Go loot Spectacle Island.  An insane amount of wood but a lot of steel, too, though much of it is in the water.  

You probably already know this but you don't need to give your companions ammo for their default weapon.  They will sometimes pick up guns off the ground and I'm pretty sure they need ammo for those.  Piper absolutely loved the radiation gun she picked up.  Cait is a pretty good companion as she uses a shotgun and baseball bat and she sometimes knocks melee opponents down.  

Here is a tender moment with Cait.

I got Preston's perk, finally.  Thank god that's over.  It wasn't hard to get but he kept giving me quests when I just wanted to trade.

Holy cats, I just found out that MacCready was in Fallout 3.  Wow, I did not realize.

Yeah, if you choose the right spot on Spectacle Island, you can get I believe 7.5 stories total.  Had I lowered my foundation a bit I might have gotten 8 out of it, with the 8th being the roof access.  I believe the height cap is standard throughout the game world, and it just depends how low you start.  Spectacle Island is also the largest settlement spot overall.  It's absolutely massive.

I'm also glad I learned a good amount of clipping tricks after I posted, such as part of what you were saying with connectiong a foundation and moving everything based on that.  I can't think they'd patch that out - I'm sure they'll welcome the freedom and adapt it in the future the same way Bungie did with Halo's forge mode.

I thought about that a couple times, but I wasn't sure if the game would treat ghoul settlers the same way as humans when it comes to perks (such as having an insanely higher tolerance to rads), so I didn't want to risk it yet.  It wasn't out of the question to assume Bethesda cut some corners and didn't account for the species of the settlers with that kind of thing.

I noticed that too in Sanctuary. Move the whole building down into the river and I could get up to almost 7 stories instead of 5. But it doesn't allow you to move it back after with the foundation block clipping trick. maybe you can make a submerged besement at Spectacle island. When I was messing around with the tower in Sanctuary it tended to sink down into the ground.

I hope any future patches will open up the possibilities instead of closing the exploits. Makes more sense to build a tower on top of a hill than half submerged in the water.

Someone found some meshes that are in the game but not available to use.  Strange.  They made a mod to enable them.

There is also a mod that changed lightbox power drain to zero, just like light bulbs.  They have to be connected to a grid but they don't degrade the power value.  

^ Does that fix the lag too from connecting many light boxes? Perhaps setting the power drain to zero stops the game from whatever it's doing to distribute the power over all the cabling that comes with them.
Or perhaps making groups of 10 each connected to their own power supply would solve the lag.

Those extra pieces are simple variations, maybe left out for memory management? Maybe more to unclutter the UI a bit, they use the same textures anyway.

I lost Piper last night. I had to switch to the dog for a quest for Valentine and sent her to Sanctuary. I've waited there for days after finishing the quest but she never showed up. Hope she's not dead somewhere on the way.

I liberated Spectacle island by myself instead. The queen wasn't a big problem. I stayed on the boat circling around the hut for cover, waiting for the ap bar to fill back up. Pop out, vats, hide. She and the little ones can't get on the boat, safe spot. The legendary glowing one was harder as I had to get off the ship to follow him and then the king popped up. Anyway it was too late to investigate the place and my caravan to Castle has somehow disappeared, I need to set up a supply line first.

No building last night but here's me dreaming of ICO

Ah, ICO.  The atmosphere in that game was surreal and amazing.  Loved the windmill.  Nice reference.

I'm not sure about the lightbox lag issue.  Mod description doesn't mention that.  Probably does have to do with the game having to manage all those separate output power lines and switches.  I didn't use animation or separate colors so I was able to simply link box to box.  I don't know what I'm going to do with my Keizoku City sign yet but I need a lot more copper before I even start.  I guess I need to look up the copper dealer.

I had an encounter with a Queen last night that was pretty funny.  She burst up out of the ground like Mirelurks do and, startled, I hit VATS.  I got a surprise shot in with my Two Shot .308 combat rifle.  Killed her while she was still in the air.  VATS ended and she just dropped down.  That gun is a beast.  Wish I could find another Two Shot of a different type, maybe laser or, oh my god, plasma.  Watched a video of a guy with a Two Shot Fatman.  

With Piper, check Diamond City.  That happened to me with Nick, perhaps because he still had some storyline elements left.  I sent him to Starlight but he was back in his office instead.

I've started using Hancock and I like him a lot.  He's pretty quiet when sneaking and the conversations with him are interesting.  

I'm looking forward to original companion mods.  I had one with New Vegas that was excellent.  This girl made it herself and fully voiced it.  She had quests for it and lots of unique aspects.  Blew the stock companions out the water.  It had like 30,000 thumbs up on Nexus.  I hope she does one for Fallout 4 eventually.

About Spec Island, I had an odd thing happen.  I was building away when suddenly it said I was out of steel.  I looked and realized the island had come unlinked.  I figured perhaps my ghoul provisioner was laying at the bottom of the ocean and I was wrong about them being fine on the swim after all.  I went around the island scrapping everything I could (careful not to scrap the trees the power line to the boat runs along).  A lot of steel underwater, which makes the no-rads-from-water perk extremely handy.  Anyway, checking the map, the supply line was indeed broken but I noticed that no one had 'died' from the Castle so my provisioner was still kicking.  I teleported in to see if I could find her and ... she was walking out the door.  It seems that even with a ghoul the supply line to Spec Island can be finicky.  Her cow did get stuck in the entrance way for a bit, though, so maybe that's the issue.

Mostly done with my Keizoku City penthouse construction.  Awaiting copper.  I'm using steel spike poles as pretend supports.

Still a lot of work to be done fixing the details and rough edges.  This is my lonely and unfinished industrial complex.

I didn't know what the heck this was.  It was suddenly there when I turned around.  Then it mooed at me.  Mr. Cow got stuck under my flooring.  I ignored him.  Maybe that was the issue with my caravan and it had to reset?  Hm.

I had a settler walk all the way down the pier and sit on one of the chairs.  It looked like he was enjoying the view.  That made me feel all warm and fulfilled, like he was justifying all my work.

^ Great setup! Real nice large ship feel, great lighting too.

I see you stripped the island bare, I need to get started on that first. I should have enough steel for a while (been buying up the 4x100 steel shipments in DC) yet still low on wood. Hopefully there's plenty on the island. You can buy 25 copper shipments from Kleo and the armor merchant in DC to speed it up a bit.

I have a two shot fat man, never used it. I should have brought it along for the queen :) Cool weapons yet very heavy to bring along. Those cows always get stuck. They spawn inside a building and can't get out. It resets when you sleep or fast travel anyway.

I suspect the lag with the light boxes is a path finding issue. The more ways power can flow seems to slow it down exponentially. And yeah interval switches probably make it a lot worse as on every state change the game seems to check the entire power grid again.
I guess making the walls out of animated light boxes is not a good idea :)

You probably already know by now but Spec Island has an insane amount of wood.  I scrapped everything I could find when my supply line died.  I tried another line from Warwick but that worked for awhile before bugging out as well.  I guess it's just not meant to be.  Luckily, I have most of the major construction finished.

I want a cat.

Yep I scrapped everything, even the trees with the power lines. Replaced them with metal towers. Ah that nice blank canvas


So far my supply ghoul from Castle is surviving. He does get attacked by a glowing mirelurk every time he sets foot on Spectacle island. For now I've been around to kill it for him. I guess I should give him some good armor and a big gun.

Piper was back in DC as you suspected. Just got her perk. Another uncofortable romance lol, I'm old enough to be her father.

It seems Bethesda has given up on voice 'acting' That stare is really matching the dialogue, not.

Anyway time to get rid of her, Hancock is my next choice as well. He was already begging to come along. Valentine can wait. There is still plenty to do before continuing on the main quest. I'm following the underground railroad quests, not all that exciting but good for material runs. Meanwhile I found the Gauss rifle too. 363 damage per shot full upgraded, insane. It's very heavy though, 21 pounds less construction materials to loot! It comes in handy when my go to weapon hardly makes a dent in them. I still prefer the combat shotgun in close quarters. A two shot combat shotgun would be awesome.

I've been buying up steel with the loot and scrapping every tree in each new settlement. Construction on my twin towers on Spectacle island is underway. The maximum height is 10 floors (from just above the water line). I'll probably add a big plaza at the bottom for shops. The steel inner core and sky bridge are finished, as well as the stairs. Now to add all the apartments on the corners and fences to prevent me from falling down the open inner core :) So far it has already taken just under 5000 steel.






I hope my supply line doesn't break, still need tons of materials. One advanage of building in the water is that I don't die when I fall off lol.

Wow, that's going to be awesome.  Looks like a real construction site.  You need to charge your peons a lot for space in an upscale complex like that.  Very snazzy.

A mirelurk is attacking on Spec Island?  The siren thing should keep them away.  I haven't seen a single one since I took over.

Keizoku City is nearing completion.  I'm mainly waiting for settlers to drift in but it's slow going.  I sent a ghoul provisioner from Spec Island and it seems to be working well so far.

I'm very happy with my under-floor wiring, makes the lighting look much nicer.  

Nothing fancy with the sign.  I just wanted to make the writing look a bid different.  I might make the letters different colors but I'm in no rush.  I'll do some questing next and let my resources build up again.  I might put a small outpost on the other side of the island next.