Lutes

Snappy Housekit allows you to build houses in the style of the 2 storey houses in Concord, so that's probably your best bet for creating new structures that mesh with the existing style of Covenant. The big issue with that is the limited build ceiling in the settlement, which is just slightly over 2 storeys. You might need a settlement expansion mod. I think Neheer's mod has an .esl version if you're short on mod space. If you decide to rebuild or extend the walls, you might like General Dave's Wasteland Walls in order to add a bit more character to the walls while keeping a similar shape. Otherwise you could use Snappy Housekit and Place Everywhere to partition the limited space inside some of the existing houses. If you're going to delete/scrap/disable the existing houses, you should be aware of the animation markers for painting and hammering that may remain. It should not be an issue if you place new buildings in roughly the same position. I'm not sure if mods like Scrap Everything will highlight them all. It can detect similar animation markers in other settlement, but I can't remember if they're scrappable in Covenant. One idea I might try on a play-through is mixing in some stuff from the Vault Tec dlc. There is a lot of pre-war furniture that matches the theme/style of the preexisting settlement. Outfit the guards in Covenant Security armour. Try and clip a vault room into one of the existing houses as a disguised bunker, if I can. I'm not sure how well the Vault Door will pair up with the existing walls, but I might try replacing the front gate and 'guard post' with something from the dlc. Best of luck with your build.

I'm not an expert, so take the following advice with a grain of salt. Clean Save: I always have a clean virgin save file in case things go wrong. I'll start a game and save in Sanctuary or just outside the Vault, then create a hard save in the Sanctuary root cellar no mods. A couple of times. I'll use the second save to test out the mods, but I'll keep that virgin save file, just in case. When I'm happy with the set up, I'll start a new game. Some mod references have artifacts that remain persistent, even if the mod is deleted or updated. Having a save file I can load which is untouched, gives the game a chance to clean up those unused references. If I'm already halfway through a playthrough, then I'll create another 'clean' save to work from before updating, adding or deleting a mod. 'Clean' in that the save game is stable and usually in a vanilla interior cell that doesn't have a bunch of scripted activity going on. Activating mods: I do that in batches before starting a new playthrough. -Texture mods first, so I can merge loose archives into one texture pack. -Script extender stuff like MCM and HUD Overlay. -Important master files like the armor/weapon keywords and settlement mod keyword masters. -Settlement mods with script injection, to check they're not overwriting menus and playing nice. -Then I'll add a batch of settlement mods that dumps stuff directly into categories in order to create a merge for those those mods, if possible. -Gameplay/immersion mods -quest and companion mods, etc. -appearance mods -armor mods -weapon mods -end of load order mods I try and follow load order guides where possible. When starting from a fresh install, installing and activating the mods in that order, when possible. You probably don't need to be so pedantic if you're running a couple of dozen mods, but you should still make life easy on yourself by adhering to load order guides. The real advantage of doing things in batches is so they you can create merges and merge patches for the categories of mods you're loading. So if something goes wrong at mod 150 of your load order, you don't have to go back to the beginning. You load your last clean save and start that batch again. I hope that was helpful I suggest you check out some of the load order guides posted here and on youtube. You'll get a more nuanced understanding from more smarter and experienced people than me.

Sure. You could set up random encounters for your custom trader faction and they would spawn from whatever areas the quest was linked to. Think of random encounters like the level 4 merchants, Art vs Art or the Rust Devil attacks. Or you could set up custom triggers for the quest, like the mod NPC's Travel does (I believe it does, anyway). It's a hidden quest. There are random encounter templates in the CK plus I'm sure someone might have a tutorial for setting up basic random encounters on youtube. I'm not sure how you would adjust the frequency of a custom NPC appearing at set trigger points, but you could probably add new trigger points that would only spawn your trader faction. I would suggest you have a look at NPC's Travel if you want moving NPC's that appear predictably, but will respawn over time if killed.

actor packages mostly rely on game time to fire procedures off properly, so a low timescale can interfere with behaviors and quests, not limited to follower packages and scenes perhaps you need a perpetual storm or perpetual fog instead of perpetual night?

I have been having an issue with modded settlements only. I can enter the build mode no problem, perform normal tasks, but I will have an issue where the build mode will close and open by itself a few times in quick succession, settlement budget will reset to 0 and I will get a debug message telling me that the budget has been reset. This only occurs in settlements added by mods, such as the Sanctuary Hot Springs or the Red Rocket settlements. This is not a game breaking issue, but it is inconvenient, as this happens every couple of minutes while I am building. I have several mods that add menus to the workshop via scripts, scrap everything and regrowth overhaul (which adds trees to some of the build areas.) None of the workshop item mods seem to be the culprit. Any ideas as to what could be causing this?

Plymouth Rock was a missed opportunity. As was the Abbey of the Road.

1. Bean Family/Beaners 2. Ranks: Beaner, Beaner Slasher, Deformed Beaner, Psycho Beaner, Feral Beaner, Beaner Mutant, Beaner Reaver, Beaner Gorehound Special: Big Mama Bean, a charred ghoul 3. Armor: Outfits like tattered rags, hooded rags, longshoremans outfit, radstag hide outfit and hunters pelt, in addition to normal raider gear. Some raider and Trapper armor. 4. Weapons, primarily unarmed/melee weapons, such as spiked knuckles, meat hooks, machetes, boards and pole hooks. Higher level Beaners might have rippers, hunting rifles, lever action rifles or pipe weapons. 5. Coastal area near some Caves or a Sewer system. 6. Based on the legend of Sawny Bean, a clan of inbred cannibals that terrorized Scotland. Inspired old horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills have Eyes. So adapted for Fallout, a clan of raiders that live on the coast by hunting, scavenging and some farming. They prey on travelers to eat them, thought they might 'adopt' the children of their victims and brainwash them into joining their clan. Because of radiation exposure, a lot of them turn into ghouls and have severe health problems. Family members that turn into feral ghouls are 'looked after' and fed by the Beaners and tend to roam around the entrance of their lair, leaving the Beaners alone. The Clan Matriarch, Big Mama Bean is completely mindless, but her Clan reveres her as a kind of god, and keeps her protected in the deepest part of their lair.

The main issue with reintroducing the Enclave is that their military is tapped out after the events of Fallout 2 and more recently in 3. They still theoretically have non-military branches in operation, such as their R&D and recovery teams, as well as other civilians, but I would not expect them to have trained and outfitted a large standing army (of humans, robots are another story) to replace their losses. That is not a bad thing, as it means that they actually have a need for the type of assistance a Player Character can provide. I think there was an Eye-bot factory in Chicago that ED-E from NV was created in, so that means they still have at least one robot factory outside of the Commonwealth. There are also a couple of Poseidon Energy facilities within Fallout 4, which could give them a reason to be in the Commonwealth to begin with; Poseidon Energy was a front for the some of pre-war groups that became the Enclave, which is why they had a base on an oil rig, plenty of fuel for vertibirds and a functional communications network which was similar to the internet (poseidon-net). Anyway, I look forward to seeing how this mod idea progresses.

You sure that is a mod? Pretty sure it was a quest reward

Late response. You may want to consider adding (spoilers):