap with other crafting needs, but it's not a big deal.
It's extremely convenient to have a set of merchants set up near your primary stash of loot. You can pop a Grape Mentat, load up, and sell much of it all at once. No need to keep your load down to fast travel limits. You also get to buy ammunition whenever you feel yourself particularly short of a type. There are ways of getting some of this effect without settlements, but settlements make it easier.
Those "defend this settlement" missions can seem annoying, but it means you're fighting a large group of enemies with LOTS of fire support from turrets and settlers. This yields experience and loot. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
In the same vein, there are settlements where you can set up a wall of turrets and then lead hostiles into them, because there's an enemy-held location very close. Not so important in the late game, but it can make clearing tough spots much easier. Finch Farm and County Crossing come to mind.
Eventually you do get those artillery strikes, though I never liked those much. They're free and do a ridiculous amount of damage, like carrying around a delayed-launch Fat Man.
Less visible is the materials gathered by unemployed settlers, and settlers assigned to scavenging stations. This income is relatively small - 1 or 2 units per settler per day, of any possible crafting material - but it adds up when your population gets large across all your settlements.
Finally, those Industrial Water Purifiers produce a ridiculous amount of Purified Water. Which you can sell, for example.
I didn't mention Cutting Fluid because you can make that without building any settlements. It's useful stuff, but doesn't really benefit from having settlers doing stuff for you. All you need is access to a chemistry station. There are plenty of places you can set up your home base that have chemistry stations, and you can do that without building any settlements at all.Also oil from cutting fluid at the chemistry station. While you don't produce the mats in the settlement the bones you pick up are only used here.
You can't really "side" with the Minutemen, in the sense of it going anywhere. They don't have an end game, they just have a constant stream of random settlement-related quests. Once you liberate the Castle and break into the Armory, you're done with what little story they have.I liked the idea of siding with the minutemen but ended up not liking the quests and Preston.
I didn't mention Cutting Fluid because you can make that without building any settlements. It's useful stuff, but doesn't really benefit from having settlers doing stuff for you. All you need is access to a chemistry station. There are plenty of places you can set up your home base that have chemistry stations, and you can do that without building any settlements at all.
I've got something different for you this time general, another settlement needs help.
BTW, it's on Steam's Christmas sale. Not a huge discount so I don't feel like an early-adopter diddlyboob.
Great info, thanks. I made the mistake of building junk walls out to the limits on Sanctuary and went from "999-everything" to "nothing more can be built" so I don't have any merchants at all. Otherwise I'm generally concentrating on throwing up a buttload of turrets and moving on, but I am starting to put a little more time into settlements so this info helps.Vegetable starch, experience points, merchants where you want them, loot from combats, materials scavenged by settlers, gun emplacements, and purified water, in that order.
All weapon and armor mods except the basic ones require adhesive. If you have a thriving settlement network, vegetable starch will provide all the adhesive you ever need. Otherwise, it's a significant bottleneck. You can't really scavenge enough, and buying more from vendors only somewhat closes the gap.
This is particularly true if you enjoy using explosives. Making grenades and mines require adhesive, and since they're consumables, you can't really afford to make them if you don't have that limitless supply of vegetable starch.
Every time you build a settlement part you gain experience. That's a fairly substantial benefit - I know I've gained several full levels just as a side effect of building up housing and defenses for settlements. Doing this primarily uses up wood and steel, which are plentiful. Defenses use additional materials, and there's some small overlap with other crafting needs, but it's not a big deal.
It's extremely convenient to have a set of merchants set up near your primary stash of loot. You can pop a Grape Mentat, load up, and sell much of it all at once. No need to keep your load down to fast travel limits. You also get to buy ammunition whenever you feel yourself particularly short of a type. There are ways of getting some of this effect without settlements, but settlements make it easier.
Those "defend this settlement" missions can seem annoying, but it means you're fighting a large group of enemies with LOTS of fire support from turrets and settlers. This yields experience and loot. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
In the same vein, there are settlements where you can set up a wall of turrets and then lead hostiles into them, because there's an enemy-held location very close. Not so important in the late game, but it can make clearing tough spots much easier. Finch Farm and County Crossing come to mind.
Eventually you do get those artillery strikes, though I never liked those much. They're free and do a ridiculous amount of damage, like carrying around a delayed-launch Fat Man.
Less visible is the materials gathered by unemployed settlers, and settlers assigned to scavenging stations. This income is relatively small - 1 or 2 units per settler per day, of any possible crafting material - but it adds up when your population gets large across all your settlements.
Finally, those Industrial Water Purifiers produce a ridiculous amount of Purified Water. Which you can sell, for example.
This is the "soft" leveling of weapons, you typically won't find "high" level weapons until you are appropriate level. Gunners won't have assault weapons until you are 30ish for example. Mods also come into play, a fully modded combat rifle (requires gun nut 3) will beat an assault rifle until you can fully mod it, which isn't possible until lvl 39 (gun nut 4).
Never went back for the Cryolater - is it worth getting at level 40+?right: loot drops increase in value/quality as you level, but all weapon types have various fixed locations where you can find them at any level.
--that Cryolater in your starting vault comes to mind. You just need a few perks into lockpicking.
So this might be something BIG, or it might be just something teasing us for future expansions. You can see them in the game..
The settlement on the island(one you turn on signal to remove critters from it), its HUGE, the biggest one i've seen...with something special if you did not see it..apparently (future DLC?) the bay on the side near other settlements has pumping stations in water..with power..but no way to turn them on..yet? Apparently it looks like you might be able to pump the water out of the bay?
Great info, thanks. I made the mistake of building junk walls out to the limits on Sanctuary and went from "999-everything" to "nothing more can be built" so I don't have any merchants at all. Otherwise I'm generally concentrating on throwing up a buttload of turrets and moving on, but I am starting to put a little more time into settlements so this info helps.
Only other things I did were plant a ton of crops and build maybe one building on an existing foundation.Interesting. I built junk walls pretty much out to the boundary in Sanctuary and had plenty of capacity left for a clinic and two merchants, as well as quite a few turrets and a nearly-complete electrical grid. I haven't quite figured out how "size" relates to the things I build yet.
Only other things I did were plant a ton of crops and build maybe one building on an existing foundation.
Thanks!Put guns in inventory.
Drop guns 1 by 1.
Go to builder mode.
Store guns 1 by 1 in workshop.
Watch as "size" is reduced.
Build more shit.
Repeat as necessary.
So this might be something BIG, or it might be just something teasing us for future expansions. You can see them in the game..
--that Cryolater in your starting vault comes to mind. You just need a few perks into lockpicking.
Ya, that island is humungulous. I spent a good hour or two clearing it out and building some stuff on it.
O. M. G. I completely forgot about that. Made a mental note to go back but completely forgot. I've been wondering why I've never come across a cryolater before after essentially clearing 90% of the map. I've found the other 2 or 3 unique weapons though.
And I found out that the minigun doesn't need to cool down yesterday. The glowing barrel thing is just an effect. Curse you, every other game in existence, that forces you to let the barrel cool down.