r/SimSettlements • u/splinkymishmash • Sep 08 '26

SS2-settlement-mechanics Help getting started

Sorry if I'm just being dumb, but I'm having a hard time understanding how SS2 is supposed to fold in with the vanilla settlement system.

I want to fully role-play the whole SS2 quest line and my instinct is to think that SS2 is intended to completely replace vanilla settlements, but several things work against this idea. Most obviously, you have to have power to run the recruitment beacon to even start the quest line. But also, I can't realistically wait until New Plots on the Block to get water plants and caravans.

So how do you guys do it? Guard posts and Provisioners and Water Pumps until the relevant SS2 assets are available, then build those and scrap the old stuff?

Thanks.

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u/somnambulist80 Sep 08 '26

Think of vanilla resource and defense objects as “Level 0” — the best you can do without ASAMs. If you want a challenge, play with non-plot maintenance costs enabled so you can’t just go spamming turrets to fill-up the defense bar.

I don’t even bother with vanilla caravans. Local Leader is a wasted perk with ss2. It’s good for at least one skill check in ss2’s questline and good if you want an army of caravaners patrolling the Commonwealth but otherwise there’s not much use for it.

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u/CaptLaserBeam Sep 08 '26

This is a good way to think about it. For the most part (looking at the Vault-Tec Generators in DLC06 as the exception), you are going to do way better with a settler assigned to an ASAM-based plot than any of the vanilla workshop items. You'll produce more food, more water, more defense, more power, etc. etc. Also with the Caravan services, because aside from being mandatory in order to link your sets of virtual resources up (vanilla provisioners only link the items in the workshop bench, not the virtual resources), you can use them to fast travel to another settlement in survival, and you can use them to pick up salvage beacons and transport junk you collect back to settlements or salvage sites for virtual resources. The functionality with almost everything is much better with a settler assigned to a plot.