Fallout 4 Homesteader's Log

[Deleted51833871User]

In this play through of Fallout 4, the first thing that I did is head straight for Spectacle Island. I exited Vault 111, spoke to Codsworth, and then made my way directly to Spectacle Island. I am using the Spectacle Island Flattened mod, the one that adds actual grass to a completely flat and empty Spectacle Island. I am also using the Ground mod, the one that gives the builder the large flat dirt blocks for farming. One of the reasons I love that mod so much is A) The ground has dirt ramps that are properly meshed for settlers to walk up them, and B) the farming plants actually snap into the dirt making perfect rows and numbers of crops possible. So, I arrive to Spectacle Island and the first thing that I do is build a large garden full of all the available crops in the game. Naturally, I built a gardening fence around the entire area as well and added some trees around for shade, and flavor. I use Functional Objects Overhaul as well, which allows for green, red and orange living trees to be planted.

 

When I am finished with the garden, the next task is to build a dream-house. I use the Building Blocks mod for the foundation and separate every room in the house by a single row of five foot by five foot stone blocks so that essentially, no room is right against another. With The Master Plan mod, I am able to have stackable vanilla walls so I can cover the stone room barriers wit wooden walls making it appear like the stone behind them isn't even there. Also, the reason I separate each room by these stone blocks is because of lighting. With this method, it is much easier to create actual electrical lighting for each room without it it interfering with the adjoining room when the rooms are separated by five feet of stone. I also use the PCPO mod which gives the builder varying degrees of conduits including those with 0 passive power. With that mod I can easily create the needed electrical lightning for each room with out that light or electricity interfering with any other room.

For the ceilings. I have never liked in Fallout 4 how the rain passes through a concrete solid roof making all of the interiors look wet. Using the five foot stone blocks from Building Blocks for the roof of the house helps to reduce this (although it does not regrettably completely eliminate it). For the kitchen I use the Modular Kitchen mod and Snap 'N Build for the kitchen and for many other parts of the house as well. I almost always do a counter layout for the kitchen in one of the corners that includes upper and lower cabinets, stoves and refrigerators and then I build an island of kitchen counters out from that corner as well, giving me a well-built kitchen. For the floors I use the red and white tile from Snap 'N Build.

Regarding doors, I have discovered that The Master Plan has a door frame that actually allows for double doors to snap into the frame. It also provides them. I will never use any other mod forever forward than The Master Plan for doors.

The bedroom is usually on the second story of the home, accessed by a set of marble stairs from the Catdeco mod for carpeting, floors, railings and stairs. That mod is by far the best mod for carpeting on vanilla floors as well. Just know that it does not work with Snap 'N Build flooring, and only vanilla floors as far as I know, but it does snap the carpet into place for a perfect fit. The bedroom is accompanied by a large master bathroom with tan marble flooring from Snap 'N Build that includes a section of carpeting for a laundry area.

TIP: If you're looking for some awesome lighting tricks, check out the Colorful Bottle Lanterns mod. I never Fallout 4 without it. It is great for adding mood lighting to a garden or a balcony or deck perhaps. It has a ton of fantastic uses.

I often accompany the bedroom with a large office as well. For this room the Creative Clutter mod, OCDecorator, and Do It Yourshelf are quintessential mods for the office. They provide desks and filled bookshelves and all of the office clutter needed to make an office look well lived-in. The Master Plan has snappable couches and furniture that makes placing these types of items in line perfectly a snap, lol.
My dream house somewhere includes a large armory surrounded in stone blocks that is accessible via elevator and is usually at the top of the house somewhere. I like to surround the front of this elevator in a set of jail walls and doors that make the elevator look considerably off-limits to the general public.

TIP: For the jail wall that acts as a doorway, you can actually double-place the jail doors so that they open to both the right and the left. It gives it a bit of a unique feel from the standard single door and works perfectly with no clipping or interference issues.

As weapons go in Fallout 4, I use the Modern Farearms and Modern Sidearms mods which add a HUGE selection of modern assault rifles, grenade launchers, heavy weapons, machine guns, sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns and pistols to the game and are highly modifiable. If you aren't using this mod I promise you are missing out on some great stuff. One of the reasons I like this mod particularly is that it puts some actually seriously dangerous weapons into the hands of human enemies. Short of having a fully upgraded set of full gear, when shot by most of these weapons, you die in about two hits which to me makes combat significantly more fun and realistic. You can no longer just run up to an enemy that is shooting you and just take the hits and then heal afterward. You actually have to use available cover and know that you're dead if you get shot. It's fun!

I like to add a firing range that is long-short and explosive range ready. The Building Blocks mod is perfect for this task and Spectacle Island has enough room that it can actually accommodate the range of all of Modern Firearms' sniper rifles. As an added bonus, try out the Long Range Bullet Holes mod. It will allow you to actually see the mark from Modern Firearms' longest shots instead of the bullet just disappearing without making a mark against the target.

TIP: If you want to display all of the Modern Firearms weapons in your armory, on PC, you can use ` and then Help MFContainer 4. Player.placeatme (MFContainer Code) 1. Typically I like to grab all of the weapons for display then just ` 'disable' the chest that they came in. Modern Firearms also has an amazing single suit set of armor when you gain access to the vending machine for the mod through the build menu.