Is settlement building necessary in this game?

[Shivux]

Or can you play it without using this feature at all?

[Stargazer09]

It's certainly possible to play the game without building any settlements at all, but you'd be missing out on a big chunk of the game, and would also make it impossible to complete the main quest with one of the game's factions, although if memory serves you can finish the main quest with the other factions. And you'd be making the point of one of the DLCs redundant.

[Perraine]

Simple answer ... Almost.

 

Regardless of what faction you choose, at some point you will have to build "something", but you don't have to build settlements at all. But as Stargazer09 pointed out, you'll be missing a big chunk of the game, Without the settlement/workshop system FO4 is little better (and in some ways worse) than FO3/NV really.

[Ondrea]

As someone who doesn't enjoy that aspect of Fallout 4, I have avoided building settlements completely on my current character, so yep you sure can but you'll miss out on quests with one of the factions. Any settlements you do a quest for will still show up in your pip-boy, but you're not obligated to build anything there.

[Rabbit1251]

I'm currently playing it without settlements for the most parts. The key is to not talk to Preston Garvey in the first place. Do not activate any of the settlers work benches except for one so that you have a place to gather your stuff. Sanctuary works fine for me.

 

Without settlements or the Minutemen you will get a a great deal less than normal experience points. You will have to get it all from killing mostly and doing a few quests. But you will be free.

 

 

The Rabbit

[Fonger]

you could go pure BOS

 

use the Blimp as your home

 

and enslave the commonwealth

 

(quartermaster quests)

[JimmyRJump]

Odd question, in that it can be interpreted two-fold: necessary as in, does the game need a feature like settlement building? Or, necessary as in, can you play the game without getting involved in settlement building at all?

 

First anwser is No. The game doesn't need settlement building as a feature, but then, we can say that about a lot of things in the game as it mostly comes down to personal taste.

 

Second answer is yes. You can easily play the game without settlement building anywhere, even in Sanctuary. Although for the latter (if you decide to go rescue Garvey from a sore throat due to screaming "help" and "up here" all the time) you need to unlock the WorkShop in order to satisfy certain needs the Wild Preston Bunch have. But you don't have to add a radio beacon to attract new settlers. And you'll have to either avoid Preston like the plague or use a mod to shut him up, else you'll wind-up with quests to go save a settlement or unlock one. Of course, once you've gotten such a quest, you don't have to do it and after a few days you'll fail the quest.

 

For me, settlement building is what saves the game from being rather tedious. That, and mods. So, I have a lot of mods of which half are settlement mods (i.e. settlements added through mods) a quarter are build ingredient mods and the rest Power Armor and weapon mods. Plus over a hundred retextures that don't have a plug-in.

 

In other words, for me settlement development is essential and the main drive to continue playing the game. I'm underway to getting 10000hrs on the FO4 counter, so, hey...

[llamaRCA]

You never have to build settlements and can even work with the Minutemen by doing very, very little. I hate the settlement building stuff but I like to finish the game with the Minutemen and manage to do it with the bare minimum of settlement-related effort.

 

To finish the MQ with the Minutemen I only do what I have to in Sanctuary for Preston; just enough to finish that quest. When he sends me out to settlements I do the quest only and never do anything at those settlements and when he sends me on the one where I have to clear it out and set up a beacon I just set up the beacon and immediately take it down as soon as the objective clears in the Pipboy. I don't care what happiness levels the settlements have and ignoring them has never interfered with successfully completing the MQ.

 

Settlements are useful in Survival though, but even then, I build like one bed for my character to sleep in and a water pump and never do anything else.

 

My favorite thing to do at settlements is scrapall in the console (in places without settlers), leave those settlements completely barren except for putting in lots of water pumps and then I go through periodically to collect the water to sell it for caps.

[cossayos]

As has been said, the game would be worse than FO3 and certainly FNV without settlement building. Apart from that aspect there's virtually nothing memorable at all.

[snapper69]

I've quite enjoyed building settlement and populating them, it makes me feel like I'm making a difference, I wish that Bethesda had taken it further and allowed me to build up a network of settlements that eventually led to peace.