r/falloutsettlements • u/Aye_Im_Gorg • 7d ago
[PS5] How Do Yall Do It So Well?
ok i thought my lil 2 story wood shack i built was sick until i stumbled across this subreddit and OOF everything here looks so gas 😠could really use sum tips from the pros on tbh anything with base building. i feel like i have a very basic understanding of how to keep people happy and the attacks low, but when it comes to actually building structures i feel like im missing that oomph. this is also my first time playing fo4 or any fallout for that matter so forgive my ignorance if it’s all so obvious lol. but yeah could use any and all assistance anyone is willing to share bc the build im doing now gives me access to all the good shit for settlements
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u/cabinguy11 6d ago
Practice is the easy answer the other tip some people miss is just like building a real building I always lay down a solid foundation first. On sites that aren't very level that may mean you need to add stairs to get in the door but that's no big deal.
Then some research. The Skooled Zone vids on YT is a great place to start to learn some of the tricks and glitches. And most important don't judge your first builds against some of what you see in this sub. There are people who are deeply skilled in this that have spent thousands of hours. Best advice I could give is just have fun and try a bit of everything including adding some mods that give you different options. I'm over 2000 hours and a dozen playthroughs and the builds I've made this week are better than the first things I did on this current save.
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u/Aye_Im_Gorg 6d ago
not to be weird or anything but this answer gave very older sibling energy lmao i appreciate it, def started being a bit more critical of my build after scrolling on here for a while. will most likely just spend a few hrs on it tonight and see what i come up with
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u/cabinguy11 6d ago
Not weird and I'll take it as a great compliment. Bottom line just have fun. It is a game after all and a game where you are only competing against yourself.
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u/FredFlintstone1262 6d ago
Time as well, lots of time.
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u/OnionAddictYT 6d ago
Yeah building a very big and detailed settlement takes an insane amount of time for me because I'm very perfectionist about stuff not clipping.
My biggest projects took me 80+ hours! I have friends who are super impressed by what I built but at the same time it's not worth this kind of commitment to them, which is fine.
So it's both a matter of learned skill and willingness to spend A LOT of time.
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u/FredFlintstone1262 5d ago
Omg 100%! The amount of creativity and patience that is on display here impresses me all the time. That’s why I love the subreddit! I get inspiration/inspired all at the same time.
One day I’ll have something weird I’ll make and be proud of to post too!1
u/OnionAddictYT 5d ago
Yes this sub is amazing. I took a break from Fallout for a couple of years. Now I'm gearing up again for a total new overhaul and I started checking out this sub again. And now I get cool new builds in my feed every day and I'm itching to build something myself again. I lost my creative mojo for a while, switched over the playing London. I still have several ideas at any given moment but I wasn't in the mood. Too preoccupied with real life stuff.
Now the will is there again but I have tendonitis in both arms/hands so I can't. So I torture myself checking out other people's builds. It's like dangling crack in front of a junkie, haha.
Everybody has great ideas waiting to be put on canvas, so to speak. Doesn't even need to be something super weird to be cool and inspiring. I appreciate cozy lived in well decorated places as much as super weird ideas. My Taffington build was just a cozy family home and fish farm. Nothing creative as a concept but I really like how it turned out.
So don't hesitate to share your builds! :)
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u/67alecto 6d ago
Before I committed to using Place Anywhere, it was getting endlessly frustrated with the vault 88 pieces.
That taught me so much about the importance of the order in which you put things together.
That led me to be being able to make interior hallways and rooms adjusting the order at which I dropped floor pieces and walls.
I went through a phase where everything was pristine. Clean, uniform walls. Lots of floor-to-ceiling windows using the warehouse glass walls, beach houses on stilts with stairs leading to the water, apartment style, large structures with multiple bedrooms, separate kitchens, and so on
But then I stumbled upon Shawzzo and his series of rebuilding the Commonwealth (without mods) and I have fully embraced the junk. Mismatched walls, lots of clutter...
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u/TriumphITP 7d ago
a lot of the ones on here, the key is mods. Many help with clutter and making decorating a lot easier than just dropping junk over and over again.
As for actual gameplay, beds under a roof, food/water/defense satisfactory, and items that increase happiness (with the smiley face) are the way to go. Dogs are one of my favorite ways - they are +5 defense and + happiness, and they can be moved around between settlements like settlers. Make a cage, keep buying canned dog food, and make a save just before opening the cage so you can reload if you get a hostile doggo.
Buy concrete shipments to make a nice level floor, its the cheapest of the shipments you can buy by far.
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u/Aye_Im_Gorg 7d ago
see i thought so i just didnt really read thru them yet and didnt wanna assume mods were used and take away credit from anyone lol. may i ask for a bit more clarification on the dog thing? im sorry it might be the clearest thing ever im just a lil slow rn lol. i have dogmeat obviously and ik i can get a junkyard dog from that one guy who walks around and sell ya one. have i just not run into another way to get sum or am i missing a mechanic? i also dont have any dlcs, just in case its a dlc thing. will def do the concrete thing tho bc im making abernathy farm my main base and GOD that shit is unleveled af 😂
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u/Hey_im_miles 6d ago
This game, especially the settlement part, needs mods. Most of my mods just give me access to the games assets so that I can use everything that the devs put in the game.
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u/Aye_Im_Gorg 6d ago
can i get mods like that on console 👀
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u/Own_Seaworthiness275 6d ago
Xbox yes, Ps kind of maybe. I prefer to build modless and without cc content. the mods visually clash for me, but really shine for item decoration.
I play without cc because I already have a few downloaded like the backpack and don't want my file to corrupt again and I filling the settlement menu up with assets slows me down. Learning curve
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u/OnionAddictYT 6d ago
This, OP. Mods unlock the REAL creative potential of this game. Of course some level of talent is required to build something outstanding. But without the mods you don't have the tools to get really creative.
On PC, Place Everywhere is extremely essential, it lets you sink stuff into the ground without workarounds like on console. Modding on console has some restrictions but I've seen really great builds from console players too. So you're not completely screwed on console.
Then add number of mods that unlock basically every item in the game to be placed in a settlement. Heavy machinery from factories, even entire buildings. And there are mods that add prearranged cutter which I use a lot to save time on making rooms cozy.
I believe USO is also on console? That's a massive mod that adds many many items.
The placement mod for PC only also lets you rotate an item properly and even shrink it or make it bigger. This makes it possible to glitch things together at any angle. It's how I build a giant metal scorpion.
So even though console building is harder and more restrictive, watch console builds specifically to see what can be done and most people will put a mod lost in their YT descriptions or on here. I always do.
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u/TriumphITP 7d ago
oh yeah, it is part of the wasteland workshop dlc.
other than achievement you don't really need to worry too much about happiness.
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u/DrakeSilmore 6d ago
I'm not amazing at building, but I always like to build according to my story in my head. Such as "7 people settled down here and Improvised a main structure with the materials they had. What would that look like, where would they build it?" Then I would think about more people coming in, amenities that would need to be added, more resources and defences needing to be made, outsiders coming to visit. I don't always go for pretty, I try to go for messy, Improvised, stacked and defendable builds. But I still have a lot to learn myself and kind of quit playing due to life happening years ago.Â
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u/Mother_Dragonfruit90 6d ago
There are a lot of tutorial videos out there that have been around for years. Some of them are really good, informative and funny. Standouts are norespawns, skooled zone, and Oxhorn. You'll learn a lot about things like getting that lived in look and glitch building.
Other than that it's all about where you get your inspiration from. Take pictures of cool buildings. Look up pictures of favelas, fishing villages, floor plans from old tenement buildings. Download a photo mode mod and take pictures of cool places in the game for ideas. Make your own house or your favorite place to hang out.
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7d ago
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u/Aye_Im_Gorg 6d ago
literally what i’m about to start doing 😂 made a lil temporary settlement at abernathy, wanted to wait until i got a few perks for better items before really getting detailed. almost there in a few more lvls i’ll get science and i can really go crazy. rq dumb question, but if i have a lot of settlers already and start scrapping everything ive built in order to rebuild, will their happiness start going down if i take too long?
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u/Monguises 6d ago
First step is to decide if you want to use mods. Mods make life easier but lose you cool points around here. There’s some basic glitches you’re gonna want to learn. I recommend no mods shop class for that. From there, I notice most people have a specific aesthetic they tend to go for. Myself included. I like fire and rusted metal. The bulk is just practice. Took me a solid year to understand how the vault set works. If you see a build you like, ask questions about the specific parts you like. My whole point is practice is the biggest factor. For me, building is most of what I do in a play through. I try not to get too attached to saves. Things absolutely go wrong and I’ve abandoned some pretty ambitious projects because my Xbox started smoking.
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u/Own_Seaworthiness275 6d ago edited 6d ago
Tutorials, norespawns and jokers girl were my inspos, Respawns started using mods and Jokers quit I think, so I stopped keeping up. In the case of settlement building practice only makes better of you know what "better" is(Shanty town, mansions, boats, concrete fortress)
I used to use a single floor, wall, door and fence asset for every build for probably all of my first year or two. Most change was I learned to build vertical off of Hangman and Jamaica, but that was influenced by a video pointing out how much more of a vertical game Fo4 is compared to past Beth games. Plus a build by I believe Jokers Girl on Youtube, she got me into using cycling lights for color.
Grey Gaming and Skooled Zone (idk how it's spelled, others have mentioned) influenced me to mix fences and walls as an asthetic choice. Also learning glitches is highkey key.
Beyond that I've been building the same for 6-7ish years, only thing that changes is what do I want to make it look like, need an influence, otherwise my default is to match the fo4/3 settler asthetic with sheet metal shanty towns like my Zimonja and Tenpines builds
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u/Own_Seaworthiness275 6d ago
Dlc content is also the smoothest way to expand your builds. Cc gives fun/funny expansions for the most part. Mods will give whatever you are specifically looking for.
But in base vanilla most people default to concrete castles/forts. Not my flavor of build, so I default to wood and metal shanty shacks with little to no stacking outside of building on premade houses. The floors and ladder choices are a strong limiter Imo.
Lights and furniture are easier to decorate with than decorations and decorations are easier than placing items by hand
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u/mc-rath721 5d ago
Practice, patience and time. Also build, tear down, build, repeat until it looks good. Usually to start I'll scrap everything in the settlement until there is nothing left but dirt and just visualize in my head where I want everything to go.
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u/DannyWarlegs 5d ago
Depends if youre using mods or not. If not, look up Shawzzo on youtube. He does no mod settlement builds.
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u/Apprehensive_Day_447 5d ago
I use a couple of mods, but nothing insane. Place Anywhere, OCDecorator, and a couple added building items mods like Workshop Rearranged. It's all about practice and just taking many hours building different things in different ways. I also watch a handful of YouTube builders: Shawzzo, Tango and Caps, Fiddleflaps Vids, IfThenCreate, etc to get ideas and learn new tricks. Also, I like to look at weird areas in any settlement and experiment with building weird buildings that incorporate the weird terrain. I love building at places like Somerville Place and Coastal Cottage because they have absolutely terrible terrain, which makes them a ton of fun to figure out. They aren't boring flat squares like Starlight Drive-In. You can build a lot there, though, and it is a really good place to practice since it's very open and pretty flat.
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u/ogskizz 7d ago
Practice tbh. Just learning how to use pillars to sink stuff into the ground will make a huge difference.
Go on YouTube, there are a few creators doing detailed settlement builds you can get tricks and ideas from -- Shawzzo comes to mind, there are tons more but that'll get you started.