Damn you make my settlements look like crap. I need to up my game! Oh and I agree, Piper is great. My character and her have some strange lesbian thing going on, but it got me the gift of the gab perk so you'll see no complaints here.

How did you get so many people in Sanctuary? I thought the limit was 21?

The limit is 10 + Charisma.
When you try to send people or a caravan the game checks the current charisma value which you can boost with gears, chems and alcohol. I'm planning to push the population just over 30 but I need my other settlements to recruit more people first so I can gather and send those over. With gear, grape mentats and gwynneth stout I should be able to get a temporary 22 Charisma. First need more recruitment towers in the new settlements, breed some people.

They already throw nice parties



"Have you heard about that farm run by Ghouls" "Isn't that something"
They need some more things to say.

I did some research, seems like the caravan station is something you first get for doing some kind of Bunker Hill mission.  I'll have to swing by there again.  I didn't even know that existed.

Absolutely hated Strong.  He's so damn loud and he whines all the time.  I sent him to a remote outpost.  Didn't even bother trying to get his perk, which is one I didn't need anyway.  Piper's perk is great for exploring (2x exp for discovering new places or speach checks) and she's witty and funny.  I have Piper's, MacCready's, and Cait's so far.

Companions have perks? I didn't know that. Do they give you a quest at some point or something?
I guess Piper is in Diamond city. I haven't run into her yet, not Cait. Just have McReady and Strong. (And the vault-tech guy, but he's not a companion afaik)

If you get the highest level of friendship and/or romance with them, you get their perk permanently, even when you switch.  I've maxed out Cait, MacCready, Piper, and Valentine.  MacCready's is so overpowered that I sometimes avoid taking advantage of it.  He gives you a higher headshot hit percentage in VATS.  Preston and Codsworth are companions, too, but I haven't used them yet.  Oh, and the BoS guy but I haven't finished that questline.

You probably have to finish their quests but I'm not sure.  Some are long but others, like Piper's, are simple.  Piper is also super easy to get to like you, since she likes it when you pick locks.  I really like her voice work, as well.

Interesting. I guess I should give them a chance. The lone wanderer perk plus dog was just too good for the extra carry bonus. Sometimes game mechanics get in the way of trying out different things. There is so much still to see in this game. I let my oldest play it too for an hour sometimes while I watch and he's already finding different locations and getting sent to different places I haven't seen yet at lvl 6. There's so much to see.

I finished my sign so I can turn my scavenging down a notch for a while.

My pixel art skills aren't that great lol, it's supposed to look like Totoro.


I added 1 extra row requiring another 14 power, power facility now has 4x11 medium power plants, generating 220 power for the sign.

It's pretty much invisible during the day, you probably noticed that with your sign already.


The eyes blink for half a sec every 4 seconds and the umbrella and main body briefly flicker every 5 and 7 seconds to give it a bit of randomness, like the power is fluctuating. The controls are in the hotel behind the sign. A bunch on interval switches with delayed on switches to create smaller off times (instead of the default minimum of 1 sec) Looks pretty all those blinking lights and the 3 control monitors.

Unfortunately putting the sign 'online' brings the game to its knees. As long as it's unpowered the game still runs fine. (well mid to low twenties fps since I overloaded Sanctuary a few times over) With just the eyes it's still ok, umbrella getting choppy, connect the main body to to the power grid (doesn't matter if it's on or not) and the frame rate crashes down to very choppy single digits, barely fast enough to get in position for screenshots. There is some weird bug or inefficiency in how it calculates the power grid. It doesn't matter if the sign is on or off, just depends on the last wire connecting the sign to the power grid. Once I disconnect the sign the fps is fine again.

So I have to crawl back here to my circuit braker (delete wire) to get the game going again.

The intended blinking only works on the control monitors and unfortunately gets lost between the frames at avg 5 fps. The 1/2 sec eye blink is just long enough to show up. I dunno how the lod distance is on PC, yet on ps4 the whole sign fades out as soon as I get on the bridge. It must be categorized as furniture. Too bad, can't see what it looks like while approaching Sanctuary.

Was worth it to build anyway, fun tinkering with electronic circuits :) Maybe I'll do another in another settlement, yet I'll tone down my momentary crazy plan of covering the entire Starlight drive in screen with monitors lol. This build already cost over 700 copper for 217 pixels!

Amazing sign.  Absolutely awesome.  Easily the best I've seen (way, way better than Mario).  I knew it was Totoro right away.  You should send that screenshot in to ... somewhere.

I did no construction today, other than getting three new settlements up and running.  I think I have 25.

I stumbled on a Mirelurk Queen a moment ago and got toasted.  She took a direct hit with a missle launcher and it did almost no damage.  I figured that was a good stopping point for the day.

Thanks! And wow 25 settlements! I have less than 10 operational so far. I added recruitment beacons to them last night and some standard shacks with more beds. It's a shame roofs are so finicky in placement. It would be cool if you could fix the roofs of existing housing (without building it high above them) Sometimes it lets you place a piece or two, most ot the time it won't.

With Mirelurks I find that a fully upgraded 10mm hand pistol is more effective. You can squeeze off rounds as fast as your fingers allow. I guess the machine gun works too, too heavy to carry around though. I took McReady along last night, my carry capacity went down by a hundred without the lone wanderer perk, and I do less damage too. He keeps making fun of me when I pick up junk. Then I make him carry it.

The Cabot family follow up quest seems bugged for me. I have to talk to Jack Cabot but he ignores me :( Hopefully it will reset after some more time. I went to clear out Hangman Alley instead, another settlement. Dunno why Preston wants a recruitment beacon there, doesn't look like a good location for a settlement if you ask me.

Did you get Spectacle island yet btw? I read that's the biggest and highest settlement area. Is that where your beach house is perhaps?

Yeah, it's a shame that we can do nothing with A-frame roofs at all.  I also wish it would let me add half size walls and sand bag fortifications.

With mirelurks, a combat shotgun with a drum mag does the trick pretty well.  Energy weapons are also good.  The queen, though, is the size of a house and that acid is deadly.  I'm going to need to use a Fat Man, probably.  If she won't spawn until I'm right on top of her then I'll just have to run and leave poor Preston to be eaten.

Hangman's Alley is a good fast travel spot for that area but it sucks defensively.  Not much you can do except aim turrets at the door.

Haven't done Spectacle Island.  I don't know much about it except it has another Mirelurk Queen.  I think I have four or five places left, including BoS quarters.  I did buy the house in Diamond City.  My beach house is at Nordhagen beach.

I went back to Castle to fix the wall with foundation blocks like this

That's not mine, got it from here http://www.gamesradar.com/best-fallout-4-settlements/ There are some more fun ideas in there.
I managed to fix the corner a bit better, planted a big garden in the middle and set up bunks and a mess hall inside. Then I ran out of steel again.

I made the mistake of letting McReady carry my stack of grenades etc. The idiot keeps throwing them at my feet when I'm fighting in cllose quarters. First I didn't realize it was him, yet dogs do not carry grenades... For a character so concerned about money he sure likes to waste expensive grenades. He gave me a mission to kill 2 people at a high overpass intersection. I didn't spot the elevator, so went the long way around with some platform jumping which meant McReady got stuck. I had to guide him down the overpass again afterwards.

And I finally went to Diamond city. Nice place with a lot of people to talk to. I screwed up the jail escape though and ended up having to kill all the guards to get back out :/ I better lay low for a while. Lots of new quests to do. I found the lamps catalog btw, from one of the quests in Diamond city. And Piper, yet I had to flee the city before I got around to visiting her office.

This game is huge, according to my save file I'm already 4 days and 20 hours in. 152 game days, just shy of 4000 objects build, lvl 46, main quests finished: 1 lol.