Day 32 with Fallout 4: I Treat Those Thieving Settlers a Lesson

I continue my play diary of Fallout 4 on the PlayStation 4. I’ve been swamped, as the kids say, “IRL”, so haven’t been moving forward much. After being disappointed by the courser in the last part, I decided to deal with my thieving settler problem once and for all.

No, I didn’t kill them all, you sick puppy.

Obviously, there will be spoilers ahead!

Hey You Kids! Get Off My Lawn!

As I mentioned on Day 31, my settlers have taken to stealing from me. Trinkets, weapons, armor, power armor – anything that’s not nailed down I’ll find either in their inventory or strewn about the settlement. Something had to be done. Something drastic.

I decided to commit one of my settlements as a personal – and unpopulated – base of operations. I would lose the convenience of local shops and services, but gain privacy and (hopefully) my stuff would stay put.

I needed something relatively safe and relatively large, but without unmovable “named” NPCs. Interesting building possibilities would be a plus. It would also be nice if it were close to a larger trading center.

There are a few possibilities, but only one clear winner.

• Home Plate: Situated right in the Diamond City Marketplace, this would seem to be perfect. Safe, secure and no settlers allowed. The lack of supply lines also makes building there a chore. Accessing it also means multiple load screens, which I’d prefer to avoid. It’s also kind of cramped for my plans.
• Kingsport Lighthouse: This is one of the most interesting building locations, with the impressive lighthouse and multi-level foundation, and is easily defendable. It’s also quite a hike from its closest neighbors and I dislike trying to work around partially collapsed houses.
• Covenant: Covenant has the cleanest existing buildings and the best walls in the game. It’s also quite close to Taffington Boathouse, which can be built up into a trading center, with some work. Unfortunately Covenant also comes with the most baggage in the game: permanently smoking turret stumps, no ability to build outside the walls and little leeway for defenses.
• Hangman’s Alley: This area is almost as snug as Covenant, especially if you leave the third door chained. It’s very close to Diamond City, but accessing the market there means a load zone. It’s also under nearly constant attack, with enemies often spawning well within the site.
• Boston Airport: A good, easily defendable building location situated very close to the heavily armed (and currently friendly) Brotherhood of Steel. The Prydwen is, hands down, one of the best trading locations in the game, but you’ll suffer multiple load screens to access it. More importantly I’m not certain that the Brotherhood and I will always be on the best of terms.
• Red Rocket Truck Stop: This site is spitting distance from Sanctuary Hills (they are, in fact, the two closest settlements in the game) and is one of the safest settlements overall. There are some annoyances when building there, but there’s plenty of flat space, a large, advanced building and a great elevated position to take advantage of.

Cleary Red Rocket is the settlement of choice. The game nearly begs you to use it as such right from the beginning.

I began by sending everybody currently living there to other settlements. It took some time, but I also tracked down the provisioner I had assigned and relocated her as well. I sent a new provisioner from Sanctuary, one that wouldn’t give me lip about no food or water, to maintain the supply lines. I finished by trashing every single thing I had built there. Clean slate.

I wanted to limit access, so one of the first things I did was close the garage door using the button near the work bench. I then built a wall around the workbench and button, preventing others from accessing them. I also put a wall up across the western door to the building, effectively eliminating it.

I then got to the tedious work of extending the main building. My plan was to move vertically, something I’d rarely done, and utilize the large, but unfortunately sloped, roof of the station. Clipping issues make working with existing structures an exercise in frustration, but after several hours of fiddling, tweaking, futzing and swearing, I finally got something I’m pleased with.

I built a large, three-story structure covering the back of the station and providing easy access to the roof. Shack foundations were used to tweak the height of the first floor so that the second floor connected seamlessly with the roof line.

The second floor is all about work: crafting stations, power armor storage and, way out on the useless front edge of the roof, two large generators powering all the defenses and lighting. The smaller third floor became my living quarters. I built furniture, a bobblehead stand and several containers. I also kept my very favorite power armor, my maxed X-01 set, up there.

I completed the main structure by enclosing much of the ground level, in front of the station. This prevented most line-of-site access into the building and provided a platform for multiple missile launcher turrets to keep things safe. I wrapped the remaining exposed area in a picket fence. I put a lion by the gate to scare away the bad guys. Here’s a short walk through:

Finally, while I don’t want any dirty, thieving settlers bumming around my new digs, I couldn’t live without my ladies. I sent Piper, Cait and Curie to the new digs and posted Dogmeat there to guard them.

While I’ll likely be tweaking heavily as time goes on, I’m pleased with my new base. It has everything I need and is only a short walk to the trading center I’ve built in Sanctuary.

My Story so Far

Nothing new to report. I poured all my time (and more) into building my new estate. Now that I have the perfect place to bring little, tiny, poopy-pants, baby Shaun home to, I’m going to start looking for him in earnest.

A Depressed Press Series

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Day 31 with Fallout 4: I Join a Militia, Learn about Canning and Have Words with a Courser. 
Next:
Day 33 with Fallout 4: The Plot Moves Forward then Stands Still