Why is vanilla building such a train wreck?

[SirGalahad]

I don't have Homemaker or other popular building mods installed. I have Scrap Everything, as the vanilla experience is simply crippling.

 

I want to do something with Tenpines Bluff.

 

The only "fences" you can sink into the ground are concrete walls? Who thought that was a good idea? You have to use concrete, unless it doesn't bother you to have floating fences above uneven terrain? And getting one piece to snap to the next in a line can be nearly impossible, as the game demands right angles by default, apparently.

 

Want to put a prefabricated building down? Hope it fits on a foundation, then hope you can attach stairs to the foundation. I can't get the height of foundations to match stairs or stairs to match foundations. Either something ends up floating, or the stairs refuse to be placed partially underground. It is so difficult to control the Y axis in construction that I feel the existing implementation was intended to discourage building, altogether.

 

And you can't change perspective to see if what you are building fits properly on a plot of land. Everything is done from a worm's eye view. It's ridiculous.

 

I'm not looking to put glass skyscrapers or combat arenas in Tenpines Bluff. I want something that simply looks like it belongs there.

 

Any recommendations?

Edited April 14, 2018 by SirGalahad

[jkruse05]

To be perfectly honest I found it to be better, in many ways, than a lot of similar systems in other games, but yes, there are certainly some frustrations. Place Everywhere will solve most of your woes. It lets you, well, place everywhere, but also toggle snapping, scale objects, refine their positions with new keybindings, and numerous other things. With just that and Scrap Everything you can have a pretty good 'vanilla' experience. It will require F4SE.

Oh, I haven't messed with it, but try 'tfc' in the console and see that free-fly camera works better for building for you.

Edited April 14, 2018 by jkruse05

[jones177]

Hi

 

All the game editors I have ever used have been a pain.

 

What I do to make it easier is to use tools. For better placement I use the "Shack Stairs". Using it gives me a better "birds eye" view.

 

Later in the game I also use Cross Jetpack https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12471

 

I have tried tfc & it did not work for me.

 

Later

[crawe1x]

The idea of letting the player build their own settlements is a brilliant one. The implementation of that idea, however, is truly terrible. After two years, even with a huge number of settlement mods, I just gave up. Now Sim Settlements does all the heavy lifting in my playthroughs, and I just tweak the settlements afterwards, if at all. It's spared me a lot of frustration.

[sinlessorrow]

Game should have been like sim settlements is now with ROTC. gives the options of the player or npc building srttlements

[thrax7545]

I know it's been said, and rightly so, but Place Everywhere.

I'll never build without it again...

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

Most games, even dedicated builder games have terrible building systems. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because game designers have rules to follow in terms of making their games accessible to players whilst generally trying to minimize bugs and glitches, so, when they create a build system, they keep the tools simple and limit it in such a way that they know their game's other functions will be able to cooperate. Also a lot of the problems you're talking about (like perspective and lack of freedom with placement) has a lot to do with the fact that Fallout 4 is an FPS Giving you a free camera angle and gizmos is super cool if you're only interested in building but it's a huge departure from the game's core mechanics and would require a lot of work (and may even be impossible, given the current engine) to implement in a polished way. Since there's been a lot of speculation that Bethesda is finally building a new engine, so a better build system might be on the way for future games.

Place Everywhere should allow you to drop fences down into the ground. If you want to move through the air (or through walls, or the ground) to get a better view or access those hard-to-reach places, open up console and type "TCL". If those two things give you the precision and freedom you need, then I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with the Creation Kit. It's obviously a lot harder to pick up since it's not really meant for us regular jackoffs, but once you get a hang of it you can do all sorts of things that aren't possible with in-game tools, like terraforming, custom lights, optimization...

[jkruse05]

Most games, even dedicated builder games have terrible building systems. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because game designers have rules to follow in terms of making their games accessible to players whilst generally trying to minimize bugs and glitches, so, when they create a build system, they keep the tools simple and limit it in such a way that they know their game's other functions will be able to cooperate. Also a lot of the problems you're talking about (like perspective and lack of freedom with placement) has a lot to do with the fact that Fallout 4 is an FPS Giving you a free camera angle and gizmos is super cool if you're only interested in building but it's a huge departure from the game's core mechanics and would require a lot of work (and may even be impossible, given the current engine) to implement in a polished way. Since there's been a lot of speculation that Bethesda is finally building a new engine, so a better build system might be on the way for future games.

Place Everywhere should allow you to drop fences down into the ground. If you want to move through the air (or through walls, or the ground) to get a better view or access those hard-to-reach places, open up console and type "TCL". If those two things give you the precision and freedom you need, then I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with the Creation Kit. It's obviously a lot harder to pick up since it's not really meant for us regular jackoffs, but once you get a hang of it you can do all sorts of things that aren't possible with in-game tools, like terraforming, custom lights, optimization...

Just keep in mind that 'tcl' has an issue where anything you place while it is active cannot be snapped TO until you turn tcl off, which is why I suggested trying 'tfc' instead. Of course, if tfc doesn't work then tcl is really the only option.

[Addikti]

Just keep in mind that 'tcl' has an issue where anything you place while it is active cannot be snapped TO until you turn tcl off, which is why I suggested trying 'tfc' instead. Of course, if tfc doesn't work then tcl is really the only option.

 

Hotkeying prid; tcl to a key combo and then macroing that combo to a keyboard macro key or mouse button makes it a bit more comfortable to use. I use this approach (very extensively) while building because the normal movement dynamics are preserved and it also allows me to move between floors very quickly. Or stop mid-fall.

 

Also, SirGalahad, if you want to build something that looks like it belongs to the game world, Snappy HouseKit is worth a look. Wastelandify with shack parts if necessary. And you would want Homemaker for the snappable chainlink fences, if you want something that follows the terrain.

[metaphorset]

To answer the question in your headline - vanilla building is such a train wreck because Bethesda's main focus lies on Console Gamers. If it doesn't work with five buttons or so, it's simply not worth to put more effort into it. The rest - well, "mods will fix it". And they did. Use "Scrap Everything", "Place Everywhere" and the console with "disable" and "markfordelete" for things that are still not scapable (one of the mattresses in the Tenpines shack) and you are good to go.