I've been playing with the "place anywhere" and "scrap everything" mods so long I genuinely forgot how much of a pain settlement building is without them

You forgot the worst part about Vault 88: the AI pathfinding When the DLC first came out, I was super excited and finished the whole thing. I built a large enclosed vault in the main cave chamber, only to realize all my effort was wasted, because the settlers would constantly spawn outside the vault walls and get stuck in the cave. I built additional doors, scrapped entire walls, and they were too stupid to even find their beds. Eventually I just gave up and dismantled everything that was nonessential.

I always felt like the very small settlements are meant to act as player bases rather than a town

Hangmans Alley is a great site, super useful in Survival mode, super easy to defend Just DON'T scrap the chained door or far wall chained door - Easy access to everything. River travel, Diamond City, Greater Boston, you don't need to spend 2000 caps to buy home plate immediately for sleeping and x1 Settler which you can pick up for a nuka cola in DC makes it great for producing food and water too. It isn't going to ever be a massive location to rival DC, but that was never the intention. Safe storage, easy savepoint, this location is one of the best for a small scale retreat.

Gray gaming: Hangman's alley is the worst settlement in Fallout 4 murk water construction site: am I a joke to you

hangmans alley is quite useful during a survival playthrough- several chokepoints, close to diamond city/their traders and plot oriented locations. centrally located for exploration and trying not to die

I’m glad someone else brought up Vault 88. It was meant to allow us to build our own vault but it’s designed so poorly that you have to pack everything into the main area or else you’ll be forced to go through the caves because connecting things sucks It’s almost impossible to build a nicely sized and fully connected vault

Honestly the tight inconvenient locations are my favorites. Anyone can build a 30 settler base at Sanctuary. Doing the same at Hangman's Ally takes fineness. But I started with mat glitching even before Place Anywhere was released, so I'm something of a masochist

I actually love Hangman's alley, its my favorite places to build, as if you accept its limitations and try to build within them, it creates an incredibly interesting challenge to overcome. One way in which I did this was by learning to construct half tile by 1 tile sized npc homes, as well as allocating the back half of the alley as literal farm area, rather than just where i stuck some crops, the NPC's cant path there, but By constructing a bar on the bottom center of the alley the path-confused npc's mill around the bar area. By limiting construction to to rim of the alley otherwise, I created a 4 level megaton-esque town, that's mostly open in the middle. Additionally by playing around with the build dimensions of concrete walls (since they have separate placements from other walls) as well as the ladders and wall sizes of barn and workshop wall, you can build a structure using pre-fabs ABOVE the build limit, that furniture and NPC's can be built on and have access to, because the floor of the 4th story is just below the build height limit. Its one of the most limited build spaces yes, but once filled in it feels INCREDIBLY fallout. do I wish there was a higher build hight, as well as the ability to build on the roofs of adjacent buildings? yes, I would have loved to make a Pitt style Up-Town area, but what I do have is tons of fun. And as a bonus, my personal home build above the farm, is spacious, and never suffers the threat of NPC's stealing my goodies since they can't reach it.

To me, every settlement with a massive building area with no unique characteristics to it is a difficult settlement. Take Starlight Drive-in for example. Coming up with an interesting layout, and building designs to fill up all of that space is so much harder than fixing the broken house in Coastal Cottage.

Hangmans Alley definitely wasnt easy, but I have 38 settlers there and its a major hub for my settlement network consisting of 13 other settlements and 8 raider settlements. The key to success at Hangmans Alley is building a second floor and layering with garden plots for crops.

There are spots in The Mechanists Lair that you can sink water pumps. There are small piles of dirt on the floor that will count. The problem is that when you scrap some of the junk on the floor, it also cleans up your dirt. I usually spin a water pump over some of those piles until I get a green place item prompt.

Hangman's Alley is good if you don't want to spend hours building a giant base. It's easy to defend and can look decent with a minimal amount of effort. I just store the recruitment beacon after getting about 4-5 settlers since that's all you really need for that location.

Coastal Cottage would have been number 1 on my list. Not only is it a bad build area, but the site is so far north east that it might as well be in Far Harbor. I can only think they put it there because at the point in game that you get there, you should already have done a bunch of other settlements. Therefore you should have some kind of skill beyond beginner. But still, that place is horrible. I think I only ever built there like 3 times. & once was only because the Railroad made it their Mercer Safehouse.

The Vault can actually be connected to all the caves, I've done it in vanilla. My vault had a five story atrium, a club, a dedicated science lab next to the water purifier, and a gun range and 3 story basketball court. It's not without its problems, like adequately lighting everything, but it's awesome when you put work into it.

I often find the settlements with the most "challenges" are actually the easiest and most entertaining to build in because of the limitations they impose forcing you to both be creative but not have it be impossibly open ended so that you don't know where to begin

There is definitely a reason that whenever I build Vault 88 it becomes an underground city where each building is its own Vault Tec style build. It's far too difficult to make an actual Vault without mods so I just make a town.

For me, it's Murkwater. All the swampy ground, the unscrapable trees and most of all the Mirelurk Queen that can spawn just outside means I never touch it. Of course, to be honest, in most of my playthroughs nowadays, the only settlement building I do is the stuff around Sanctuary that Sturges wants and fixing up the Castle if I'm going for a Minuteman ending.

I honestly love hangman's alley, it's been incredibly helpful in hardcore playthroughs, and on my latest playthrough where I build a themed settlement at every available site in the game, I chose to make a very vertical bustling town. Stairs and walkways galore, rooftop bars, bus homes, beds under boards, covered ground level walkway with all the food and trading stands, houses farther up, some drug dens. No electricity, all fire barrels, candles and torches lighting the community. Very comfortable

Just a little addition to the vault 88 buildable area. The way it's walls are placed is just infuriating. They are just like 20 cms shorter than the size of a block and so when you're planning to place 2 additional blocks on each side of your vault, you burst in tears having to replace everything you've made already.

I personally find the best use for the Mechanists Lair is to have it be a robot provisioner hub. It costs a fair amount of resources like you said, but it makes my settlements look better. Plus if all my Robots are based out of the Lair I'm not losing happiness in other settlements as a result.

I actually really like Hangman’s alley. If you just take it from the North side and don’t unlock any of the other doors, it becomes one of the most easily defended settlements in the game. All that space that settlers don’t go to is perfect for making a kill box that shreds, burns and bruises whatever’s stupid enough to come waltzing on in. Yeah it’s a small build area but it doesn’t have to be a sprawling township either. Just enough food and water to be self sustaining and maybe a shop or two and you’re golden.

Vault 88 is one of my favorite settlement. I didn't build a vault, I made an entire undergroung town, Diamond City style, with wood, concrete and metal. I used a warehouse elevator to make three floors filed with shops, houses and wathever your imagination provides you with. The result is a great post apocalyptic atmosphere and the size of the town makes Diamond City look like a village. It's easy to defend if you don't spread into too many caves. Anyway you can't if you don't want a gost town since there is not enough settlers to live in. Entering the main cave and looking up at a three story town provides a very nice view. The main problem: like mentioned above, all settlers remain in the same spots. But still, it's worth it.

Tip for Vault 88: avoiding scrapping the two barricades (the one in the subway area, and the other in the pharmacy area) prevents attacks from the caves, as those two points are enemy spawn poinst who gets activated by removing said barricades. At that point, the only enemy spawn point will be the one at the front gate. Close the gate and watch raiders rant about it ^_^

For Jamaica Plains I usually put crops and water pumps in the parking lot, then use the broken second story to place building tiles to have people live there; by using the balcony pieces you can have elevated watchmen during attacks. The bus on the corner can't be scrapped but you do have _just_ enough area within the buildable zone to put a turret up there. Since enemies can spawn to the south it is best to point the turret in that direction. Settlers don't go south normally either, so you can even put some traps at the extreme end of the buildable zone and have them hit enemies(a rarity given how much of a PITA it is to use traps normally).

I actually really like hangman's alley. It's definitely one of the more challenging locations and I think that's what I like about it

The thing about Hangman's Alley is that it's unfortunately the best settlement for Survival Mode. It's close to Diamond City, in the middle of the map, but most importantly it's right next to the CIT ruins, which is the only location you can teleport to in Survival Mode.

The Mechanist's Lair is a very good settlement for the one thing I saw it used for, supply lines. The guy built one robot for every settlement that exists, didn't modify them at all, and sent them to supply line all of the other settlements. This way, having the robots doesn't lower the happiness of the settlements because every robot is considered to permanently have 50% happiness, and now all your settlements are connected without losing manpower. The guy also built a fun crazy contraption with conveyor belts in there because he could.

I've actually used Hangman's Alley as my primary player character residence in most playthroughs, mainly for it's central location. For whatever reason, I have never had as much trouble with spawns and attacks - about four turrets overlooking the doors and 1-2 NPC guards seem to make short work of them. It is much better with mods to increase the scrapable material, of course.

I actually find the vault one to be my favorite, it can give you a lot of resources and it's easy to defend since enemies can only come from 3 places as long as you stick to one area of the vault that is

If you don't open up the back entrances to Vault 88, you can bottleneck your enemies at the Vault Entrance and it takes seconds to repel an invasion. It's actually THE easiest to defend that way even without mods.

I absolutely LOVED the format and the commentary of this video. It was so engaging and I couldn’t help but stay attentive the entire time. Super witty and super entertaining! Subscribed 😎😎

Hangman's Alley is actually my favorite. Don't get me wrong, it's a pain to fit in builds, but not impossible. Usually my central hub for northern and southern settlements.

hangmans alley is good as a hub in survival mode. You can "quick travel" to the institute by teleporting and so reach it very fast. It is big enough to build some food, water and glue production and all the workbenches you need to modify your equipment. For a big lively settlement it is not the right place.

Protip for most of these; use the scrap everything mod. I think it's available on every platform and it definitely helps in Coastal Cottage and Hangman's Alley

Using some settlement mods that allow you to scrap and place much easier, I've actually found Hangman's Alley to be one of my favorite spots to make a settlement. I love verticality, and that settlement pretty much forces it.

No....what do you mean Cotal Cottage isn’t number 1? 🤯 Too small, ugly, hills, and mobs of all kinds wanting to ruin your day

Hangman's Alley is my favorite personal settlement in the game. It's easily defensible with just a few turrets and by not unlocking the front and side doors. It has space enough for food and water to make it self sufficient and while every settler might not get their own house, I found there to be enough space for the limit to hit. I've also never encountered the problem of AI not going to the back.

OOF that last one is very debatable to the point I must say: You have insulted my honour and for that I must subscribe, heh. G'day, But in terms of survival and as a general pitstop that Hangman's Ally is actually quite great an makes for a challenging yet fun three story build with the first floor being either crops or shops, the second floor being beds and workshops and the third floor a garden or outdoor area with a fireplace and access to the tops of surrounding buildings + an inner Boston artillery battery for danger close strikes in battle, And for defence the choke points can be decked with weaponry an the south entry can have turrets outside the walks unlike the other two. Anywho the builds that I've watched in the past three hours on this channel will no doubt be a source of inspiration as I'm currently playing Fo4 for the past two weeks and the settlement building is what makes me sink many hours into this beloved game.

You can actually get more settlers by going back to the Mechanist and she will send you out destroying rogue robots. Sometimes you will encounter Synths, Minutemen or BoS where the robots are located, but sometimes there will be 3 settlers (usually) wandering around, and you can engage with them and send them to any settlement you like! Be careful not to kill them during any melee though. ;) 👍

I actually really liked the mechanists layer, especially in combination with the contraptions DLC. I set up a massive underground factory, that i supplied with scrap etc from ther settlements, and in turn i turned that scrap into guns, and ammo via the presses in contraptions. I also built some original looking industrial protectrons, and guarded the entrances via mag lock doors, and turrets.

Dude... hangman alley is excellent. Easily defended, and plenty of vertical room to lay down 20 beds. Building shops is harder, but being a short walk from diamond city, this is a bonkers useful settlement.

For Vault 88 you can save yourself a lot of hassle if you don't open the other two entrances. As long as you never scrap the barricades blocking them, attackers can only spawn at the main entrance which is pretty easy to fortify.

Love content like this. Brings me back to when FO4 just realesed. Keep it comin! 🙏🏽

Ah Costal Cottage. I remember this one vividly It was a fun challenge to conquer, and I'm happy with what I ended up making... But damn, I do *not* want to do that again

Dude, I've been getting back into fallout 4 (currently over 2k hours) and wanted to master building settlements in every area I can and your videos are straight up golden, and I greatly appreciate your work effort, and time, easily gained a subscriber with masterful writing in this review, hooked me with the Vault 88 review as to me it seems like nobody's really talks about that settlement.

The Mechanists is one of the more aesthetically pleasing settlements, seeing as it appears to look like it came straight out of a comic book. I was able to build a realistic looking vault with Atrium within the large room so, I don't think it's as bad as you said it was. In fact I think Vault 88 is possibly one of the more underrated settlements in the game. Although I agree that it's genuinely a hassle to find attackers though, I manage. It helps to put heavily armed guards and turrets at all exits, no matter if it's distant from the center. I recommend putting a robot settler as the provisioner for Vault 88 to deal with that high radiation.

This was a really good video but honestly the challenging promise of constant attack from multiple defined entrances wants me to go back to the vault..... brb wile i subscribe and binge watch you your other vids. Fantastic content buddy well done 😊

The issue I still have with the vault location is that you can't seem to build an upstairs area in the main chamber. If you put a stairwell in to go to a second floor, they absolutely will refuse to go up the stairs. Instead they'll just crowd around the base of the stairwell and just stare at the forbidden high ground.

I really enjoyed this video. So glad you make these!

Another vote for Hangman's alley being my favourite. Both before and after mods. Played a survival game where I wanted to be a trader and it was such a great resting point to drop off and resupply. Finding all the spots for efficient turrets as well was great!

I love Hangmans Alley, it's an amazing spot for survival difficulty and I actually prefer the compact living

Vault 88 is actually one of the easiest settlements to defend. If you don't scrap the barricades that create the other entrances, the only place enemies spawn is at the vault door. Just fill the welcome area with turrets and you're done. That said, I absolutely hate building there so that's pretty much where I stop. 😅

I actually love hangmans alley it's fun to build in and the challenge for space is really amazing when you've played the game for a long time

I use the lair to build bots that I use as my provisioners, as you pointed out with the lack of food/water it is pretty much all you can use it for.

I actually love hangman's ally. It's so fun stacking buildings and scaffolding on top of each other to make a towering alley town. Its challenging to work with in all the ways I personally like, and its SUPER dependable. On top of all, its it's aesthetically pleasing to me and great for survival playthroughs, since it's pretty much at the center of everything if you need a place to stop doing your travels. Seeing settlers all huddled up in darkness around fire barrels while armed to the teeth at night just makes me feel so cozy

These are the type of settlements that I simply build just for myself so I have a place to put my stuff while I'm traveling between places. I like to play on survival so no fast travel makes it a little bit more useful.

Red Rocket was the hardest for me, but it was mostly due to how I'd set things up. I used it as a hub for followers by completely abandoning the ground level and building a big industrial shelter on the roof, complete with indoor plots for food and stored water. I then put a reactor genny on top, next to the shelter, ran walls all the way around the perimeter, put two different entrances in different locations and made a giant maze for invaders. Instead of traps, I loaded the place with bottlecap mines and shotgun turrets. Plus, there were parts of the maze that had no ceiling, letting my allies rain hell down from above. It was a bitch to set up and replacing the mines was a hassle (until I peppered the adjacent woods with additional assorted ones), but it was the most easily defensible location I'd made in a while.

Hangman’s Alley, you think, “well, MAYBE I can finagle this to work” …then the random Brahmin shows up and refuses to leave.

There's so many amazing areas that you can't have that I'd much rather for settlements but they really dropped the ball on this one

I gotta disagree with your main point on Vault 88. I always connect several of the large rooms without needing to leave the vault at all. There are stairs in the vault tileset and the different levels are designed to be at the perfect height to build on after you go down the tunnel with a staircase. Scrap the wall behind the water purifier pond and you can go around the other way to build a non broken vault all the way from the entrance to the water purifier room, I like to make a little maintenance catwalk around it. Another fun spot is you can build above the ceiling I-beams in the main area if you use an elevator to get up there. Settlers can't use an elevator, but it's a great spot to build your private suite. Where it seriously fails without mods is the settler sandbox area. By default the settler AI sandbox area only covers the main central chamber so any builds that you make in the other chambers will be fully ignored by settlers. Nothing like arriving there to find all your settlers standing around in the middle of your atrium unable to find their jobs. If you want settlers to use what you have built you have to use a mod to expand the sandbox size or be limited to only the main chamber. EDIT: Oh yea, and the light range is terrible by default. I would never be happy in my vault without a mod that gives all the light fixtures a larger radius. Without that mod the place is more a dungeon than a vault.

Hey man, love the video! Just one pointer on the audio side of things, you may wanna lower it when editing it since every few seconds your voice peaked causing some buzzing every now and then. Most people don't really notice it and really its just a 'tistic thing I picked I noticed so I thought I should you let you know. Other than that, thanks for the content!

There is actually a *very* tiny patch of dirt in the Mechanist’s layer for a water pump but it requires patience to build onto because the area that will allow construction is so ridiculously tiny. Hangman’s Alley is good for making an artillery array. The central location means you’ll be able to hit a lot of the downtown area if you need to.

I love Hangman's Alley and Coastal Cottage! The odd terrain and surrounding dangers make for a fun challenge to make the base "work" - which is why I didn't bother with the Diamond City site or those two other bland ones that are underground. Spectacle Island, with all its mirelurks and sprawling territory, is another fun one to develop so I'm guessing it was considered for this video too :}

Vault 88 needs a correction. As long as you DO NOT EVER DISMANTLE THE BARRICADES, all the enemies will come from the main entrance which is easily fortified. Again, if you find your way to the surface through a back route, reload a save. It is never ever a good idea to open v88's back doors.

WOW you really put my all time favorite at #1 lmao. I LOVE Hangman's Alley precisely because it's so hard to build in, but I'll be the first to admit that it's almost unusable without mods. I totally hear you on its flaws, but its only competition from a location perspective is Home Plate, and as you point out, that has its own limitations too.

Ironically these are all my favorite settlements because of how challenging they are lol. I will say though although I'm not a very big fan of mods, they have made for all these specific settlements are some of my favorite in the game especially the mansion mod that replaces the coastal cottage is absolutely incredible!

I’ve gotta say the best one to me has gotta be Spectacle Island. They literally give you an entire island to build whatever on! You could build an actual town in it if you could have more than a handful of settlers.

As a Survival mode player, far-flung settlements are my least favorite. Somerville, Coastal Cottage, Murkwater, Ozinga, even Sanctuary! I grew to dislike putting in lots of time and resources into a place you rarely see. Even Starlight Drive In starts to feel out of the way. I’m more focused on building up settlements that I visit often. For me, County Crossing is #1. What puts it over the top is being located at the shore, near the waterway crossroads. Swimming everywhere is a cinch, and fast . (And a brief respite from encounters) (remember to get the 25% faster swimming magazine). After that, Hangman’s #2 (DC’s Home Plate can’t be linked with provisioners). And #3 Jamaica Plain.

As someone who does no hit runs, hangman’s alley is my absolute favorite as it’s easy to stay low profile, easy to defend, near diamond city and vault 81 for safe trading, and near the river for stealthy travel. However I totally get that it sucks for big/resourceful settlement building.

About Hangman's Alley - it's actually quite useful, more as a base of operations more than an actual settlement. As you said, it has an amazing location from which to access Diamond City and the rest of the Boston Ruins, making it perfect for an early game survival base.

To give hangman’s alley a break in survival mode you can’t fast travel so being in the middle of the map and nearby to diamond city is pretty major. But I said survival not any other difficulty.

After vault 88 is unlocked, I usually build a arcade/comicstore/speak easy at the pharmacy entrance. The tunnels underneath that section makes a great atmosphere for bootleggers, or for being "Shanghaid".

I'm perpetually frustrated by Covenent, because it looks like it should be a great location, but you have to contend with owned items, unscrappable turret remains, and just overall inexcusable bugginess.

Hangman’s alley is actually one of my favorite places to build, primarily because after a while I started playing mostly survival mode and in regards to that hangman’s is in a great location and while it doesn’t have the most open spaces it’s both easily defensible and encourages more vertical expansion rather than horizontal

The Vault has pathing issues as well, the settlers will not path down into the lower sections of the vault, they mainly hang out in the large main area. I'd put Sanctuary in the mix as well due to it's far away location.

i wonder what you're assessment of Spectacle Island would be, as it's my personal favourite settlement area considering how massive it is.

Settlement expander and scrap everything mods are a must-have. Once those are installed, Hangman's Alley and Jamaica Plain actually become really fun settlements. The alley gets expanded to the surrounding streets with water access in the tunnel below and on the river. Jamaica Plain gets expanded to the entire town, giving you all that space to work with. I do wish you could delete more of the buildings and houses there, though.

Certainly, major challenges for all these sites. But there are always ways, especially if you aren't trying to completely max out, but instead go for something that is simply basic and aesthetically pleasing. Mods help, natch - those that scrap chunks of landscaping are what I consider essential. For Hangman's Alley, my approach is to think of it as a volume of space rather than a patch of ground. Imagine a space that you're putting one large 2-3 storey building in, with crops being grown in planers on the roof. I've found that this arrangement works admirably well for me. For Murkwater, buildings raised on stilts and foundation blocks, with lots of catwalks

Sanctuary is the best imo, I only use a few mods for building like place anywhere, spring cleaning and homemaker (i think) which only lets me use more objects from the game. I restore the player's house to pre war state like every playthrough, spend hours decorating it and eventually I planted trees all over the settlement, it looks more like a park now. It's the only place that looks pre war and untouched, had to do all Codsworth's work for him smh

I actually use Jamaica planes as a central hub for that side of the map on every playthrough. The parking lot I use for trade, I fix the collapsed floor of the house and use it as a defensive balcony and block off all but one door, the area of the house under that new floor I use as a workshop, then the open street I fill with small housing units for settlers and I block the whole place with walls. It has some odd geometry but with some patience it ends up working pretty well.

Hangman’s alley and mechanist lair are 2 of my favorites! Hangman’s alley is hard to build on. My mechanist lair is a supply line center with themed robots (like Pam 2 for railroad outpost and sarge 2 for castle) and mostly decorative contraptions from the contraptions dlc so it’s like my sorting/distribution center

I like to have Hangman's Alley as something like an outpost where I'd make my favorite types of settlers live there and dress them up and equip them with guns to have them look like a spec ops squad stationed there. When the Supermutants get into a fight with the DC guards or me, they'd always come out from the alley around the corner and start blasting. It looked so awesome the first time I saw it, especially seeing the guy who I made something like a squad gunner with his LMG and heavy equipment just walking up at them and emptying the drum mag on them.

Unless you already done it a video on which mods help fix settlements would be nice A top whatever amount, or a necessities list

Jamaica plains and coastal cottage are a couple of places in this video that i reluctantly built pretty decent settlements at. Coastal cottage was a challenge due in part to the fact it had so much stuff laying about that you couldn't delete. The rocky terrain had me building raised platforms to combat that. And keeping the settlers out of the bear cave had me building a 2 floored patio breeze way over it with concrete grated flooring and scaffolding railings. I tied it into the destroyed home that's right there. The garage without a roof, I wrapped a 1 floored house around it. Made it entirely out of warehouse construction. The whole settlement is lit up by a series of street lights wired to 1 nuclear generator. Jamaica plains, I had to watch a KZfaq video on how to repair the ceiling in the work bench shop room. Once I had that, it was a breeze to erect a multi-bed room apartment above that and above the diner next door. The rest is a series of defensive weapons and guard posts with some gardens mixed in. The toughest part was keeping the build meter low. The mechanists lair... yeap. I didn't remove too much of the structure that was already there. The catwalks routed up and connect 3 spaces that I use as living quarters and work bench rooms. The inhabitants are mostly robot that aren't upgraded too much. The tough part was making the gardens and lighting the entire area. Most places pose a challenge. What you gotta do is think, "What do I need this place to be as?" and only build to that concept. Some of these garalbage dump places are really quite easy to build at when you keep it simple. Practical. For example... vault 88. When I build there, I'm not gonna build up the entire area. The tunnels, and vast caves... nah. I ain't touching those areas too much. Build enough living quarters for maybe 20 people and set up a series of defenses. Boom easy.

I have found a couple of random spots in the Mechanist's Lair where you can place a pump, or murfruit tree, but I've always used that for my robots. I like Hangman's Alley, but I've always used the scrap everything mod there. Two stories of jobs, stores and fun stuff, plus little apartments on the third floor that the settlers seem to like.. I tend to store things there due to it's central location.

I love Hangmans Alley! As a recruitment area. I build a concrete block house to block the street/sidewalk entrance with about 10 beds and stop in occasionally to send everyone not involved in the 12 food production to actual settlements.

What's funny is that I'm only on day 3 of playing fallout 4 and I've already acquired a total of 9 power armor suits and 2 were stolen from the BOS bay without them even noticing because if your sneaky enough you can stay crouched right behind the armor and when it says hidden,enter into it and you can leave and drop it off at another safehouse and return for the other armor and repeat the process, something else I'm doing for lots of armors is to collect them from all the respawn locations before I'm lvl 28 then the X-01 armor will spawn at multiple locations and then ill get those as well

I use the Mechanist base as a supply/trade node, where every robot is assigned to provide trade routes to other settlements. Just really only need the capacity to build robots there, plus I'll build a small place to sleep and do workshop tasks. I check on the robots regularly to make sure they haven't been damaged.

For hangman's ally and coastal cottage I go for a outpost vibe, just minimal resources and make it feel like it's mostly there to act as a forward base and to house an artillery piece,

Airport is best used as a Gunner farm with the cages, you can fit up to 12 cages against the back walls and place a fence in front, rig up a switch, a turret and some cover and bam, you can farm all the high level equipment for yourself and your settlers with ease, making the Airport one of the most useful locations in the game. Hangman's alley is perfect for a 'main base' settlement due to it's location (especially in survival where there isn't any fast travel) don't unlock the side door or the back door though, just the alley, this makes it super easy to defend, and keeping your population low, lets you recruit new settlers really fast, outfit with the gear from the Airport farm and then send them to the settlement where they will live. It always amazes me that people take issue with some of these settlements instead of turning it into an advantage.

Hangman's Alley is by far my favorite. I raised all the living space off the ground and had shops/bars on the ground. The area where settlers can't path was turned into farmland since they still gather the resources (I also think the unofficial patch fixes that issue anyway). I was able to build 3-4 levels of prefab and every level had turrets overlooking the entrances which made it very defensible (and I never unchain the side entrance). It really had a great vibe and perfect location for survival playthroughs. The biggest question is why live there and not diamond city?!

First and foremost, the 2 best "settlement" locations are hands down Starlight Drive-In and Spectacle Island. Huge building locations and where Starlight gives you a mostly flat plne to build with ease, Spectacle Island gives you a varied but not impossible sloped terrain for different flavors of layout. I fully agree that the building zones listed in the video are not ideal for "settlements" but perfect for player homes. The concept of building a series of safe-houses and supply depots prior to kicking up the difficulty and activating survival mode has always been my bread and butter. Hangman Alley is always my first supply depot because you can build it into the perfect choke point by blocking off one of the entrances and littering turrets across the other so long as you don't unchained the 3rd entrance. Coastal Cottage on the other hand is great for a small military outpost. Don't build wide, build tall. Think like the Iron Islands from GoT. Tall towers protected by a turret network and place an artillery piece or 2 at the tops of your towers and connect them with catwalks. What would have been amazing is giving your settlements more weight to the story. If you "claim" all settlements but don't build them up you get a prompt about having enough resources but not enough man power. If you build a few settlements extensively you get a prompt about being prepared but outnumbered for a final battle.

I was able to build a large atrium with rooms off if it for farming, trading, and a large diner. The 2nd part of the vault (built where the train cars were) was living quarters for the 40 residents. All this fit in the main cave. 88 is about learning to maximize space, something many settlements lack.

Thank you! I honestly thought I was crazy when I first started playing, and found the videos chirping about how amazing and loved Hangman's Alley and Jamaica Plain were. Hate those places. 🤮

I like some of the challenging settlement locations to be honest. You can do cool creative stuff with it. Not every settlement has to be huge. Some of them can just be small outposts that are only slightly fortified for caravans and supply convoys to pass through.

maybe not for having colonists but the mechanists lair is one of my favorite locations, i always turn it into a sort of personal bunker/armory with rows of power armor stands, weapons lined along the walls, mininukes on tables, deck it out right and it becomes your personal batcave.

Hangmans alley is my favourite. Its always such a cozy build + its central and makes a good main base. + has combat spawns nearby for weapon testing and easy defence.

If we're doing things without cheats, mods, or exploits, then my least favorite is Homeplate. Not being able to connect it to the other settlements and having to physically carry all my building materials over there has always been enough to kill the location for me. On the other hand, Hangman's is one of my favorites, the shape of it inspires me for some reason. Plus I always make Marcy the provisioner so that she's always under attack. 😂

The mechanists layer always serves as my provisioner hub, I can link it to all other settlements with robots which means I have all settlers available at other settlements for other tasks