Planning a player home mod - a personal vault - but where?

[Jones813]

I'm toying with the idea of making a player home that is actually a small, personal/single family vault that the player can find and gain access to. It'd be a normal vault (no experiments) that Vault Tec built for a wealthy, connected client before the war. Ideally, what I would like to do is set up a small quest via notes and/or computer entries that the player will have to complete to gain access. Nothing too complicated. Maybe even as simple as having the vault access area behind a locked door or something that requires a key and the player has to track it down. I'm currently trying to select a good location for the vault home and would welcome any suggestions. The following criteria are desirable.

 

• A mansion type house similar to Croup Manor or the Spectacle Island mansion (to realistically explain how the occupant could afford to contract the construction of a personal vault) but not CM or SI since those are settlement locations.
• A somewhat secluded area, not in any large neighborhoods and definitely not in the downtown area (to help realistically sell the fact that it's never been broken into).
• Some wildlife enemies in the area (again, to help explain the vault has never been broken into - people avoid the location because of the hostile wildlife there so no one ever found the vault but the wildlife don't have the intelligence to care to try to get in.)
• A location that is not terribly easy nor terribly difficult to get to. I mean, I want it to be more difficult to get to than walking to Concord because of what I'm planning to put inside, but not like Spectacle Island difficult to get to.
• And lastly, no established lore reason why there wouldn't be a personal vault there. i.e., no notes or computer entries that lead back to the location and reveal that the family had a spot in another vault or something.

 

So far the only good candidate I've found that matches all criteria is Westing Estate. It's a private estate so that means the owners had plenty of money. It's pretty secluded, no neighborhoods or anything around. The ground has sunken and flooded and there are mirelurks which would deter most raiders and scavvers from exploring the place or trying to set up shop. It's a little on the easy side to get to but it's not as easy as walking to Concord or something. Lastly, as far as I know there's nothing in game that would contradict the existence of a personal single family vault being there (anyone know of anything?). All that sounds good but the location is going to require some editing to the exterior since I can't realistically put a hatch to the vault access tunnels in the floor of the sunken main house (the vault access tunnels would have filled with water).

 

Anyone know of another good spot to consider? I might even end up just creating a whole new location, adding a big house and some hostile wildlife etc to an otherwise empty location on the map.

[montky]

@jones813

Thank you for inviting folks to collaborate on your exegesis and settlement build.

thank you also for sharing some awesome ideas.

Lore wise, it's fine! think "blast from the past" hehe

some pre-war folks must have been fairly rich considering the cost of the magazines and nuka colas from FO4,

so maybe they built projects of their own after Vault Tec or Pulaski or elsewhere wouldn't take their business...

 

There are several places which may match the criteria -

due east of South Boston Checkpoint - a utility shed is built under an overpass, that would be a perfect cover for it being presumed to be government utility etc.

Fort Hagen - any of the houses to the north-east.

West Roxbury Estates,

Jamaica Plains

Several 'garage'/'power armor workshops' near Boston Airport and diamond city.

Outer Lexington

Fairline Hill Estate and Fallons area*

Malden (a little too close to V75)

Natick north

Nahant

The south east-east of Glowing sea towards the bay.

or, west south-west of the Red Rocket Glowing Sea location.

North-North West of Sunshine Co-op.

 

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As to the format of the vault etc;

we have a few alongside Vault Tec to consider -

FONV's BoS and Enclave vaults,

FO3's entrances to some of it's vaults.

 

so, using the FONV craftable assets pack,

or "any door any where" etc,

you could put a FONV style door in a garage, perhaps concealed under a vehicle turntable disguised as a repair bay/pit

this leads to the access corridor, decon nozzles and locker room

and perhaps not a full-style Vault-Tec door, but some other kind of blast door,

with a bunker-style access partition and sliding entrance to be able to blast intruders etc.

then with the more familiar Vault Tec or Enclave interiors or industrial interiors.

there'd be a periscope - perhaps alluding to the pre-war employment of said bunker occupants.

 

as to how the vault entryway would be designed, you might find youtuber bridgeboy513's 'mine/vault'

insightful.

It has a conveyor belt, and is at an angle, designed to catch and divert water etc.

there's also one built into a drainage channel and sub-excavated that way. it's like "the great escape" in order to get to it,

via crawling for ~80m, then opens out into a more room-sized arrangement.

Cody's lab also has a 'mine'/'vault', though that is more like little lamplight.

 

this is before we consider greek-rage's "concealable hidden entrances" etc

so, you could have concealed panels in a basement, or a floor elevator,

a manhole cover to a FONV-style Novac blast channel or carpark basement...

a lift-up dog house door,

the art-deco sliding jaw door,

all kinds of doors.

 

I think a lot of folks would try and build stuff,

but because they aren't familiar with geotechnical,

they erode foundations or break pipes etc...

and there'd be cave-ins... pre-war, they were under rations,

so they'd have to be discrete and clandestine in how they built stuff so as not

to arouse suspicions.

 

I hope this gives some options,

and I look forward to seeing screencaps of what you come up with

[PoorlyAged]

Terse answer: Glowing Sea

 

Verbose answer: The Glowing Sea has a few demolished sites that are ripe for what you have described. Isolated is a given in the dead center of the Glowing Sea. And a location underground with a fast travel point (like RR Headquarters or Vault 88) would be an outstanding fete.