All Vanilla Assets for Settlements

[damanding]

Setting the infeasibility of making all those constructible objects aside, allowing users to build throughout most of the game map without the Creation Kit would be a huge performance nightmare. This particular game uses precombined meshes to improve performance. As soon as you start scrapping/building things you break existing precombined meshes and your performance decreases. With the CK you always have the option of re-building the precombined meshes after modifying an area, though this then introduces incompatibilities with mods that alter the same area.

[Vormina]

One does not simply make every object and area buildable...

 

Constructable objects aside, Precombined mesh issues aside, incompatible with most other mods aside, it would take hours just to look through menus to find things, it takes me too long as it is with the mods I have now.

 

Making every object buildable will also need it to be scrappable, there's another can of worms.

 

Making settlements in areas with quests before you complete them, probable conflicts. Not to mention if the cells your building in are not set as that settlement's location, you end up with all kinds of settler/job assigning problems.

 

And then, there's everyone's favorite issue, the pip boy settlement stats page. I don't know about anyone else, but mine goes nuts with just the vanilla settlements and the few modded ones I have, I'd hate to see what it does with a lot more settlements active.

 

As much as I would love to be able to build everything everywhere, as others have stated this game isn't really designed or capable of handling it.

[klokwerkaos]

Setting the infeasibility of making all those constructible objects aside, allowing users to build throughout most of the game map without the Creation Kit would be a huge performance nightmare. This particular game uses precombined meshes to improve performance. As soon as you start scrapping/building things you break existing precombined meshes and your performance decreases. With the CK you always have the option of re-building the precombined meshes after modifying an area, though this then introduces incompatibilities with mods that alter the same area.

I've noticed a couple of work arounds for pre culling issues, but they do offer a performance hit, so that's something I had to learn to do deal with either way (either a performance hit from pre culling mods, or a performance hit from stuff blinking out due to mesh issues, usually I just build around the mesh issues when I scrap something I'm not supposed to and make it part of the building).

 

I think the notion of what you're saying is true though.

 

I've managed to do most of what I was looking for already with existing mods and console commands, it's just too much of a nightmare on fps to the point where eventually the game becomes unplayable with even a decent gaming rig.

 

I guess it's just something I hope they consider for #5, but I don't have a lot of faith since everything I've seen from the modding tutorials shows they have very inconsistent practices not only in this game but also in skyrim and it's kind of their trademark, hence why all the glitches exist on day one.

I get it's a huge undertaking, but it's also something that can be streamlined if you come up with a system of standard best practices and apply a decent QA team to, then again, I'm just the peanut gallery and I'm not an actual developer trying to work with a budget, so there is that.

 

It would be nice though, to be able to have the absolute freedom.

[klokwerkaos]

One does not simply make every object and area buildable...

 

Constructable objects aside, Precombined mesh issues aside, incompatible with most other mods aside, it would take hours just to look through menus to find things, it takes me too long as it is with the mods I have now.

 

Making every object buildable will also need it to be scrappable, there's another can of worms.

 

Making settlements in areas with quests before you complete them, probable conflicts. Not to mention if the cells your building in are not set as that settlement's location, you end up with all kinds of settler/job assigning problems.

 

And then, there's everyone's favorite issue, the pip boy settlement stats page. I don't know about anyone else, but mine goes nuts with just the vanilla settlements and the few modded ones I have, I'd hate to see what it does with a lot more settlements active.

 

As much as I would love to be able to build everything everywhere, as others have stated this game isn't really designed or capable of handling it.

 

Incompatibility with other mods that alter the same cells is an issue regardless and that's not a new problem. I've already run into that with a bunch of mods that already exist now, primarily settlement mods.

 

The menus would indeed be difficult at first, but if they were categorized well it would make the options pretty intuitive once someone got used to it, and in this theoretical mod that probably won't ever exist, it's a mod, so if someone didn't like the huge amount of options they could just not dl it and versions could be added that would allow for "Just X category" for people that wanted to split up certain things and pick and choose what they wanted.

 

Settler job assigning problems are something that I've managed to work around in that you can use conquest to assign up to ten new settlements, and even then, you don't have to make a functional settlement necessarily.

 

I did one diner/red rocket where I rebuilt them and just plopped some spawned npc synths to operate it since there wasn't any area to build grow areas, and there wasn't any area to grow food, and they started using the animation markers making it a "live world" that they would also defend, plus it was in a harsh neighborhood so actual humans being there wasn't the best idea anyhow. Point being, not everything needs to be a settlement to be a functional piece of the world.

 

I hear you with the pip boy stats though, that's something that has a problem in vanilla though.

 

Even with no mods that thing is never accurate once you have more than a few settlements, so basically I, as a player, and this is bad UX, but still, just stopped using it and would manually manage my settlements by going there and checking every once in a while.

 

When it comes to settlement quests, i had thought about that and I would suggest the following which is a lore aspect: Make it suggested the mod not be installed until after the core game is completed. This also then gives the sole survivor a new mission, which is to rebuild the commonwealth with whatever faction they choose, and allow them to rebuild the commonwealth with their own creative vision in combination with whatever faction politics they subscribe to. It just basically adds a final dimension to the game, and frankly, I know it's not a reqiured notion, but I always tell people that unless they need a cheat mod (which they don't because of console commands) it's best to play through a vanilla run first so you can understand what the game is supposed to be, and therefore grasp what a mod is supposed to do, and if it's working as you want it to, otherwise you're not going to understand or appreciate why it is or isn't useful.

 

Plus, even if someone wants to jump right in, they can break their quests if they want, or just complete them with console commands in case they don't care about the story much.

 

I'm not saying someone should do it, necessarily, i was just wondering why it hadn't been done, and I think I have my answer, it's too damned much work, and it would present a lot of challenges and potential performance hits.

[Ethreon]

The mesh work itself is monumental. Nobody wants to do that :)

[klokwerkaos]

The mesh work itself is monumental. Nobody wants to do that :smile:

likely the type of thing that would need a kickstarter (if that's even legal given the third party nature) and a bunch of people willing to sign on, I see that.

 

I just wish there was a way to get a decent, non buggy load order that maximized options.

 

With tons of mods it makes tons of potential incompatibility, and worse, tracking down the incompatibility is a nightmare once you get over 20 or so, and I'm maxed out with 256 plugins, and every time I change anything it takes me days to figure out what went wrong.

 

I guess that's why I've been looking into mod creation more recently though.

 

If I can figure out how to do what I want in CK I should be able to just release whatever I am making as a mod myself later and maybe eventually contribute something worthwhile.