Gotta vent

[TheOriginalEvilD]

So, overall I'd say I'm a supporter of this game. I love it. I have nearly 400 hours into it, and it's the only game I've played since it came out (completely broke me off of GTA5, thank God).

 

But, the settlement building, specifically the way pieces refuse to snap into places that SHOULD easily snap into, is getting real friggin old. I'm not talking about trying to clip something into a spot that may or may not fit, I'm talking about something as simple as putting a wall onto the side of a damn platform. This latest DLC seems by far the worst yet for this. I'm using the Simple Intersection mod but it doesn't seem to make a difference with these pieces. I spent this morning building a pretty simple arena which should have been very easy to build since it was raised off the ground so there isn't anything it should have been clipping, but the damn walls just won't go into place.

 

 

Then, there's the AI. I first built a pretty over the top arena that had two settler doors (one for each team red/blue) and then several other doors for each type of creature. This way I could have fights with all sorts of creatures and all sorts of combinations. I tried it out first with the settlers, and they just stood there. OK, so they weren't in a straight line of sight, I guess that's the problem. So, I rebuild the whole thing with just two settler doors and one deathclaw door, but I made sure to make the settler doors right across from each other, with 4 floor platforms of space between them. Still stood there.

 

Ok fine I guess I'll ring a damn bell to get them to come out. This works, but then the whole town comes. SHM

 

Then I try it with the deathclaw....oh don't worry about that because the entire town rushes over to destroy him before the dumbass settler even leaves his "pad". Oh, and I hope you don't have turrets anywhere close to your arena, because they'll rain down hell on your creatures.

 

So, I guess the only way you can really do this is if you pick a settlement and dedicate it solely to an arena with no defense, no settlers, and you just send settlers over one at a time if you want them to fight. So much for immersion.

 

 

 

 

On a brighter side, I do love the new concrete stuff, despite the way it refuses to snap together worth a crap. The concrete steps are GREAT especially since they easily snap together to make longer stairs without that flat platform between each section like the wooden stairs uses. I also like the steel rails, string lights (hell a lot of the light options FINALLY...can't believe we didn't get simple desk lamps with the base game).

 

But, overall I gotta say I'm happy with this DLC, but also really frustrated by it at the same time. I know someone is sure to come in and tell me how they're not having any problems at all with it...I'm not sure what I could be doing wrong, it's just building after all.

 

If anyone is aware of a mod that can make this easier for me, I'd like to hear it. Would that "place anywhere" mod fix this? Sometimes it's something as simple as the power door only snapping with the power connector on the inside and it won't let me spin it around to place it the other way. I don't get it.

[Ethreon]

SI doesn't work for items where it wasn't applied. Having SI in your load order doesn't work for any items except the ones the author initially applied it to, which is mainly part of the vanilla ones. So yea.. place everywhere, disable surface snapping, and everything will snap right into place, even in walls.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

SI doesn't work for items where it wasn't applied. Having SI in your load order doesn't work for any items except the ones the author initially applied it to, which is mainly part of the vanilla ones. So yea.. place everywhere, disable surface snapping, and everything will snap right into place, even in walls.

 

 

I'll give it a try. Thanks

[UnderwaterFrenetic]

Dunno if you already have it, or if your question just applies to the new DLC, but I use Homemaker and Alternate Settlements together, and building and the like has become a lot easier! Things snap quite nicely, and there's a lot of variety when it comes to materials and windows and such. I think, however, there are things that overlap, like concrete foundations and steps being in both the mods and the Wasteland Workshop, and I don't know if that makes them incompatible. Just throwing that out there, in case it could help you. :D

[piddy3825]

"So, I guess the only way you can really do this is if you pick a settlement and dedicate it solely to an arena with no defense, no settlers, and you just send settlers over one at a time if you want them to fight. So much for immersion."

 

Starlight Drive In makes the best arena site imho, you got a pretty flat square layout to work with which facilitates building a battle arena there quite well. I too never could get my settlers to fight each other either, although i do believe there may be a console command that toggles the combat AI. As a result I just pitted settler vs. raider, or settler vs. creature or creature vs. creature and some epic battles ensued. I assume you are familiar with the console command that allows you access any, any, NPC inventory, which is awesome as you can customize matches based on equipment and or weapons used.

[JuJooGuppy]

A thing to note that can cause the concrete set to be a little troublesome at times, is it appears to have a couple sets of snap points, due to its thickness. Its hard for me to explain exactly, but it can snap differently than the other walls since they are thicker, so sometimes getting what you want takes a little jockeying around with it.

[Ethreon]

The base wall comes with 34 snap points. Half of them are solely to allow angle snap and corner snap (to fill the corner gap). There are 4 more snap points (of the 34) to allow classic walls to snap on each side of the concrete wall (so yea, you can put shack walls on them). There's also a stack point top and one bottom (hehe, something we had for a while now).

 

On the other hand, the railings had 1 snap point. Cause you know, we only want to put them on top of the building. Personally I fixed that in my mod :P

[Fatalmasterpiece]

What you don't like the workshop dance? Duh-da-duh-da snap, duh-da snap

[JuJooGuppy]

Thanks Ethreon-- Hadn't looked yet, just certainly felt that way, so, glad I am not crazy. And yeah, the railings lacking other snaps is silly.

[ddavies10693]

Personally I could've lived without the arenas even in the DLC, and I doubt I'll ever use them much.

 

"Join the Minutemen! We'll build entire houses for you, keep your settlements safe and rescue your friend after he gets kidnapped by raiders every five minutes... oh and we'll likely make you fight in hellish, never ending death battles against various creatures, and if you're lucky maybe even your own relatives."

 

Personally I think a DLC focusing on arena battles (if there was a large desire for that among the fans) would've been a lot better if you were able to reopen the Combat Zone and manage it, eventually generating income and attracting large, non-raider crowds, instead of creating blood sport arenas all across the commonwealth. That's the venting I wanted to do.