Let me preface this by stating I really DO like building settlements, I just wish the feature was more polished. Anyway...

THE JOYS OF SETTLEMENT BUILDING

-Meticulously planning a huge structure, getting the floorboards placed *perfectly*, then attaching walls... until the FINAL? wall piece refuses to snap into place because there's a twig, pebble or blade of grass in the way.

-Getting said structure finished & furnished (6 hrs later), only to see your settlers become absolutely flummoxed by the front door and stand around outside instead.

-Building a control room to operate all the spotlights and the radio beacon, only for the whole thing to go haywire for no discernable reason the instant you finish it. Now activating the radio beacon turns off half the lights in town, even though the circuits aren't connected to one another. Just as planned.

-Spending 2 1/? hours adding a rec room with tons of creature comforts and increasing the town's safety and security, then watching the town's happiness DROP by 5 points.

-Settlers leaving the main gate open so Raiders, Supermutants, Deathclaws and God-knows-what-else can just stroll into town.

-Building a big ol' curtain wall at huge expense of time and resources, just to have attackers spawn INSIDE THE TOWN ITSELF?!? REALLY????

Like I said, I really like the settlement building feature, it's something I've always wanted to do in a Fallout game, but it needs quite a bit of polish as it is now.

My. Thoughts. Exactly.

Settlers A.I. leaves a lot to be desired. I came to my Red Rocket base which had at the time 15 settlers in it. I built a generator room by the Gas pump out the front (the one you can't scrap). It was 4am so you'd think that most people would be asleep. Not so, 13 of my 15 settlers were standing around crammed into my generator room, completely inexplicable.

I don't like the fact that I am reconstituting steel from tin cans and other miscellaneous items, yet I can't make one that doesn't look like S**T. And I can't make a roof without holes in, my character is not a D**K, if he makes a roof it shouldn't have holes. I really hate how most of the wall sections you can use look awful and there is no variation to them (the texture is always identical) giving some of my creations a very PS2 look to them.

I have a very hard time placing shops indoors, unless it's a pre-existing buildings with a high ceiling. I have not yet worked out a way to place a wall section on top of another for a higher ceiling, If you place another floor then a wall then remove the floor in between there is a gap. I want the option for higher ceilings.

I don't like how sometimes an item is inexplicably un-placeable in a certain location, I was building a 'shopping district' in one of my Sunshine Co-op, I put down a general store, tried to put down a food shop next to it, won't go there, Weapon shop will, Clothes and Armour shop, no problem, they can all be placed next to each other apart from the bar, so I had to put it separate to the rest, silly problems.

Support pillars so elevated builds or big rooms don't look silly.

You should be able to put down a pre-fab and edit it rather than only being able to delete the whole thing.

Definitely need to be able to build with bricks/cinderblocks, even if it's just in sections like the existing walls, it's illogical that you cannot build with bricks.

More signs and wall decorations, there are so many obvious ones that they didn't think of.

It would be cool to be able to have a list of your settlers and see what job they are doing and whether they are assigned to a bed etc. Also the ability to re-name settlers would be awesome.

You should be able to lay pipes down and plumb in sinks, toilets, baths and showers etc.

I don't like the fact that you cannot clean up, If I were fixing up a post apocalypse dwelling, I would at least sweep away all the rubble and debris from the floor, this is a feature I would like, my settlers deserve a clean floor. Some settlements I don't use because they are too dirty looking.

A VAULT SETTLEMENT PLEASE!!!!!!!! A no-brainer and I was shocked they didn't think of it, or if they did they should have included it.

Bethesda have created a wonderful feature, one that people will be modding and expanding upon for years, and I can only imagine what they could turn the feature into in the next Elder Scrolls. And my criticisms are merely opportunities for improvement, there are lots of things that are already perfect about the system! I have faith in Beth and modders alike.

Somebody the other day (sorry I don't know where it is) posted a video that shows how to get rid of that gap in walls by using foundations temporarily to set height, then removing them and dropping the whole wall as one unit...

thinking about it, I think it was in that thread "Why does everyone love settlement building?" and I'm pretty sure most of the post actually referenced how to rebuild walls at the castle...

Thanks!! I'll check that out.

I've got a nice little list of additions I'd like to see for settlements as well, I've actually been trying to find an actual suggestion thread to submit it to. I play on Xbox One, so for PC gamers some of these are irrelevant.

• a way to turn on/off clipping (such as trying to place shack fencing and it has to have a huge gap to be placed near other sections)


• turn on/off snapping


• a way to control elevation when snapping (wire fences require completely flat terrain to be practical)


• a way to fix up or remove existing structures (Sanctuary make the houses actually look decent or remove that building at Tenpines that only has partial walls)


• pick up and move power armor in workshop mode


• instead of talking to settlers to trade with them move trade to the workshop menu, or don't even move it but give us the option in workshop


• change the title of Settler to something job related like when you set one to supply lines their name changes to Provisioner

I always thought you should be able to either fix up the remaining houses or scrap them completely, I don't like that you can scrap a about 3-4 of the houses and build on the foundations but you have all these crummy houses in between, it makes the whole settlement bigger than it needs to be.

One thing that irritates me, I set up a tall structure in the center of my settlements, place searchlights at each corner to illuminate the surrounding area.

Then head to the illuminated areas, which aren't. Surely, if I stand where the searchlights appear to be illuminating, then it should be brighter?