Still Borked After All This Time

I've been continuing my "next gen" Fallout 4 adventure and trying to note all the changes, additions, and fixes.  Every time I restart a playthrough I try to focus on one aspect that I've neglected in the past.  This time around I decided that I would try to focus on my settlements and making them the happiest that they could be.  The verdict:  despite my best efforts and the "next gen" improvements, the settlement system remains one part of Fallout 4 that is still buggy and vaguely explained.

The concept of building and maintaining settlements was one part of Fallout 4 that I was originally very excited about.  The core concepts around settlements is that your settlers need a place where their basic needs are met--they need a covered shelter with a bed, they need food and water, and they need defense to keep them safe from all the dangers of the wasteland.  In addition, there's also a measure of settler "happiness."  The most basic understanding of "happiness" is making sure that the number of resources remains above the number of settlers, but it's actually more complicated than that and can be cryptic to figure out.

The happiness level in my settlements would generally cap out at about 80 and only for certain settlements.  Others would sit in the 60's despite my efforts to make sure each settlement had exactly the same basic needs met and access to trading.  I decided to try to search up the secrets to settlement happiness and it turns out that many people still find it very unclear and that there's more to it than simply satisfying needs and providing shopping experiences.  Things that you would think would contribute to happiness have no impact--providing fun decorations or jukeboxes and radios do absolutely nothing beyond providing some aesthetic pleasure.  Other things though, like making sure all your settlers are assigned a task, do impact happiness (which isn't explained at all).

Why can't these warnings be more specific?  Ugh.

But why are some settlements perpetually unhappy?  Tenpines Bluff, Abernathy Farm, and Oberland Station seem to stay in the 60's regardless of needs and tasks assigned.  Some of that might be attributed to bugs (that aren't fixed)--for example, the beds for the original settlers of Abernathy Farm are always categorized as not being under a roof (a bug) and can't be deleted.  There are also other complex factors like having ghoul settlers that can impact happiness.  (It also probably didn't help that I accidentally killed a settler while trying to defend one of the settlements--my bad.)

So, the bad news is that settlements (happiness and size) are still whackadoodle.  And sure, you're probably thinking "go download a mod!"  I know that there are some fabulous mods that address settlements and turn them into something kind of awesome (I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head, but I know that there's one that basically makes your settlements into autonomous units--settlers will build their own structures and take care of their own needs--planting crops, building additional water supplies, etc. as well as decorate!).  I just don't want to mess with mods and just wish the whole system was made much clearer.

On a positive note, there does seem to be some improvement.  For some reason I feel like my settlement population would always cap out at 10-12ish.  This time around my settlements were bursting at the seams!  Many of my settlements had 20+ residents and it was difficult to find enough tasks for all of them.  The addition of the free "creators club" content has also added some new decorative elements to spice up your settlements--there are Halloween themed items and a bunch of Enclave items from completing new missions.  The Enclave chain also provides a great set of power armor and the Tesla Cannon--a big gun that shoots out a stream of electricity.

This time around I also found myself swapping out companions more than I did in the past (which I highly recommend).  I've experienced new dialogue and missions that I missed out on in previous playthroughs.  It's totally worth it for the perks that you get.  So even though we all love Dogmeat, make it a point to spend some time traveling with the entire cast of companions.

I plan on wrapping up my Fallout 4 adventure soon-ish and moving onto my backlog of free titles from Epic Games.  I'm also keeping my eyes peeled for the dates of the Steam Summer Sale (which is generally the end of June through the 4th of July-ish) so I can snag some titles off the wishlist.

It's now officially summer, so happy summer and happy gaming.