Easier settlement management

[Servietsky]

Managing settlements is a big hassle. Especially when you start having more than 10 settlers, and when they start moving around randomly so that you can't tell who does what so easily.

 

You probably get the general idea if you've tried handling big settlements, but here are a few ideas :

 

1. The bell could work better. Currently it doesn't work on settlers that are too far to hear it, and they all start spreading in 20 seconds if you don't ring it again, which makes it annoying to use. Maybe also make them run so it doesn't take all day to gather big settlements.

 

2. You could force the settlers to stay where their work is, or if you judge that it would kill the life in settlements, make a new sort of "bell" to temporarily force the settlers to go to their work. Currently settlers will often leave their work and wander around, making it extremely hard to quickly check who is doing what in a structured manner. With this change, it could become as easy as a quick look around, and it would be easier to spot jobless settlers (look for the ones not doing anything). A cheap way to simplify settler management.

 

3. Boucing from my last idea : you could also make a new sort of bell that would call every jobless settler to it. This way you can easily give them a job. As cheap and efficient as the last idea.

 

4. Having an option to turn off automatic resource assignment could be useful. In the current state, settlers will automatically seek similar work (for food and defense) around so that they are used to their maximum capacity (which afaik is 6 defense or 6 food). It's fine, but it can become annoying when the settler assigns himself to resources far from the one you gave him originally, and it can make things messy in the long run when you can't see who does what because they are all working on scattered resources.

If implemented, one could simply manually tell a settler to work on resources one by one, until the cap is reached for that settler.

 

5. Randomized names for settlers would be awesome, so we can at least note on a sheet of paper who does what. As it stands now, they're all "Settler" so we can only differentiate them by their looks / inventories, which is tedious. If too hard to implement, at least give 'em numbers (I know, kinda inhumane, maybe codebars would be better :D ).

 

6. Talking about that, making sure that several settlers can't have the same face would be nice. There are limitations on the number of faces, or so I assume, since it is quite common for "twins" to be present in big settlements, so a way to fix that would be allowing for more face variety (haircuts ?).

 

7. Here is a good one : being able to command settlers and see what they are doing without needing to seek and target them. Just picture a new category of "buildings" in building mode, which would be for settlers. If there is nobody in your settlement, the category doesn't exist, or is empty. As soon as somebody joins it, he will show up in the "settlers" category (with his model and/or name) exactly like a chair would show up in the "chairs" category, and selecting him will highlight which resources and bed he's using, along with a pointer to where he is currently (or highlight the settler himself). Additionally, you'll be able to tell him to move and reassign him like if you had selected him, for easy use.

 

8. Making a menu where we can easily track who does what (names or numbers would make this way easier), like "Bob : 6 corn crops + 3 mutfruit crops, Bill : scavenging station, Ben : 3 guard posts, Beth : nothing" this could be accessible from a new craftable item, a settlement terminal, the workshop menu in the pip-boy, or just somewhere in a corner of the screen in building mode. (or even use the last idea to implement that)

Instead of (or in addition to) the previous suggestion, write the settler's name/number on the resources he is using. You could walk up to a guard post and see "used by Ben". In the same fashion, the opposite could be done : writing which resources a settler is working on, you could target Bob and see written "using 6 corn crops + 3 mutfruit crops".

 

9. This one could make things more confusing and isn't necessary if the previous ideas have been implemented, it's a cheaper way of making things easier : number the resources, and refer to those numbers when accessing the info on who is using what.

Example : you have planted 12 corn crops and 6 mutfruit crops, but do not know which ones Bob is using, because it is just saying "using 6 corn crops + 3 mutfruit crops". The easy solution is giving numbers to the crops and referring to them : "using corn crops 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 + mutfruit crops 3, 4, 5", and then you could walk up to crops to check their numbers. The formatting is awful, it's just an idea.

 

I find the settlements disappointing in their current state, from a management pov, building pov and from a settlers AI point of view.

The management quickly gets messy, especially in small but crowded settlements. Building is generally tedious because of lack / poor quality of auto-placement, and it is usually hard not to make structures float. And the settlers don't make it better, with the repetitive quests, lack of interaction between settlers (except those that are named and unique), messy AI and the lonely and disappointing "I want to trade some items" dialogue option that makes you feel like your character shares absolutely nothing with the settlers.

I have seen mods address some of the building issues, which is a great start.

 

Now this thread is about giving some ideas to make the management part better. I hope modders can make use of that, and I encourage everyone to give their opinion on the matter.

 

Edit : other ideas on the same subject

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3469205-counter-for-of-idle-settlers-show-current-job-on-mouseover-assign-random-idle-settler-button/

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/3482720-strategic-settlement-mod/

Edited December 2, 2015 by Servietsky