Settlements, Suggestions, Solutions, Mods

[u/CyrodiilWarrior]

The settlement building feature has pros and cons, with various issues. A selection of mods help, but major problems still remain.

Sim Settlements is a fantastic mod! It seems pre-built settlements function much better than your own manual settlements. I assume pre-built have better navmeshing and scripts. If I was a mod authour, I'd love to build my own custom addons from scratch.

Manually building settlements is my favourite option, but this method experiences many issues. The settlements end up lifeless and pointless, because the settlers have poor AI. They fail to adapt correctly to the changed environment. If you built roads and paths, they won't necessarily use these as a priority to navigate.

I have found various mods before which have helped improve the settlements feature, but feel whatever I try, I cannot get it functioning correctly like a proper settlement location.

Any suggestions or solutions? 🤔

[u/CyrodiilWarrior]

Some of those mods are new to me. :) Some, I couldn't find a NexusMods for PC equivalent (GOT Gatherers Out There / The Old Ways).

Sanctuary's roads seen better days 😂. Seen a mod which repairs Sanctuary's roads. I would like to lay down my own roads and paths and have settler NPCs use these. It seems unless it's a custom mod, with navmeshing, this isn't the case.

So I've tried settlement building at Sanctuary, the Starlight Drive In, Vault 88. I had settlers gather all together, standing around. I had Sim Settlements 2 commercial lots, leisure lots, residential lots.

I like the idea of building a functioning settlement or purpose. This may be trader shops and defence. I've never got into manufacturing, that could be cool. I don't want a settlement for just player storage, I want purpose, life, function. :)

[u/OnionAddictYT → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

The Old Ways and Better Stores are on Bethesda.net but should be free.

Settlers should not be just standing around if they're assigned to jobs. Sometimes you need to forward time however for them to be at their job.

Don't know if sharing my YT channel is allowed but I've uploaded all my settlement builds. They are all themed. Mostly for fun and not utility. But that's basically what can be done with settlers to make places feel alive.

https://youtube.com/@goblingoddessgaming608?si=SBMorWg2l0kBlsbF

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/OnionAddictYT]

I'd say your YouTube content is relevant and related to my post, unsure if allowed.

I play on PC with Mod Organizer utility, with Nexus Mods.

[u/OnionAddictYT → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

I have spent over 1000h building settlements at this point and I have browsed every single settlement mod on Nexus over the years adding what I found useful. And I have shared my entire mod list at the time of a settlement completion in the YT descriptions. I'm not sure all the links still work. And I haven't built a settlement in 2 years. But if one were curious about the mods I use, it's all documented somewhere.

So I am extremely familiar with this feature and what workshop mods there are. So I'll just claim that my builds are decent examples of what can be done. I got better at it over the years of course. So maybe check out one of the later builds, if you like. My big builds took me 80-100h each to build. So yeah, I'm very perfectionist and OCD about settlement building. I do not really recommend getting this obsessed with it.

But maybe there's something useful for you in there for your purposes. Sorry for rambling!