FALLOUT 4: Workshop SETTLEMENTS Guide! (The Basics of Resource Management in Fallout 4!) 

(Tip). do not leave your power armor with a power core in it the setters will hop in it and fight if your settlement goes under attack

I went for the Trump option. Built a wall/fence around my settlements. Never had a raid or mutant attack.

A few notes to add to this excellent guide: You can store placable items, instead of scrapping. To do so, look at the object and press TAB (The button used to bring up the pipboy) and you can store the item. When you try to place that item, it will take it from storage instead of building new ones. This is useful when running electricity. Unassigned settlers will automatically work the farms. You can change any of your settlers gear by giving it to them via trade and highlighting the item and pressing T. (not sure what it is on consoles) Items with a yellow highlight are generally junk that cannot be relocated or stored. Mostly used for scrapping. Every static item, including trees, tires, fences, and other junk all count to your build limit - this includes all the white picket fences in Sanctuary. Stores improve your settlers happiness, and give you means to buy and sell gear, but must have a settler assigned to them to function. If you store your power armor in settlements, make sure you take out the fusion cores when not in use. Settlers (and even raiders) will jump in the suits when in combat.

I wish you could make your settlement bigger by taking land. but the bigger your settlements territory the more likely you are to get raided

It took me awhile to understand about building settlements, I got so many settlement that its kind of hard to keep track of which one to protect when they are being attack especially when you're free roaming. It's better to build defense for one settlement and making sure everyone is doing their part before opening up another settlement. I found out the hard way. I've used up so many resource. One of my settlement is only for power armor, which I have about 7, not sure how many are out there. I've Minecraft the shit out of Fallout 4.

Something to note about this game is that a settlement does not necessarily need to produce its own food/water if another settlement has a surplus. Just connect them by a supply line and your happiness at a given settlement will increase regardless of lack of independent food/water production.

After looking at a dozen videos, I finally found the one I wanted. You see, I had no idea how to recruit settlers. All the building and salvaging is moot without settlers. Thanks for this very basic intro. I can now proceed with a plan that will actually accomplish something.

Mutfruit is a good crop, since it produces 1 food when other crops only produce .5

Clocked in 150 hours before I found out you can attach light bulbs to wires. >_

I learned more about settlements from your video than anything Bethesda tried to instruct in-game. I had no idea scraping something I didn't use also didn't return the materials that was used to create it. I also had no idea how to put power in a house or how the water purifier worked. this was frustrating for me though. the roof doesn't connect to anything wall I put up, I couldn't put a roof on anything so I scrapped it all and used prefab. then I put a windmill up, didn't like it, scrapped it. made lights, didn't like it, scrapped it. made a generator, too small, scrapped it. I wasted so much. But, I can say I don't really feel like doing settlements. Can you imagine being a manager IRL and then play a game and have to manage that? It's stress I don't want. I'll do settlements if a quest requires it, but I have no interest in "doing it well" thank you for this great video though

This is why the Contraptions and Wasteland workshops DLC is great to have. The garden spots are great for saving space and organization, also the fusion generator is a good, but expensive option for large settlements, or your main settlement like Sanctuary. Most other settlements the small and large generator is fine.

stack the houses and clear out as much as possible. clear view makes or easy to defend stacked homes, each floor serving a purpose. use the ground for food, turrets and water.

good video dude. 1 thing I do is soon as I get a new settlement, I take like half an hour and just scrap everything in the area. even the trees. it gives you alot more to work with when you start building

ignore all the keyboard warriors man. loving your content. informative, well edited and interesting. Thank you for posting and I agree with you, you are the number 1 hub for Fallout 4

I've explored the Settlement part of Fallout 4 ALOT. I learned that you connect farms to other settlements and if the farms produce more than the people require it can feed the other l settlements as well. This really helped with Starlight Drive-in because of the lack of dirt there. Plus it made it to where I could focus heavily on my defenses and scavenging in my main settlements. I made the castle and starlight drive-in my main hubs for the supply chain. I would move settlers from the main settlements to the farms and bases to set up supply chains that connect to each settlement. I noticed that the longer the supply line you can go for a time without the united supplies, and the supply line can be at risk. My favorite settlement that was actually a pain to get to was the Island, the entire island is your play ground to build crap. It's pretty great.

I really appreciate your tutorial videos. I've pretty much just started playing the game but have already messed up a lot in terms of settlement building and management. Your videos have been very helpful in this respect. I'm going to start a new play through but I might have waited much longer before I realized what I was doing wrong had it not been for your videos. Thanks a lot for sharing, I hope you'll keep up your awesome work.

Just realized I watched 6 of your videos in a row and found all of them helpful and informative. Gained another sub =) Keep it up bro!

New to the fallout series, only problem I had was understanding the different things about settlements. This really helped and saved me a lot of time :D

So is there a height limit on how high i can build? can i make scrappy sky scrapers?

Protip. It is a cheat, but you can build stairs to the sky, attach a shack floor up there, put turrets on said floor, and then come down and remove the stairs if you want. you now have floating gun platforms in the sky that can shoot all around. You can do the same to build buildings in the sky.

Note : with pumps or purifiers you will receive purified water in your workshops. (Look for it)

You say tato, I say tato

Your videos have been helpful in fine tuning my settlement management. Thank you for posting them!

Really helpful, clear and concise. Great production work too, thanks a lot!

Nice guide bro, I learned more from this single video then all the others together that ive watched :)

a nice thing i found for building on uneven ground, in the floor section for wood structures is a foundation. you can place it in the ground and have a nice flat floor whereever you want. eats up ALOT of concrete tho

anybody else think they should have ladders

I have never been good at settlement building so i normally don't join the minutemen but i am going to give it a try.

I was always confused with power generators, and conduits, and wires, but that one tip he said which was to attach a conduit outside the house and add a light helped so much 😂 thanks JV.

can't believe its been 8 years already... I vividly remember watching all of your videos back when Fallout 4 launched.

Finally diving into settlements. Thanks for the tips.

Very basic and good instruction video on how to raise settlements. I did not know that you could assign a settler to more than just one at a time.

Thanks for the house-conduit info. Had no idea

I've put over 24 hours in the game. Prolly close to 40 and this video helped tremendously.

You can assign beds to settlers like you do jobs so you can "organize" your settlement in an RP style better

Oh thank you for your video. You made this several years ago, but I am just now discovering Fall out game. Thanks.

Very nice job. When I started playing I restarted every couple days as it took time to understand; especially power setup.

Thank you for this guide. I was super lost when I found the home

Back to being an adult but thanks for the vid very informative. Can't wait for the advanced settlement guide.

Hey man I'm new to your channel and loved the video. I was confused as to how to get power to your house and that conduit bit helped a lot! In your advanced guide, can you go more in depth with the energy system?

Thanks dude. I feel like an idiot after watching your videos because for me who is just a casual gamer I found this game to much but with your help in slowly coming along.

I've had Fallout 4 for nearly 10 years, before I even had a PS4 to play it on. And I've still not started it. This guide is a great start to encouraging me to play for the settlement aspect only. Although I imagine I'll still need to play the first person survival game to get what I need...

You're very good at this JV, and I can tell that you put a lot of work in before you make the video. Pro-level stuff. Thank you.

Maybe also one thing worth mentioning is that the extra crops/water that are over the number of settlers in that town goes into the workbench If you have the leadership perk with touts set up - the extra food can feed other settlements. If you have a town with access to water, set up large water pumps, to generate lots of rad free water = nice item to sell, also carrying some extra healing in the field, to save stimpacks.

Thanks for the tips, building settlements are really frustrating. In your advanced settlement video, would love to see further explanation about lighting. I've got a building where the lights light up half the building, but lamps don't work at all. Conduits and switches and generators and their requirements are really confusing and I can't find a straight forward explanation anywhere. I think it would be pretty cool to put up a video of you building a complete structure in real time. Thanks for vids, they're really helping!

i like this video it is very nice you covered all basic stuff, maybe later when you explore the wasteland will you make video about settlements too but what is best location for settlements and why. just to mention again you make great videos. :)

thank you so much I was stuck on a quest cause I didn't know there was a button to attach wires for power

This guide really helped me with my settlement now I can beat all of those raiders and last all those radiation storms! Thanks JV2017gameplay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good beginner's guide. Thank you for posting.

About the radio frequency giving settlements : You need to take back the Castle of the Minutemen through the quest that Preston will give you. You just have to keep clearing his quests until he proposes it to you. Then after the Castle is took, just activate the radio transmitter in it.

To get radio freedom station the one that gives you updates on your settlements you need to complete the castle quest

Started a new game with the latest update an trying out the settlement build looked fun last time ready to dive in this round

Such a useful video, thanks man 😊

Mighty helpful. Originally I just wanted to live at red rocket bc everything seemed to complex but now I feel like I can make a goddamn adhesive farm! Thanks for the great Content!

Thanks dude I'll deco be using it more now

Awesome video man, this was immensely helpful =) Subbed

This video really helped me, thanks!

Radio freedom provides updates on your settlements, you need to get the Minutemen into the castle for it to work

power to wireless electronics (lights, tvs, etc.) work on distance from a pylon.the best trick i learned was to wrap the pylons and wire to circumvent the house. if you have multiple floors it might behoove you to wrap each floor.

awesome vid on settlements u cleared up alot of questions 30 locations! thats double from speculation. definitely excited about #Fallout4 great live stream as well

Hey, I was hoping that you could give more info on traps? Been playing for quite a while now, but still can't understand those buggers well enough - where should I place them, how they function, etc. Also you didn't mention anything about the size of the settlement - it's not like it's very difficult to understand (you build more - size bar goes yellow, if it goes red I presume you can't build anymore supposedly), but I am not entirely sure if I am might be missing something there. Thanks!

I definitely learned something new about settlements.

I like the way it says this resource is assigned it makes it looks like the people are just tools

great starter vid helped me a lot thanx

This Visio was very helpful to my settlement

Great video. Nice work

loving the guides. I've only just started playing. Can anyone tell me where stuff likes chairs go when I put them in storage when base building?

Yo thx this really helped now I can build shelters

I am liking your videos so far. Can't wait to see the rest of them. Are you playing on console? Also do you know if console, and PC have identical gameplay?

Would you recommend to instantly get into settlements once you unlock Sanctuary. Do you have already enough resources to supply the demand after scrapping everything?

JV, I have a Fallout 4 question. I saw some of your structures that you built in Sanctuary. How did you get your walls to line up with the floor? I am having trouble in this area. I built an extra space above one of my houses and the floor and the walls have about a two inch gap between them. You can see right through the rooms.

I built a junk fence all around Sanctuary Hill's boarders. However it's not so good as I thought. Attackers are able to open the gate so make sure to build "traps" in front and/or behinde them. However you can better dictate where they will attack and plan your defends accordingly. Also but I'm not 100% sure... If you build the magazine rack and bubblehead stand and put the bubbleheads and magazines in them it will rise happiness for your settlement. Got 70% happy in Sanctuary now. Also and this is for sure. Building fences around food resources makes them happy.

Yoooooo that house build is sick!

Your so helpful I love this channel and hope u get very successful

I'm on my first playthrough. I'm doing well enough with the settlements, but I'm sure I will do a better job in the next playthrough. I messed a lot when trying to power up Sancuary to begin with. All that copper...

Thanks, man, learned much.

First off JV2017, great videos. They're very helpful and very well done. A note on supply lines for people. I had a problem completing a quest at the Starlight Drive-in because I couldn't find the settler I had to talk to. It turns out he was the one I had assigned to a supply line. All I had to do was wait for him to come back from a supply line and I was able to complete the quest, but it was a little frustrating until I figured out what the problem was. PS Feed the haters, it gives you more views. LOL if they hate'in, they view'in.

I love youtube. Here i am 4 years later. Bro u saved me alot of time.

You know your workshops don't connect between bases. So what I do is leave all the junk in my main base and when I need to fix another settlement I take it all with me. So my materials aren't spread out and I don't need to salvage anything.

Since you asked if you got something wrong, if I'm not mistaken, a settler can look after 6 units worth of food. for example: the tato plant provides 0.5 food, so a settler can look after 12 tato plants.

growing food can improve adhesive, if you go to a cooking station you can make food starch. making adhesive.

You unlock radio freedom by a minute man mission where you take a fortress. Though during that mission you fight a mirelurk queen so make sure to bring some firepower

Happy to see you've got some haters!! That means you're doing what they wish they could! Keep it up, subbed.

I've managed to run my entire settlement of Sanctuary using one fusion generator. Just takes a long wiring system of large pylons and conduits.

With having the GOTY edition, I usually build most of my settlements in a upward and easy to defend manner. The bottom floor is for workstations, the second floor is usually for beds, and any upper floors are for crops. Add a few turrets and you're set. The only weakness is the power and water on the ground, but you can set a few turrets to help protect those.

i have a question: how often do raiders or whatever actually attack your settlements? i spent like 2 hours laying the foundations for my settlement near the Old Lonely Church or w/e, and didnt have to defend it once. I know thats a good thing but whats the purpose of all the defense and turrets if theres no one attacking?? Also, one more unrelated question: anyone have advice on where to look for copper??

Bruh thanx a lot this vid was really helpful

I have a video of one of my settlements getting attacked by a few mirelurk queens I was like wow. Good thing i had the defense at over 150 missile and heavy laser turrets, all powered by fusion reactor.

are things stored in the workshop, available at all settlements? or must you access the things you store at a workbench, in the settlement the work bench is in?

Hey JV2017. I just started fallout 4 and have come across your videos they have helped so much. I have heard some information on building manufacturing plants(make my own ammo specifically) but my workbench screen doesn’t give me the option for that. The most I can build is a terminal but no manufacturing options. Is that part of one of the 6 dlc’s or do I have to have specific perks to unlock? I’m probably only 1/10 of the way through the initial story and haven’t even started the dlc’s.

The only settlements I actually use are Sanctuary and the Castle, but I'm thinking of settling on Spectacle Island. The rest I just use for supply lines. Also, question: Lets say I have 6 charisma and 16 settlers in my settlement, the max for that rank. If I use a helmet or something to raise my charisma by 1 and I send a settler to the settlement, will that 17th settler stay if I take that helmet off?

Man, I went through all your fallout 4 content expecting a follow up (advanced) building video.

Use Mutfruit over any other crop. They produce 1 food, while everything else produces 0.5 food.

Is there a way to send all settlers (including the non-generic ones like Preston) to the same settlement? I don't want to invest time and effort building defences and resources everywhere. Would rather just send everyone to the castle.

advanced settlement defense video plz. Wall + turret placement. I've just got a load of turrets along my perimeter and loads scattered along the roofs of houses. Works great and fending stuff off once they get in, but the ones around the perimeter take damage easily. I really want to see how others are doing it.

Power conduits can provide power for lights for just over 3 "squares" (lengths of a wall)

You need to progress in the minutemen questline to get radio freedom

Is the Sanctuary is your settlement?

So as of right now this is my SPECIAL build S- 3 P- 2 E- 3 C- 4 I- 8 A- 6 L- 3 Should I increase my strength for more carry weight or increase my charisma for local leader?

when your settlements get attacked, is it likely that your settlers can end up getting killed? is it necessary to give them better armor and weapons into their inventories? so far i havent had anyone attack a settlement that had its defense rating fulfilled.