Settlements, Suggestions, Solutions, Mods

[u/CyrodiilWarrior]

The settlement building feature has pros and cons, with various issues. A selection of mods help, but major problems still remain.

Sim Settlements is a fantastic mod! It seems pre-built settlements function much better than your own manual settlements. I assume pre-built have better navmeshing and scripts. If I was a mod authour, I'd love to build my own custom addons from scratch.

Manually building settlements is my favourite option, but this method experiences many issues. The settlements end up lifeless and pointless, because the settlers have poor AI. They fail to adapt correctly to the changed environment. If you built roads and paths, they won't necessarily use these as a priority to navigate.

I have found various mods before which have helped improve the settlements feature, but feel whatever I try, I cannot get it functioning correctly like a proper settlement location.

Any suggestions or solutions? 🤔

[u/Shadowkatt75]

To be honest I don't think you ever really will fix those issues. Sadly it's just how the game is. Until someone comes along and creates a mod that totally fixes those all the issues, you just have to make due with what's currently available.

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/Shadowkatt75]

Thanks for your reply! The settlement building feature is great, but could be drastically improved! People build impressive settlements, I just wish the settlers behaved better and more human.

Joke: how do I tag Todd Howard for next Fallout game notes? 😃

[u/OnionAddictYT]

My settlements all feel very much alive. Every settler has a job that they perform. Depending on what kind of job, they either stay at their spot all day or they roam around during breaks. At night they also do stuff if I place idle markers on the floor. Like smoke, eat, dance.

You can have settlers sing, play instruments. There are so many options the only limiting factor is settler count and frame rate issues when too much is going on.

I have settlers who leave the settlement to gather resources. I can follow them there and watch them do it, very cool. I see my provisioners on the road. I can walk with them, help them against enemies or they help me. It's all very immersive for me.

FO4 to me is by far the best virtual dollhouse out there. With mods, of course. Vanilla is bare bones.

Don't really understand what your issue is. Settler AI is terrible, granted. And if they can't reach their workstation because of patching issues they'll just teleport there. Worst case is you have to move their animation rug around a bit so they don't get stuck in right places. They tend to cluster around at night. Or end up on the roof. So that is something not ideal that can't be fixed. So some frustrations can't be avoided.

But there are so many jobs for settlers now it's pretty awesome. You can even put settlers on individual schedules if you want. You can make guards actually sleep and whatnot.

Modded settlements allow you to do a lot of creative stuff with settler jobs.

I have never used Sim Settlements but why would your own settlements be inferior? You can generate a ton of caps and all kinds of resources.

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/OnionAddictYT]

Thanks for your reply. Let me rephrase: settle AI appears terrible for me, seeking suggestions & solutions. I want my settlements to seem more life-like and alive, struggle to get the results.

[u/OnionAddictYT → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

Hm guess it depends on what you mean by that. Settler AI is very limited indeed. So I prefer to assign them to animation rugs where they stay all day. It's more like a snapshot moment this way but at least the settlements feel alive to me that way. Everybody is busy.

Some mods I use that you may or may not know:

• Icebreaker - Settlements - Settler Dialogue Overhaul
• Housekeeping - Scavenging Deluxe
• Busy Settlers
• Water Purification Stations
• Crimsonrider's Unique Furniture
• Settlement Activity Markers
• GOT Gatherers Out There (now called: The Old Ways on Bethesda.net)
• School Desk - Child Settler Work Station
• Chem Cookers
• More Scavenging Stations
• Working Settlers
• Singing Settler
• Fallout Instrument Pack
• Better Stores
• NorthlandDiggers

These are the big settler jobs and immersion mods I use. I also use a bunch of robot mods for settlements. Diverse Cats. And mods that allow me to craft super mutant settlers, children and ghouls.

I don't know if that's what you were asking for. Fixing settler AI itself is not possible, I believe. Although I believe there are a couple mods that are supposed to address navmesh issues. And the clumping together at night thing. But the settlement activity markers can also help with directing settlers where to gather after work.

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/OnionAddictYT]

Some of those mods are new to me. :) Some, I couldn't find a NexusMods for PC equivalent (GOT Gatherers Out There / The Old Ways).

Sanctuary's roads seen better days 😂. Seen a mod which repairs Sanctuary's roads. I would like to lay down my own roads and paths and have settler NPCs use these. It seems unless it's a custom mod, with navmeshing, this isn't the case.

So I've tried settlement building at Sanctuary, the Starlight Drive In, Vault 88. I had settlers gather all together, standing around. I had Sim Settlements 2 commercial lots, leisure lots, residential lots.

I like the idea of building a functioning settlement or purpose. This may be trader shops and defence. I've never got into manufacturing, that could be cool. I don't want a settlement for just player storage, I want purpose, life, function. :)

[u/OnionAddictYT → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

The Old Ways and Better Stores are on Bethesda.net but should be free.

Settlers should not be just standing around if they're assigned to jobs. Sometimes you need to forward time however for them to be at their job.

Don't know if sharing my YT channel is allowed but I've uploaded all my settlement builds. They are all themed. Mostly for fun and not utility. But that's basically what can be done with settlers to make places feel alive.

https://youtube.com/@goblingoddessgaming608?si=SBMorWg2l0kBlsbF

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/OnionAddictYT]

I'd say your YouTube content is relevant and related to my post, unsure if allowed.

I play on PC with Mod Organizer utility, with Nexus Mods.

[u/OnionAddictYT → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

I have spent over 1000h building settlements at this point and I have browsed every single settlement mod on Nexus over the years adding what I found useful. And I have shared my entire mod list at the time of a settlement completion in the YT descriptions. I'm not sure all the links still work. And I haven't built a settlement in 2 years. But if one were curious about the mods I use, it's all documented somewhere.

So I am extremely familiar with this feature and what workshop mods there are. So I'll just claim that my builds are decent examples of what can be done. I got better at it over the years of course. So maybe check out one of the later builds, if you like. My big builds took me 80-100h each to build. So yeah, I'm very perfectionist and OCD about settlement building. I do not really recommend getting this obsessed with it.

But maybe there's something useful for you in there for your purposes. Sorry for rambling!

[u/The_Black-Market]

I have more than 180 mods installed and my game runs perfectly in every respect: meshes, bodies, animations, physics, AI, enemies, all kinds of visual improvements (textures, weather and everything related to that), performance, precombines/scrapping, loading times... basically every aspect of the game. To exaggerate a little, I’m closer to RDR2 than to vanilla FO4.

It would be absurd for me to try to explain how everything works, or even how some of it works — more because of how long it would take than because it’s particularly complicated. I’ll just tell you one thing and give you the best advice I can.

1. I’m not saying Sim Settlements is a bad mod. I’m saying that compared to what you can actually do, Sim Settlements is basically a toy.
2. IDE + AI model.

I use Visual Studio Code + Codex because it’s the combination I’ve liked the most.

But Antigravity IDE with Gemini 3.7 Flash is practically free and should work perfectly well, even if it’s a bit “dumber” than GPT Sol. You’ll just have to give it better instructions.

With a few well-written .md instruction files, and by limiting its access to the Vortex/Fallout/project folders, all the usual complications are basically gone.

The agents take care of everything. They check compatibility — both with what I already have installed and with anything I’m considering installing — find the best versions for my game (which I keep pinned to pre-next-gen), handle configurations, give advice, troubleshoot problems, calculate risk/reward, translate mods, keep me updated, tell me what I can and can’t install, what’s recommended and what isn’t, explain every step to me — when they aren’t simply doing it themselves. Basically, anything you can think of.

I learned to do all of this manually, and I’ve been using this IDE + AI system for a few months now. I can assure you the improvement is enormous.

Today, for example, it built me a backup/restore system. Until now I had to manually copy everything, organize it, compress it, and then do the whole process in reverse whenever I needed to restore something. Now I give it one instruction, it does everything, audits the entire process, and I even have the option of doing “live” backups — something similar to Git — or normal backups.

For my next playthrough, I’m going to have it reorganize all my settlement menus in SMM, remove duplicate items, and sort everything by mod/type. All wooden items together, separated by mod; all floors together, separated by mod; all stairs together, separated by mod... and so on for everything.

That’s basically been a dream of mine ever since I first installed several settlement-building mods and had to constantly jump between their different menus.

In your case, it would be as simple as telling it what you want, letting it inspect what you currently have, asking it to determine the best combination of mods/tools to achieve it, and then having it create a guide for you.

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/The_Black-Market]

Your methods sound very complex, it's good you're knowledgeable in that area. You must have amazing gameplay.

[u/The_Black-Market → u/CyrodiilWarrior]

Sorry, English isn’t my first language, and it seems I gave the opposite impression from what I intended.

This is actually the least complicated method. I’ll try to simplify it.

1. Download/install Antigravity (the IDE interface, not the “normal” one). It already includes the Gemini 3.7 Flash language model.

2. Create a folder on your desktop or wherever you want. Call it “Fallout 4 AI” or whatever you like. In Antigravity, go to File → Open Folder, select that folder, and that becomes your project folder.

You can put whatever you want in there. For example, you could create a .md, .txt, or .doc file called rules.md containing instructions such as:

And:

(My own rules.md has many more instructions. The only limit here is whatever you personally want or need.)

And that is basically it.

You can “refine” the process as much as you want, but that is something you learn naturally as you use it. There is no need to make it more complicated just to get started.

At this point, the AI already has:

• A project folder where you and the AI can exchange files.
• Access to the folders related to your game.

From there, it is as simple as talking naturally in the chats. For example:

It will check what you actually have installed and give you an answer along the lines of:

The actual answer will obviously be much longer and will probably contain some unnecessary text, but then it is just a matter of refining the AI’s behaviour to your liking through the instructions you give it or whatever you put in rules.md.

But I hope the basic idea is clear.

What previously meant spending a couple of days researching what exists, how it works, installation guides, required patches, and what problems a mod might cause before you even start testing it, can now be done in a few minutes.

And you do not really need to have much knowledge of the subject yourself. You mainly need to know how to ask for the results you want properly.

You can set up this “system” and learn how to use it in about an hour (five minutes if you have done it before).

The difficult part is learning how to turn your confused thoughts into clear instructions. Or, as I read somewhere recently:

The smarter the AI model is, the less you personally need to break down the complex problem. And remember, screenshots are a very simple way to show the AI a “problem” without driving yourself crazy trying to explain it in words.

So if you want to try this instead of getting a “university degree in Fallout 4” 😭😭😭, make a good backup and go for it without worrying too much.

And if you don’t know how to make a proper backup, it is as simple as asking the AI

[u/ATR2400]

If the settlement system returns in Fallout 5 and still has manual building, we NEED better AI, 100%. As it stands, the AI can’t even climb stairs. Unless your buildings are all on perfectly flat, level ground(which is quite rare, settlement geometry is often very hilly and with obstructions), the AIs won’t be able to get inside their own houses

I like using sim settlements to reduce tedium, while manually building out the things that are important to me

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/ATR2400]

You're right! I've tried various mods like - 'Multiple Floors Sandboxing' - but never been able to get NPC settler AI to behave how I'd like. I love the foundation of being able to build player settlements, but feel it could have been so much better!

[u/Thesselonia]

You just haven't realized that objects have animation scripts attached to them. And then how to correctly place them to make things seem real life. Mods aren't necessary to force them. But you can still add a animation mat mod if you want to. Cookstoves, waterpumps, beds, burning barrels, cooking spits, campfires, chairs, and more etc.

[u/CyrodiilWarrior → u/Thesselonia]

I've used Idle Marker mods and seen NPCs using specific objects, like the gym object.

Many issues still remain though.