I end up with two stars, grey garden and mechanists lair. As grey garden will never be much higher than 50% happiness, due to native robots, I just put all my provisioners from there, and when complete mechanist, switch all provisioners to robots, and star from both of those places. With one robot each. Two settlements stuck at 50% happiness.
If you make the provisioners go to far away locations and have numerous provisions per settlement going to "random" settlements, granted you do this correctly, you can have a settler helping you fight at almost every location in the Commonwealth. Really handy for survival and you can pretend that they're the Minutemen "helping at a minutes notice". Done correctly this can easily change the way your playthrough will feel
ThePope OfAwesomeness could you elaborate on how you do it correctly? I really want to get the effect you described but I'm fairly confused by supply lines
@@Jellofish777 just make sure your supply lines go through areas with high enemy traffic. If you're really dedicated you can assign a provisioner and follow them to see what path they take. The hope is that they help in a fire fight occasionally or even keep certain roads clear if you're in the vicinity.
I actually think that if you have robot Provisioner you shouldn't have to have Brahman fallowing them. I used big Sentry bots with robo-brain legs and packs Everywhere. Its got more carry weight than a brahman, and complains less.
I'm trying out the eyebot one and using a mix of Star and Hubs. I like to think the eyebots are their for recording position and location to make sure they stay on rout and away from dangers.
For the robot with packs + eyebot brahmin combo, think of it like the eyebot as a very basic drone outside of the entire network of robobrains so it can't be controlled by them, and has live video and audio feeding back to be watched, recorded and reviewed at any time back in the Mechanist's Lair, just to make sure there isn't another Mechanist Mistake again, and to keep track of where and when things go wrong.
I actually did my supply lines a bit different. I basically created two "trade hubs" - Sanctuary Hills and The Castle. Every settlement is more or less connected to the closest one, and the two hubs are connected as well. So it was basically like your first alternative, but with two hubs instead of one. But I'll probably give one of your options a try during my next run. Probably the one that revolves around community hubs or the highway one!
Before I realized all connect each other, I had 4 hubs for the 4 quadrants. But then one day connected one hub to another and figured it out. Thank you internet.
ChesterC. Nuts it also makes sense that they would also avoid the CIT building and for two reasons, 1. Its said to be the original home of the Institute so they would likely be worried about synths. 2. If you do any of the other three quest lines (MinuteMen BOS or RailRoad) then that whole area becomes severely irradiated.
So far I've tried to keep my populations concentrated in very defensible places, Sanctuary and The Castle both have a massive military presence, which I send out as guards or provisioners to smaller farms in the north.
ChesterC. Nuts, it is funny because I have Sentry bots from Automaton going through the wasteland as supply bots. One of them code named TRADER from the castle takes supplies to Boston Airport and passes Bunker Hill. One day I visited Bunker Hill to install an new supply bot and suddenly I hear gunshots and explosions. As I am about to create a new bot it says I can modify TRADER so I know that one was involved in a fight and was kicking ass nearby.
I like Constellation too. Might change a couple routes though. I’d want at least one supply line through downtown Boston. I spend a lot of time there and it would be nice to run into provisioners every once and a while.
I been trying to figure how I want it. But I'm thinking I'll have just 1-2 settlements that recruit so I can filter out synthetic (I'm sending all them to one settlement for social cleansing) and having some designated for water,farming and scrapping. And then a few trading hubs that conviently reach all the other areas. I was thinking about filling settlements with army of robots
Thanks for the vids oxhorn. You show a lot of stuff about lore and the workings of Fallout 4 that others don't. I stumbled across your channel about a week ago and I'm thoroughly entertained. Keep 'em comin' man.
from a roleplay perspective I aboslutely love the "star" as the minutemen general it make total sense to organize the commonwealth not only from nearby settlement to nearby settlement but to think it as a whole country ^^ however you need to dedicate a settlement to this purpose so great choice to use the mechanist lair as it fits with the robot provisionner thing
this was my thought but I made provisioner settlements, ones that were not practical for fun builds and sent all my extra settlers there, then made each their own star hub to send provisioners out from so that my big towns could keep all their settlers.
Except for the circle, the star makes the least sense from a roleplay perspective. Star is great for some aspects of governing, but if you are really roleplaying in the FO universe and you are having people physically moving goods thru a swamps and cities of enemies to turn around and walk them back across the wasteland to a different location a short distance from the starting point, Preston made a huge mistake in assigning you as the general. Since most areas are self-sufficient when it comes to the few resources in the game, IRL there wouldn't be a frequent need to transport anything all the way across the map.
Though also in terms of Roleplay the star is the weakest tactically. Your putting all your supplies in a single location. If raiders or gunners take and hold that location. The minutemen might just collapse for a second time. I personally prefer to have 3 highly defended hubs. One at oberland station, one at Hangman’s alley, and one at the Mechanist’s lair.
Good video. I've already done most of these, so here are the downsides to the different types. (This is advice for new players.) 1 - Star pattern - Good, simple, easy to use, but all the lines on the map make it difficult to see which settlements are connected because lines connecting two settlements may go over another settlement in between them. This makes it hard to tell when provisioner lines disappear from the game (a common bug). 2 - Circle pattern - Always leave a break somewhere so that it is not a complete circuit. Once you get one or more "loops" in your supply line chain, there is a bug that starts causing problems with the Settlement Workshops screen in your Pip Boy. Bethesda claimed one of their patches fixed this, but it never did. 3 - Layout advice: Connect your settlement to the nearest settlement already in your chain. Don't have more than two supply lines connected to any one settlement. Don't make any loops or circuits in your supply line chain. Try to avoid connecting settlements in a way that forms a straight line (such as Sanctuary to Red Rocket to Starlight Drive-in, which looks the same as connecting Sanctuary directly to Starlight Drive-in). If you use robots, don't give them any upgrades because there is a bug that resets robots to the base "automaton" state and all the resources you spent building it up are wasted. Hope this helps!
1 also first one is imho bad from ingame and rp sense since those which are on periphery would take too long for that trip 2 what kind of bug? 3 Why though no more than two. I always connected settlements to all other settlements which are close. And never really had problem
One little thing I would like to add that I have noticed from my playtime... You might NOT want to see your provisioners "out in the world" very often. Why? Because when they are NOT in the same area as you they are "immortal", and will not be killed. However, if they are in your general area, and enemies spawn, they can get killed....and get killed even easier the higher level you get due to the spawning mobs being leveled to your level, and the provisioners always staying a relatively low level.
Sorry for replying to a 3 year old comment. I thought this was proven false by the wiki and a reddit post. Edit: just tested it myself and my provisioners get knocked down, not killed
@@werdle92 right, like the diamond city guards just getting into shootouts with the local supermutants, i'll just kick back and watch them shoot at each other, i'll put in a few shots to aid the losing team but that's about it
From what I recall, I believe that if you take on an automatron as a companion and then release it, it becomes essential. My memory is fuzzy on this, though, and so will require some testing to confirm this.
The one I tried was a Star/Hub Combo, basically meaning I picked a few settlements to be MAIN points and have them branch into the other ones close by, with the addition of two mains being used as DLC connections
You just gave me a reason to finally build factories. I just didn't feel like the idea fit the immersion of the game, and that's most important to me. The idea of a place where the Minutemen sort and scrap things makes sense with the lore. Definitely going with hubs. Love it! :)
I have a way how I manage my supply lines which I really like, and I think other people would too. You'll need 2 mods for it but that's it. One of them allows you to assign your settlers to Power Armor and the other makes that Power Armor of every NPC indestructible. I assign my provisioners to a full suit of T-60 Power Armor and equip them with a basic Minigun. That way, you'll randomly get fire support by a walking tank, followed by a Brahmin. The chance of getting fire support of course increases the more supply lines you have.
great idea. that way commonwealth is both bustling from commotion and constant ''trade' from your caravans and also is safer place because caravans double as patrols
@@MsKeylas Bloody hell mate, it's been four years. But yes, that was definitely my experience. I would quite often come across the sound of a minigun in the distance, or have a power armor charge to my aid in the middle of battle. The more concentrated the supply lines got, the more often it happened.
in all honesty i am doing the loop only because i "feel" it might be the safeist and most practical idea around. down town is a mess and it is a death trap.
***** i get crashes while running ani-crash mods around the hospital in Fall out (the one with the death claw in it) that hole area is bad for crashing
thunderlord2200 VATS freezing the game occassionally on Survival mode, not sure how they managed to fuck up one of their own game mechanics that badly.
RoboGameBoy64 its beth, the way they fuck up survival so badly? (it was a normal part of the game at one time where everything was limited and meant something or saving for a later boss fight or worse) i mean make it fell like how the main-brand name fallout used to feel. they way fallout 4 felt is worse then a barebones game that they just threw on fallouts name.. ---this is me just rambling on like normal xD-- read if you want to -------------------------- everything that made a good fallout game good they dumb-ed down and striped out.. they would of made a real shooting game With everything making fallout fallout while giving alot more... then a copycat received plot that was worse then the one they based it off off.. i felt game was over after i killed Kellogg.. never gave 1 cent about the baby. i could of mad a better story in my sleep that aguested to if u want to find the baby or u just dont care and u rather take revenge on the murderer of ur wife.. but the way i do it was aguest it so u find him or he finds u anyway, but in my base i make baby a rader king pin.. xD
I've been enjoying one that's similar to hub, star, and constellation, where all the settlement lines lead to a single settlement in the middle, but they follow a line from settlement to settlement to get there instead of directly heading to the central settlement
I do a combination because I like there to be more than 2 supply lines in case somebody stays siege to a settlement and strategically cuts off a supply line. I know this isn’t real and only accomplishes wasting a productive settler but it feels good in my head.
I have been watching your videos for some time and really enjoy your content. Late for the bandwagon (last post was 2yrs ago?!) I wanted to comment. After playing Fallout 4 since its inception, I recently tried the “Loop” and it may have a tactical advantage. As you stated, it avoids many areas, however, many of those like downtown Boston are also dangerous areas as well. The loop seems to avoid many of these points of conflict by using a safer route for my provisioners. It was something to try, but I do agree other methods are more profitable. Regarding profit, have noticed hubs with more incoming provisioners tend to produce more income. I once made Greentop Nursery and Vault 88 my two main hubs and I found 10k in bottle caps in their workshops compared to 4K in all the others during my collection runs. I thought that was very interesting. Anyway, thanks for listening and thank you for you work and dedication toward this game.
Well I did the one settlement as the hub and that settlement is hangman alley with the point of that being it’s in the center of the city and is right next to diamond city, one of the reasons that Bunker Hill is such a renowned trading post is because it’s “In the middle of everything” and that’s the same logic with hangman’s alley
The purpose of The Loop method has to do with supply line disruptions. If you have half of your settlements connected to the other half via one supply line and that provisioner is attacked, then your supply lines are cut in half. The Loop fixes that but making the lines into a circle, if a supply line is interrupted between two settlements then the line continues through the other direction.
Settlers are set to protected, you can use placeatme(while in god mode and not fighting back) to add 50 or even 100 raiders just as a settler doing supply lines walks past in the middle of nowhere and eventually all the raiders will be dead even though the settler should have died tenfold the amount of raiders. If you have a broken supply line the settler assigned to it is at home sandboxing or you killed it. The best method is once you open a settlement go to the last one opened and assign a provisioner to the newest. Nothing fancy. Doing that ensures you have crafting materials to build the settlement at the start and it is the most efficient for the player. Yeah some routes can be really long... doesn't matter, what does matter is having the supply line. Not only is it the esiest method to use it is better if there is a broken supply line. Yo will know which settlement the provisioner is from by following the lines. And if you want to fast travel and check each one and collect you food and cap[s... follow the lines from Sanctuary to each one in order.
This is awesome. I have been playing fallout since it came out and never once messed with supply lines. I really like that you can turn a settlement into a hub like that. Very nice work as always!
I generally use the Star method centered around Vault 88 which serves as my central warehouse, but all my provisioners are robots (so that I can rename them to " provisioner"), which means that lore-wise they won't tire out, and they patrol their provision routes. All provisioners are first sent to the settlement they're provisioning, then assigned as a provision route to the hub, so they count against the population of the individual settlements rather than a lump sum at a single settlement.
my supply line falls somewhere between Loop and Constellation, the innermost settlements are linked together in a double-loop, while the outliers closest to the map borders branch off of the loops. So County Crossing is on the loop, but Nordhagen Beach is a spoke off of it. Egret-Jamaica-Castle is the southern road of the loop, leaving Somerville, Murkwater, Warwick, and Island as spokes. Starlight is on the loop but Red rocket branches off it, and Sanctuary and Abernathy off Red Rocket, Tenpones and Zimonja branch off of Starlight, Sunshine Tidings branches off Starlight.
Something I really enjoy, as your settlement number increases your provisioners are seen more and more frequently showing how “trade” is coming alive in the Commonwealth. It’s being “won” back. I would love a fallout that has missions but the story is centered around building settlements establishing trade, protecting the society you are trying to build. The idea being your economic, social and military power represent “winning” the game.
A great benefit to the Hub/Constellation methods is you can more or less predict the path the provisioner will take and if you equip them well you can effectively create patrols throughout the Commonwealth that will make traveling significantly safer, especially in Survival.
I chose to do the following: >every settlement connected to Sanctuary >every settlement to the castle >every settlement to the vault. Result: background gunshot noise, explosions, and overall violence wherever I go like a true apocalypse. Works great with NPCs travel Mod and various mods that add in more spawns for enemies.
The loop actually does have a practical purpose. If you go by the constellation method, if the warwick homestead to spectacle island provisioner was attacked. While the provisioner is down on the ground (because they’re essential unless you the player kill them) the supply line is cut off so warwick homestead will be cut off from the supplies in the other settlements for a period of time. Which is annoying if you’re trying to build stuff there. However if you use the loop even if the line from warwick to spectacle island is cut off you can still access the supplies from the other settlements via jamaica plain or vault 88 or whatever the other settlement is being supplied from. As you can probably tell i like to use this method
Thank you, oxhorn for the constellation grid, that idea came in handy with my most recent playthrough. as of now I have three main 'hubs' for my caravans making their way through the Commonwealth. great video man,
Not sure if I missed it being mentioned but on the 'star system'. That's also useful if you're going to use Automatron provisioners - Automatrons mess with settlement happiness so if you have them all based at somewhere like the Mechanist's Lair, they won't affect human populations.
I've got a somewhat region hub method going on. I designate one settlement in an area to be the main hub, then all the settlements around that, are connected to the hub for that region, then the hubs are connected together. I think that makes the most sense, but as the video says, this is ultimately just a game play style, and doesn't affect the mechanics of the system.
I use Starlight Drive-In for my Hub. It has plenty of open space and roads coming from several directions that minimizes the funnel effect. If a Bramin ever got stuck in a building, I haven't noticed because I don't frequent ALL my buildings after I build them.
Started replying fallout and do a mixed line that's kinda like equal points circle and constellation. It connects everything shortest distance but the more central settlements also act as hubs that cut across the map and cut it into sections, pretty much making a grid like pattern. (No lines cross or anything) Role play wise it's so a settlements lifeline isn't dependent on one shipment and to get good trade while doubling up as minutemen patrols. Gameplay wise my provisioners, who are decked out with the best gear if human or are essentially supermobile tank bots are mowing down all the respawns while still keeping my map neat.
I use robot provisioners BOTH from Greygarden AND the Mechanist Lair. Both aren't really concerned with happiness as both already have a large number of robots as inhabitants. With enough resources you can build one provisioner each location to connect to EVERY other location, so essentially a double star. This will provide you with huge numbers of robots to assist in the defense of any settlements as one provisioner is almost guaranteed to pass through Now we come to my provisioner robot build: Mr Handy Torso and Thruster. Torso mod: sensory for tracking targets. Two sentry arms, voltaic upgrades. Left arm laser sniper, right arm cryo weapon, central mr handy eye for long range engagement distance and accuracy. This covers essentially all range brackets, from melee to extreme sniper ranges. Three thruster arms. With a mod two lightning weapons on the thruster, plus one saw hand, otherwise three saw hands. All three thruster arms voltaic upgrades . Thruster armor upgrade actuated for even greater movement speed. All the voltaic upgrades adds melee damage. This results in ultrafast provisioners with an absolutely ridiculous damage output. Meaning, if you're engaged in any kind of overland firefight you're almost guaranteed to get an assistance from one or maybe even two such robots who are NOT your companions. They are amazing vs both big nasties as well as hordes of low levels due to their lightning guns. The voltaic mods add tons of electric/energy damage. Any enemies charging into melee ate greeted by 503 physical and well over 150 energy damage from the very fast handsaw blades. Which dismembers even mirelurk queens in short order.
Not sure if this has been suggested before, but another type of supply lines plan is a combination of the Star and the Hub methods. So there would be 3 stars which act as the hubs and the 3 hubs are connected to each other. I can't take credit for this method, SarDeliac is the one who shared it with me, but I really like it.
I've been playing Fallout 4 for a few years now, and I only JUST started using supply lines. All of my provisioners go between Sanctuary and their designated settlement. It makes it easier for me because I can just scrap items there and use them wherever I need them. 😁
I like to maintain two provisioners in each settlement and three supply lines. This is an aesthetic choice. Start off using Sanctuary (connecting Red Rocket, Abernathy and Tenpines Bluff) then Starlight Drive-In as a star cluster, but as I grow, I reassign my provisioners to my provisioners to their regional hub once it is open. As I grow and can start reassigning my supplylines I use the regional trade hub approach in which bunker hill becomes my central hub, Starlight Drive-In remains a hub but is reduced to only serving the north western region, The Slog serves my eastern region, while Jamaica Plains serves as my southern hub. The regional hubs send their two provisioners to other regional hubs. (I chose the regional hub design based on a map I saw online one time, and have used it ever since.) Since Bunker Hill is usually one of the last settlements I acquire, the settlements that will become a part of it's cluster are initially assigned to the closest regional hub then reassigned once I acquire bunker hill. likewise I establish a circuit of provisioners between the three initial regional hubs, then add the second provisioner from each of them to bunker hill when it opens My second supply line is I use the great circuit approach where each settlement sends a provisioner to the next/previous settlement in the circuit this includes "spurs to the DLC areas". Each regional hub does not take part in the great circuit they have links to the other hubs... Finally the mechanist lair I turn into an all robot facility/settlement, so I send assaultron provisioners out from there to EVERY settlement as a new star cluster. If all three supply lines are functioning properly (for example I currently have a glitch where my provisioners all hang around starlight even though the supply lines are open to each of my settlements. Hopefully this will correct itself when I switch to regional clusters. Like oxhorn says. You only need one supply line for each settlement, so a single hub with a star cluster will do, but other approaches, or multiple approaches creates a nice visual effect by increasing activity at your settlements, AND increasing your chances of running into provisioners while you are wandering the commonwealth. A secondary bonus, as mentioned by others in the comments, is that it creates patrols of armed combatants who will fight wandering, and respawning mobs. (my provisioners frequently clear the stingwings out of the area west of Greentop Nursery in my playthroughs.) Assaultrons and Sentry bots make great "patrols", and if you are playing with both automatons DLC and Faction Paintjobs, you can have Minuteman or BoS patrols running from settlement to settlement keeping the commonwealth safe (lore wise this works better for Minuteman playthroughs)... In my head cannon atleast when playing a goodguy institute playthrough, any new provisioners are actually gen 3 synths, so they are outfitted with synth armor and maxed out institute laser rifles after you take over the institute and start "making changes" to the way things are done. (one of these days I need to try stripping them of all weapons and only giving them synth grenades to see if they summon squads of synths when attacked I have only ever used the synth grenades for destroying liberty prime, so it would be an interesting experiment)
I was doing a circle/loop in my last playthru, have every settlement connected in one perfect route, but now I think I'll do a variation of hubs. I like the idea of having major trade centers.
My favourite system for role playing purposes is creating several small hubs with the largest settlements I have within the middle of each. Then connecting all the hubs together through one central “supply depot”. This way if any hub were attacked and stamped out of existence, or even the supply depot, each settlement hub would still work independently until new connections could be made. (Obviously this isn’t an in game mechanic, but strategically in a RP sense it makes sense to me)
I treated my Provisioners as a blend of couriers and soldiers on patrol. Similar to a hub system, with certain settlements seeing more activity, just a step beyond that. I looked at the Minutemen as neighbors keeping neighbors safe, and in the Wasteland that's more to that than trading supplies. Provisioners will engage with anything hostile out in the Commonwealth, so if you have at least 2-4 supply lines going in or out to every individual settlement, you can guarantee those 2-4 people will always be somewhere around that settlement. And if those Minutemen "traders" just happened to be equipped with full combat armor, combat shotguns or assault rifles, grenades, and whatever surplus healing items or chems i had on me at the time....those traders turn in very viable reinforcements that you can usually locate within moments no matter where you are in tge Commonwealth. Just run for the nearest pack Brahmin you see out in the wasteland. Look at it like this. If you asked your neighbor for a cup of sugar, you'd like him to make it to your house alive, sure. But wouldn't it be nice it he also was able to kill everything hostile between his house and yours? Or if he showed up with the sugar, found out you were in trouble, and was actually able to help when he showed up?
I did a kind of star grid except sanctuary is my focal point. I roleplayed it as sanctuary being well a sanctuary. Serving as the main minutemen field outpost. Give all the provisioners armor and weapons and have them patrol and keep safe the various roads and trade routes. And if they encounter something big they send a call to the castle via the radio and get airdropped assistance. Thinking I might convert the nearest settlements to the castle into military outposts with power armors.
Replaying FO4 in 2022 and re-watching through FO4 content vids. I went with every settlement to The Castle due to RP. It's the M-Men HQ, so makes sense.
I still use the automatron dlc to make fully armed sentry bots as a supply line. Plus the eyebot mod. Combined with the first option Oxhorn has used. Mechanist's hideout as the central hub, since it is the perfect hub.
I did Hangmans alley for a central hub. with SD tanks for provisioners with canons. It is awesome, because if you are close to them out and about. you can hear them fighting.
2:24 drive in is huge place so more suited for being the hob 1 point where all of them connect to punker hill is smaller but that's second best choice cause its the caravans hub, traders hub
I prefer consolation. It keeps the map clean, and since i play survival, walking along the supply routes is much safer and stopping at settlements in between major areas for water or rest really emphasises the importance of holding an even influence over the commonwealth/island with with minor agricultural settlements providing food to larger "industrial" settlements which may have had room for a munitions plant, provisioner/guard recruitment center, etc. Its more than just cosmetic like the others, and for that reason, i always use it.
I figured mine out pretty much by accident early in the game while trying to send people out of Oberland Station. It wasn't well-built at the time but horribly overburdened with settlers after I put my radio beacon in and came back for an attack; it had max settlers while Sanctuary only had 18 at that time but was considerably better built. It became my primary hub, but after I figured it out, at least a few settlers from each camp go to my primary camps. The map is a bit of a mess, kinda like an explosion from Oberland with chinese checkers dotting the map. Your constellation one was well-thought. Wish they explained it better in the game!
I use a "hub" system, similar to airlines. Basically Sanctuary, the Castle, etc, serve as hubs to smaller settlements, and the provisioned also transfer between these main hubs.
I do something similar to the first hub idea except I split it up into 3 hubs, starlight, Jamaica plain and county crossing. And all of my provisions are heavily upgraded robots and they always originate from the satellite settlement and because they are robots, I can name them "sanctuary-starlight" and if I randomly came across one, I would know exactly which line I am seeing. In case one goes down, it makes it easier to repair or replace from the settlement that sent the robot. And each hub has color coded robots. All white ones go to starlight, orange ones go to Jamaica plain and blue ones go to county crossing.
I used to like your third example because I felt like in a dangerous land like the common wealth it would be better for the shortest route. But I like the circle because it makes it out that your supply lines take a safer route by avoiding cities. I really liked that one.
that part about the circle was one of the first things i noticed too, it pretty much avoids the entire area of diamond city except for one stop, which... that place is just a never ending warzone between raiders and supermutants
Just watched this video. Gave me some fantastic ideas. Thanks. Gone back to playing FO 4 since my broadband has died. Forgot how great this game is. And the Mods have given me a new gameplay again.
Robo provisioners coming as a star from the Outpost, I find they don't follow a straight path, rather they follow roads. It's always cool when I catch the Abernathy, Red Rocket, and Sanctuary provisioners rolling through Concord blasting any raiders that re-spawned in.
small note for people, you should only have ghoul settlers going to spectacle island if you can. i have heard on reddit and other sources that the radiation from swimming can kill the settles that run the supply lines
My supply lines are set up along three or four different thoroughfares that meet up at a central hub so instead of 30 different suppliers showing up you only have four and the suppliers between settlements run shorter or the shortest routes possible for them.
I did the same thing with The Mechanist’s Lair, build robots at a settlement I didn’t use and made them only for supply lines, I named them all supplybot and of course they all had there own number, max amount I have is 27, and I had all this done weeks before I watched the video haha but you beat me to it since this video was posted 4 years ago 😂
you could do a loop and a star in the middle that acts as a central major hub, or you could even do two or three of those, spacing them out per region, like hangman's alley, starlight drive-in, and mechanist's lair.
or, if you spend some time going directly from settlement to settlement while following roads, you could make supply lines from the new settlement to the last one you discovered. this would make for the shortest distances between settlements and would be pretty enjoyable to think strategically about how provisioners would act
I use a tree method, but random. No crisscrossing supply lines though. I also use Starlight for my "Trade Hub" because there's more room for all of the Brahmin running around everywhere.
I have used all except the around the world approach. I liked doing hubs the most as it gave me the feeling of multiple cities as opposed to 1 megalopolis. The mega city I used Tarkington boathouse and with the huge open spaces there it actually worked fairly well.
My solution is similiar to that of number one. Have one or two settlements have a recruitment beacon active, and the necessary resources and beds needed. Then, create supply lines to every settlement from this recruiting settlement.
I always find it fun to give my supply line provisioner some OP weapon that makes a lot of noise and give them long route and then I will encounter them in the wild and help them fight
I love the constilation one I use it in all my play throughs and challenge runs combined with a mod that gives me a bunch of resource at every settlement I can usually build non stop
THERE IT IS!!! I knew I used to use a mod that replaced Pack Brahmin with something, I just couldn’t remember what. I’m downloading that Eyebot mod the second I get home haha!!! Also I’m using a version of the constellation, trying to have my provisioners travel on the main roads as much as possible.
well if you own the mechanist lair it makes sense lore wise that eye bots fly around with your robots as little guards and scouts you use the one eye bot to scan for stuff you need anyways
Mine in survival mode is a mix of all. I sometimes send a provisioner all across the map, just cause that's how I'm running that settlement (I'm also the new Vault-Tec. The drive in workers have to work in radiation) , but some of them have minigun and I run into the randomly on the road and follow them for a bit since they're more powerful than I am half the time
Ok this is a bit of an old video now but I've only just started playing Fallout 4 as of a couple of weeks ago. This was very helpful thank you. Discovering ALL Bethesda's Broken stuff again (same as it was with Skyrim SE) is annoying but we fix them with the aid of the Modding Community.
I usually make Starlight Drive-In my first central provisioneer's hub, because it has the necessary space for homes, and the road access to many other settlement locations. Then after Preston starts sending me to further away locations I'll set up another main hub centrally located to that region of the Commonwealth. The Slog covers the N.E. settlements, Egret Tours Marina covers the southern region. I thought about using the Mechanists Lair but getting in and out of there is a pain in my ass and loading screens aren't my favorite activity to partake of, contrary to Todd's "vision" of fun game-play. Murkwater Construction site I usually don't bother developing as a "settlement", since it's in a swamp and the weather is crap most of the time, if I do anything there it's my escape home or trophy stash where I don't have to worry about settlers stealing my Legendary collection items or my power armor sets, because there aren't any there. The best thing I like about the hub system is the caravans tip me off to hostile activity, that I can run to and third party fights for the extra goodies. I am going to look into the Eye-Bots replacers though, this is the future after all and cows are FOOD.
Making your provisioners robots with good Firepower and keeping their routes along roads increases their survivability by reducing the chances they'll be attacked by Wildlife on the road during radiant encounters because your provisioners can and will go missing if they happen to be attacked in an active cell and die
My preferred route is route all of the settlements through regional hubs, and construction a massive trade city at starlight. When it came time to build up the small single family farms I noticed that most of the traders coming out of the mechanists layer pass through the T next to country crossing.
I wanted to set up a supply line to every settlement from the Mechanist's lair. So I cleaned up the lair, replaced the old catwalks with new ones, and got to work. I built 4 robots. Assaultrons. And I decked them out as amazingly as I could. Each one was unique, including their weapons. And when they were finished, I named them Gold Leader Alpha, Blue Leader Beta, Green Leader Gamma, and White Leader Delta. They would be in charge of the entire operation, connecting the Mechanist's Lair to my 4 most important settlements. Sanctuary, The Castle, Spectacle Island, and Vault 88. I then moved on to the next phase. I would delete all my other current supply lines to start all over. And that's when I gave up. After 20 minutes of trying to cancel them I just ended up murdering one of my provisioners, a Mr. Handy from Greygarden. And I felt terrible and couldn't do it again. So I just decided to leave the supply lines intact while I start the new ones from the Mechanist's Layer. I planned on building more Assaultrons. Nothing special about them. Standard, no personality mode activated, grey color, basic armor. And they would connect the Mechanist's Layer with every other settlement. But first I decided to try and set up the other supply lines with the 4 leaders. 3 of them did as they were told. But Alpha absolutely refused to start a supply line with Sanctuary. It just stood there wandering aimlessly no matter how many times I told it to go to Sanctuary. And that was when I gave up and forgot about the whole mess and said fuck it this is too broken. One good thing that came out of it is that Beta is ridiculously OP and I'm considering taking it with me as a companion because it kills everything
Cool video! Will admit its my first playthrough so i mostly did the star method off Sanctuary as i didnt know all of the settlements to setup a hub style route system and i was too lazy to track down each settlement's provisioner to reset the route so figured it'd be easier to setup as i discover them. Ill try this my next playthrough.
The Brahmins always get stuck in houses in sanctuary
It's annoying
I usually see them standing on the roof.
Maywither Dragon i put stairs on every roof🤦🏾♂️
Which is exactly why I only have one supply line going into sanctuary
Go to workshp n make a door
@Jonny B mapping is a B especially when there's custom obstacles and objects (PoV from a modder)
I think if you go for the Star layout, Bunker Hill makes the most sense.
It is the main trading hub of the commonwealth.
It's the worst setup for console player it's will crash your game
@@Dino2GunZ I am a PC player.
@purpledevilr7463 well let me know how that works out for you
Connect pre existing to covenant and bunker hill
Work own from there
I end up with two stars, grey garden and mechanists lair. As grey garden will never be much higher than 50% happiness, due to native robots, I just put all my provisioners from there, and when complete mechanist, switch all provisioners to robots, and star from both of those places. With one robot each. Two settlements stuck at 50% happiness.
I feel like im over thinking this
You are
As well as me
You think you're overthinking?
You guys can think!?
@@SisuBjörk you gets think!?!?
Dude I just made them all to the castle cause it was the one I was building on the most
If you make the provisioners go to far away locations and have numerous provisions per settlement going to "random" settlements, granted you do this correctly, you can have a settler helping you fight at almost every location in the Commonwealth. Really handy for survival and you can pretend that they're the Minutemen "helping at a minutes notice". Done correctly this can easily change the way your playthrough will feel
ThePope OfAwesomeness could you elaborate on how you do it correctly? I really want to get the effect you described but I'm fairly confused by supply lines
@@Jellofish777 just make sure your supply lines go through areas with high enemy traffic. If you're really dedicated you can assign a provisioner and follow them to see what path they take. The hope is that they help in a fire fight occasionally or even keep certain roads clear if you're in the vicinity.
They will also group up and travel together eventually between common points
If you wanna make it extra awesome, do the mechanist layer DLC and then create sentry bots and use them as the provisioners
@nubbinsdrive-in4435 that's exactly what I did when it first came out. Completely forgot about this comment
I actually think that if you have robot Provisioner you shouldn't have to have Brahman fallowing them. I used big Sentry bots with robo-brain legs and packs Everywhere. Its got more carry weight than a brahman, and complains less.
There is a replace Brahman with Eyebots mod and another to give them Guarddogs. I prefer the eyebots personally because they don't get in the way.
I'm trying out the eyebot one and using a mix of Star and Hubs. I like to think the eyebots are their for recording position and location to make sure they stay on rout and away from dangers.
Wasteland GPS I like it. But for immersion purposes you need to build a eyebot machine (from Automatron) in each settlement that has a provisoner
For the robot with packs + eyebot brahmin combo, think of it like the eyebot as a very basic drone outside of the entire network of robobrains so it can't be controlled by them, and has live video and audio feeding back to be watched, recorded and reviewed at any time back in the Mechanist's Lair, just to make sure there isn't another Mechanist Mistake again, and to keep track of where and when things go wrong.
Indigo Julze lol
Your mechanists lair looks like an Amazon fulfillment center
Edit: Jeff Bezos' dream fulfillment center
he should add glow lanterns for the full piss bottle effect
Amazon produced the Fallout TV series
And I’m at work at Amazon rn watching this with 15 minutes till I’m off😂😂😂
Fulfilling everyone's needs for carrots
I actually did my supply lines a bit different. I basically created two "trade hubs" - Sanctuary Hills and The Castle. Every settlement is more or less connected to the closest one, and the two hubs are connected as well. So it was basically like your first alternative, but with two hubs instead of one. But I'll probably give one of your options a try during my next run. Probably the one that revolves around community hubs or the highway one!
Before I realized all connect each other, I had 4 hubs for the 4 quadrants. But then one day connected one hub to another and figured it out. Thank you internet.
It makes sense provisioners would avoid some areas in southern Boston because there are super mutants everywhere.
ChesterC. Nuts I just turned mine off as heavily as possible and use better settlers
ChesterC. Nuts it also makes sense that they would also avoid the CIT building and for two reasons,
1. Its said to be the original home of the Institute so they would likely be worried about synths.
2. If you do any of the other three quest lines (MinuteMen BOS or RailRoad) then that whole area becomes severely irradiated.
So far I've tried to keep my populations concentrated in very defensible places, Sanctuary and The Castle both have a massive military presence, which I send out as guards or provisioners to smaller farms in the north.
ChesterC. Nuts, it is funny because I have Sentry bots from Automaton going through the wasteland as supply bots. One of them code named TRADER from the castle takes supplies to Boston Airport and passes Bunker Hill. One day I visited Bunker Hill to install an new supply bot and suddenly I hear gunshots and explosions. As I am about to create a new bot it says I can modify TRADER so I know that one was involved in a fight and was kicking ass nearby.
Just now getting into Fallout 4. This helps a ton!!! Thank you sir!!!!
7:17 don't mind me, just bookmarking Constellation, the supply chain route I want to do in my playthrough.
Thank you for that.
I like Constellation too. Might change a couple routes though. I’d want at least one supply line through downtown Boston. I spend a lot of time there and it would be nice to run into provisioners every once and a while.
Hear hear
I been trying to figure how I want it. But I'm thinking I'll have just 1-2 settlements that recruit so I can filter out synthetic (I'm sending all them to one settlement for social cleansing) and having some designated for water,farming and scrapping. And then a few trading hubs that conviently reach all the other areas. I was thinking about filling settlements with army of robots
I definitely want to have some heavy hitters by hangman ally so they can hold the area down.. or maybe no ppl there and it can be my personal home
At least its not raining
P0ELaHa at least the pay is horrible.
I hate you. 😂😂😂
I just heard of a settlement that needs our help.
I'm not a fan of the sun. but it'll better than this
We won't go quietly. The Legion can count on that.
Thanks for the vids oxhorn. You show a lot of stuff about lore and the workings of Fallout 4 that others don't. I stumbled across your channel about a week ago and I'm thoroughly entertained. Keep 'em comin' man.
Thanks, I will!
yeah man same here but 9 months after you his videos really got me going again to play fallout 4
Kevin Tate man welcome
I've been watching ox for years. Anyone remember what happens when you go camping with an elf?
from a roleplay perspective I aboslutely love the "star" as the minutemen general it make total sense to organize the commonwealth not only from nearby settlement to nearby settlement but to think it as a whole country ^^ however you need to dedicate a settlement to this purpose so great choice to use the mechanist lair as it fits with the robot provisionner thing
this was my thought but I made provisioner settlements, ones that were not practical for fun builds and sent all my extra settlers there, then made each their own star hub to send provisioners out from so that my big towns could keep all their settlers.
Better not tell that to liberty prime, the socialism is too much for him to handle
Except for the circle, the star makes the least sense from a roleplay perspective. Star is great for some aspects of governing, but if you are really roleplaying in the FO universe and you are having people physically moving goods thru a swamps and cities of enemies to turn around and walk them back across the wasteland to a different location a short distance from the starting point, Preston made a huge mistake in assigning you as the general. Since most areas are self-sufficient when it comes to the few resources in the game, IRL there wouldn't be a frequent need to transport anything all the way across the map.
Though also in terms of Roleplay the star is the weakest tactically. Your putting all your supplies in a single location. If raiders or gunners take and hold that location. The minutemen might just collapse for a second time. I personally prefer to have 3 highly defended hubs. One at oberland station, one at Hangman’s alley, and one at the Mechanist’s lair.
@@thejanssen6030 I like the star best as its simplest and require at most 2 settlers each location, 1 for food and 1 for supply line.
Time Stamps:
1:38 The Star
5:09 Hubs
7:20 The Constellation
9:35 The Loop
Good video. I've already done most of these, so here are the downsides to the different types. (This is advice for new players.)
1 - Star pattern - Good, simple, easy to use, but all the lines on the map make it difficult to see which settlements are connected because lines connecting two settlements may go over another settlement in between them. This makes it hard to tell when provisioner lines disappear from the game (a common bug).
2 - Circle pattern - Always leave a break somewhere so that it is not a complete circuit. Once you get one or more "loops" in your supply line chain, there is a bug that starts causing problems with the Settlement Workshops screen in your Pip Boy. Bethesda claimed one of their patches fixed this, but it never did.
3 - Layout advice: Connect your settlement to the nearest settlement already in your chain. Don't have more than two supply lines connected to any one settlement. Don't make any loops or circuits in your supply line chain. Try to avoid connecting settlements in a way that forms a straight line (such as Sanctuary to Red Rocket to Starlight Drive-in, which looks the same as connecting Sanctuary directly to Starlight Drive-in). If you use robots, don't give them any upgrades because there is a bug that resets robots to the base "automaton" state and all the resources you spent building it up are wasted.
Hope this helps!
1 also first one is imho bad from ingame and rp sense since those which are on periphery would take too long for that trip
2 what kind of bug?
3 Why though no more than two. I always connected settlements to all other settlements which are close. And never really had problem
You made a lot of statements as matter of fact in 3- with no reasoning to back them up. Please explain.
One little thing I would like to add that I have noticed from my playtime...
You might NOT want to see your provisioners "out in the world" very often.
Why?
Because when they are NOT in the same area as you they are "immortal", and will not be killed.
However, if they are in your general area, and enemies spawn, they can get killed....and get killed even easier the higher level you get due to the spawning mobs being leveled to your level, and the provisioners always staying a relatively low level.
thats always fun tho. AI battles are my favorite
Sorry for replying to a 3 year old comment. I thought this was proven false by the wiki and a reddit post.
Edit: just tested it myself and my provisioners get knocked down, not killed
@@werdle92 right, like the diamond city guards just getting into shootouts with the local supermutants, i'll just kick back and watch them shoot at each other, i'll put in a few shots to aid the losing team but that's about it
For each of my minions they kill, 3 more shall rise!!! Eventually, your console or PC will fear you and play nice. ;-P
From what I recall, I believe that if you take on an automatron as a companion and then release it, it becomes essential. My memory is fuzzy on this, though, and so will require some testing to confirm this.
The one I tried was a Star/Hub Combo, basically meaning I picked a few settlements to be MAIN points and have them branch into the other ones close by, with the addition of two mains being used as DLC connections
You just gave me a reason to finally build factories. I just didn't feel like the idea fit the immersion of the game, and that's most important to me. The idea of a place where the Minutemen sort and scrap things makes sense with the lore. Definitely going with hubs. Love it! :)
this guy sounds like woody from toy story
jacob nelson "YOU ARE A TOY!"
jacob nelson Woah Tom Hanks plays fallout? haha
thank you i was sat there like i know that voice haha
WILSON!!!!
holy shit i just noticed hahahaha
I have a way how I manage my supply lines which I really like, and I think other people would too. You'll need 2 mods for it but that's it. One of them allows you to assign your settlers to Power Armor and the other makes that Power Armor of every NPC indestructible. I assign my provisioners to a full suit of T-60 Power Armor and equip them with a basic Minigun. That way, you'll randomly get fire support by a walking tank, followed by a Brahmin. The chance of getting fire support of course increases the more supply lines you have.
Ah yes, that Brahmin T A N K
great idea. that way commonwealth is both bustling from commotion and constant ''trade' from your caravans and also is safer place because caravans double as patrols
@@MsKeylas Bloody hell mate, it's been four years. But yes, that was definitely my experience. I would quite often come across the sound of a minigun in the distance, or have a power armor charge to my aid in the middle of battle. The more concentrated the supply lines got, the more often it happened.
Bruh I sent my provisioner from Sanctuary to Hangman's alley ffs
in all honesty i am doing the loop only because i "feel" it might be the safeist and most practical idea around. down town is a mess and it is a death trap.
*****
i get crashes while running ani-crash mods around the hospital in Fall out (the one with the death claw in it) that hole area is bad for crashing
thatbatmancomic that's just poor optimization from Bethesda honestly
RoboGameBoy64
what else is new? XD
thunderlord2200 VATS freezing the game occassionally on Survival mode, not sure how they managed to fuck up one of their own game mechanics that badly.
RoboGameBoy64
its beth, the way they fuck up survival so badly? (it was a normal part of the game at one time where everything was limited and meant something or saving for a later boss fight or worse) i mean make it fell like how the main-brand name fallout used to feel. they way fallout 4 felt is worse then a barebones game that they just threw on fallouts name..
---this is me just rambling on like normal xD--
read if you want to --------------------------
everything that made a good fallout game good they dumb-ed down and striped out.. they would of made a real shooting game With everything making fallout fallout while giving alot more... then a copycat received plot that was worse then the one they based it off off.. i felt game was over after i killed Kellogg.. never gave 1 cent about the baby. i could of mad a better story in my sleep that aguested to if u want to find the baby or u just dont care and u rather take revenge on the murderer of ur wife.. but the way i do it was aguest it so u find him or he finds u anyway, but in my base i make baby a rader king pin.. xD
I've been enjoying one that's similar to hub, star, and constellation, where all the settlement lines lead to a single settlement in the middle, but they follow a line from settlement to settlement to get there instead of directly heading to the central settlement
Or easier solution, get rank 4 for the carry weight perk and now you're the supply line (;
Tristan Kennedy on survival mode? no fast travel it still takes hrs to run around commonwealth
Hah!
Jajaja bad solution! :v
Tristan Kennedy or use vertibird
I am the supply line for my creation club and free mods player homes
I do a combination because I like there to be more than 2 supply lines in case somebody stays siege to a settlement and strategically cuts off a supply line. I know this isn’t real and only accomplishes wasting a productive settler but it feels good in my head.
I feel like using the Castle instead of the Mechanist's Lair would make more sense.
Alpha he says that the lair functions as a central warehouse, not as a headquarters.
Mechanists Lair is great for roleplaying and having a secure ass bunker for survival, building in it sucks tho
Tyler Jaynes I'd stay in there and fap and eat cram for the rest of my life
That's what I use
I used taffington boathouse because it has water which could be used for transport
I have been watching your videos for some time and really enjoy your content. Late for the bandwagon (last post was 2yrs ago?!) I wanted to comment. After playing Fallout 4 since its inception, I recently tried the “Loop” and it may have a tactical advantage. As you stated, it avoids many areas, however, many of those like downtown Boston are also dangerous areas as well. The loop seems to avoid many of these points of conflict by using a safer route for my provisioners. It was something to try, but I do agree other methods are more profitable.
Regarding profit, have noticed hubs with more incoming provisioners tend to produce more income. I once made Greentop Nursery and Vault 88 my two main hubs and I found 10k in bottle caps in their workshops compared to 4K in all the others during my collection runs. I thought that was very interesting. Anyway, thanks for listening and thank you for you work and dedication toward this game.
very long and a constructive comment, but not a lot of people are gonna see this, man :D. still thank you for the heads up!
Well I did the one settlement as the hub and that settlement is hangman alley with the point of that being it’s in the center of the city and is right next to diamond city, one of the reasons that Bunker Hill is such a renowned trading post is because it’s “In the middle of everything” and that’s the same logic with hangman’s alley
The purpose of The Loop method has to do with supply line disruptions. If you have half of your settlements connected to the other half via one supply line and that provisioner is attacked, then your supply lines are cut in half. The Loop fixes that but making the lines into a circle, if a supply line is interrupted between two settlements then the line continues through the other direction.
Settlers are set to protected, you can use placeatme(while in god mode and not fighting back) to add 50 or even 100 raiders just as a settler doing supply lines walks past in the middle of nowhere and eventually all the raiders will be dead even though the settler should have died tenfold the amount of raiders. If you have a broken supply line the settler assigned to it is at home sandboxing or you killed it.
The best method is once you open a settlement go to the last one opened and assign a provisioner to the newest. Nothing fancy. Doing that ensures you have crafting materials to build the settlement at the start and it is the most efficient for the player. Yeah some routes can be really long... doesn't matter, what does matter is having the supply line. Not only is it the esiest method to use it is better if there is a broken supply line. Yo will know which settlement the provisioner is from by following the lines. And if you want to fast travel and check each one and collect you food and cap[s... follow the lines from Sanctuary to each one in order.
This is awesome. I have been playing fallout since it came out and never once messed with supply lines. I really like that you can turn a settlement into a hub like that. Very nice work as always!
I generally use the Star method centered around Vault 88 which serves as my central warehouse, but all my provisioners are robots (so that I can rename them to " provisioner"), which means that lore-wise they won't tire out, and they patrol their provision routes. All provisioners are first sent to the settlement they're provisioning, then assigned as a provision route to the hub, so they count against the population of the individual settlements rather than a lump sum at a single settlement.
my supply line falls somewhere between Loop and Constellation, the innermost settlements are linked together in a double-loop, while the outliers closest to the map borders branch off of the loops. So County Crossing is on the loop, but Nordhagen Beach is a spoke off of it. Egret-Jamaica-Castle is the southern road of the loop, leaving Somerville, Murkwater, Warwick, and Island as spokes. Starlight is on the loop but Red rocket branches off it, and Sanctuary and Abernathy off Red Rocket, Tenpones and Zimonja branch off of Starlight, Sunshine Tidings branches off Starlight.
Something I really enjoy, as your settlement number increases your provisioners are seen more and more frequently showing how “trade” is coming alive in the Commonwealth. It’s being “won” back. I would love a fallout that has missions but the story is centered around building settlements establishing trade, protecting the society you are trying to build. The idea being your economic, social and military power represent “winning” the game.
Damn I beat the game a long ass time ago and never seen the provision robots.
Jordan they're a mod to replace the pack brahmin with eye bots
Or dogs.....
I’ve never beat it but have restarted and have at least 2000 hrs
And we’re back at it again
A great benefit to the Hub/Constellation methods is you can more or less predict the path the provisioner will take and if you equip them well you can effectively create patrols throughout the Commonwealth that will make traveling significantly safer, especially in Survival.
Oxhorn, you're still the best. Thanks for this vid - setting up my first supply lines next time I play!
I chose to do the following:
>every settlement connected to Sanctuary
>every settlement to the castle
>every settlement to the vault.
Result: background gunshot noise, explosions, and overall violence wherever I go like a true apocalypse.
Works great with NPCs travel Mod and various mods that add in more spawns for enemies.
The loop actually does have a practical purpose. If you go by the constellation method, if the warwick homestead to spectacle island provisioner was attacked. While the provisioner is down on the ground (because they’re essential unless you the player kill them) the supply line is cut off so warwick homestead will be cut off from the supplies in the other settlements for a period of time. Which is annoying if you’re trying to build stuff there. However if you use the loop even if the line from warwick to spectacle island is cut off you can still access the supplies from the other settlements via jamaica plain or vault 88 or whatever the other settlement is being supplied from. As you can probably tell i like to use this method
Thank you, oxhorn for the constellation grid, that idea came in handy with my most recent playthrough. as of now I have three main 'hubs' for my caravans making their way through the Commonwealth. great video man,
My supply lines are messy. Every settlement sends provisioners to every other settlement.
Sounds cool seeing all the people traveling though
Not sure if I missed it being mentioned but on the 'star system'. That's also useful if you're going to use Automatron provisioners - Automatrons mess with settlement happiness so if you have them all based at somewhere like the Mechanist's Lair, they won't affect human populations.
My supply lines look like a spider built its web while tripping on LSD. 🤣
Bro same
I've got a somewhat region hub method going on. I designate one settlement in an area to be the main hub, then all the settlements around that, are connected to the hub for that region, then the hubs are connected together.
I think that makes the most sense, but as the video says, this is ultimately just a game play style, and doesn't affect the mechanics of the system.
I use Starlight Drive-In for my Hub. It has plenty of open space and roads coming from several directions that minimizes the funnel effect. If a Bramin ever got stuck in a building, I haven't noticed because I don't frequent ALL my buildings after I build them.
Started replying fallout and do a mixed line that's kinda like equal points circle and constellation. It connects everything shortest distance but the more central settlements also act as hubs that cut across the map and cut it into sections, pretty much making a grid like pattern. (No lines cross or anything) Role play wise it's so a settlements lifeline isn't dependent on one shipment and to get good trade while doubling up as minutemen patrols. Gameplay wise my provisioners, who are decked out with the best gear if human or are essentially supermobile tank bots are mowing down all the respawns while still keeping my map neat.
I use robot provisioners BOTH from Greygarden AND the Mechanist Lair. Both aren't really concerned with happiness as both already have a large number of robots as inhabitants.
With enough resources you can build one provisioner each location to connect to EVERY other location, so essentially a double star. This will provide you with huge numbers of robots to assist in the defense of any settlements as one provisioner is almost guaranteed to pass through
Now we come to my provisioner robot build:
Mr Handy Torso and Thruster.
Torso mod: sensory for tracking targets.
Two sentry arms, voltaic upgrades. Left arm laser sniper, right arm cryo weapon, central mr handy eye for long range engagement distance and accuracy. This covers essentially all range brackets, from melee to extreme sniper ranges.
Three thruster arms.
With a mod two lightning weapons on the thruster, plus one saw hand, otherwise three saw hands. All three thruster arms voltaic upgrades .
Thruster armor upgrade actuated for even greater movement speed.
All the voltaic upgrades adds melee damage.
This results in ultrafast provisioners with an absolutely ridiculous damage output. Meaning, if you're engaged in any kind of overland firefight you're almost guaranteed to get an assistance from one or maybe even two such robots who are NOT your companions. They are amazing vs both big nasties as well as hordes of low levels due to their lightning guns. The voltaic mods add tons of electric/energy damage. Any enemies charging into melee ate greeted by 503 physical and well over 150 energy damage from the very fast handsaw blades. Which dismembers even mirelurk queens in short order.
In my first playthrough I accidentally made a 5 pointed star in supply lines, once I realised I made more lines just to make it a pentagram
Not sure if this has been suggested before, but another type of supply lines plan is a combination of the Star and the Hub methods. So there would be 3 stars which act as the hubs and the 3 hubs are connected to each other. I can't take credit for this method, SarDeliac is the one who shared it with me, but I really like it.
I've been playing Fallout 4 for a few years now, and I only JUST started using supply lines. All of my provisioners go between Sanctuary and their designated settlement. It makes it easier for me because I can just scrap items there and use them wherever I need them. 😁
I like to maintain two provisioners in each settlement and three supply lines. This is an aesthetic choice. Start off using Sanctuary (connecting Red Rocket, Abernathy and Tenpines Bluff) then Starlight Drive-In as a star cluster, but as I grow, I reassign my provisioners to my provisioners to their regional hub once it is open. As I grow and can start reassigning my supplylines I use the regional trade hub approach in which bunker hill becomes my central hub, Starlight Drive-In remains a hub but is reduced to only serving the north western region, The Slog serves my eastern region, while Jamaica Plains serves as my southern hub. The regional hubs send their two provisioners to other regional hubs. (I chose the regional hub design based on a map I saw online one time, and have used it ever since.) Since Bunker Hill is usually one of the last settlements I acquire, the settlements that will become a part of it's cluster are initially assigned to the closest regional hub then reassigned once I acquire bunker hill. likewise I establish a circuit of provisioners between the three initial regional hubs, then add the second provisioner from each of them to bunker hill when it opens My second supply line is I use the great circuit approach where each settlement sends a provisioner to the next/previous settlement in the circuit this includes "spurs to the DLC areas". Each regional hub does not take part in the great circuit they have links to the other hubs... Finally the mechanist lair I turn into an all robot facility/settlement, so I send assaultron provisioners out from there to EVERY settlement as a new star cluster. If all three supply lines are functioning properly (for example I currently have a glitch where my provisioners all hang around starlight even though the supply lines are open to each of my settlements. Hopefully this will correct itself when I switch to regional clusters.
Like oxhorn says. You only need one supply line for each settlement, so a single hub with a star cluster will do, but other approaches, or multiple approaches creates a nice visual effect by increasing activity at your settlements, AND increasing your chances of running into provisioners while you are wandering the commonwealth.
A secondary bonus, as mentioned by others in the comments, is that it creates patrols of armed combatants who will fight wandering, and respawning mobs. (my provisioners frequently clear the stingwings out of the area west of Greentop Nursery in my playthroughs.) Assaultrons and Sentry bots make great "patrols", and if you are playing with both automatons DLC and Faction Paintjobs, you can have Minuteman or BoS patrols running from settlement to settlement keeping the commonwealth safe (lore wise this works better for Minuteman playthroughs)... In my head cannon atleast when playing a goodguy institute playthrough, any new provisioners are actually gen 3 synths, so they are outfitted with synth armor and maxed out institute laser rifles after you take over the institute and start "making changes" to the way things are done. (one of these days I need to try stripping them of all weapons and only giving them synth grenades to see if they summon squads of synths when attacked I have only ever used the synth grenades for destroying liberty prime, so it would be an interesting experiment)
I was doing a circle/loop in my last playthru, have every settlement connected in one perfect route, but now I think I'll do a variation of hubs. I like the idea of having major trade centers.
3 years later and I'm watching this video to remember how order my supplies lines
9:08 I have a solid version of this, that take into account land mass too, not just distance. I dig it.
My favourite system for role playing purposes is creating several small hubs with the largest settlements I have within the middle of each. Then connecting all the hubs together through one central “supply depot”.
This way if any hub were attacked and stamped out of existence, or even the supply depot, each settlement hub would still work independently until new connections could be made. (Obviously this isn’t an in game mechanic, but strategically in a RP sense it makes sense to me)
6 years later and I'm still rewatching this video to remember how order my supplies lines. Thanks
i watched this video and new feel embarrassed of my supply lines bc i had no idea what i was doing lol
I treated my Provisioners as a blend of couriers and soldiers on patrol. Similar to a hub system, with certain settlements seeing more activity, just a step beyond that. I looked at the Minutemen as neighbors keeping neighbors safe, and in the Wasteland that's more to that than trading supplies. Provisioners will engage with anything hostile out in the Commonwealth, so if you have at least 2-4 supply lines going in or out to every individual settlement, you can guarantee those 2-4 people will always be somewhere around that settlement. And if those Minutemen "traders" just happened to be equipped with full combat armor, combat shotguns or assault rifles, grenades, and whatever surplus healing items or chems i had on me at the time....those traders turn in very viable reinforcements that you can usually locate within moments no matter where you are in tge Commonwealth. Just run for the nearest pack Brahmin you see out in the wasteland.
Look at it like this. If you asked your neighbor for a cup of sugar, you'd like him to make it to your house alive, sure. But wouldn't it be nice it he also was able to kill everything hostile between his house and yours? Or if he showed up with the sugar, found out you were in trouble, and was actually able to help when he showed up?
All my supply lines are connected to sanctuary
I did a kind of star grid except sanctuary is my focal point. I roleplayed it as sanctuary being well a sanctuary. Serving as the main minutemen field outpost. Give all the provisioners armor and weapons and have them patrol and keep safe the various roads and trade routes. And if they encounter something big they send a call to the castle via the radio and get airdropped assistance. Thinking I might convert the nearest settlements to the castle into military outposts with power armors.
Replaying FO4 in 2022 and re-watching through FO4 content vids. I went with every settlement to The Castle due to RP. It's the M-Men HQ, so makes sense.
"Finally, what is probably the most neat and orderly"
"No real practical reason to do this"
What? lmfao
I still use the automatron dlc to make fully armed sentry bots as a supply line. Plus the eyebot mod. Combined with the first option Oxhorn has used. Mechanist's hideout as the central hub, since it is the perfect hub.
I did Hangmans alley for a central hub. with SD tanks for provisioners with canons. It is awesome, because if you are close to them out and about. you can hear them fighting.
2:24 drive in is huge place so more suited for being the hob 1 point where all of them connect to
punker hill is smaller but that's second best choice cause its the caravans hub, traders hub
I prefer consolation. It keeps the map clean, and since i play survival, walking along the supply routes is much safer and stopping at settlements in between major areas for water or rest really emphasises the importance of holding an even influence over the commonwealth/island with with minor agricultural settlements providing food to larger "industrial" settlements which may have had room for a munitions plant, provisioner/guard recruitment center, etc. Its more than just cosmetic like the others, and for that reason, i always use it.
did you do a video about the sorters
I did a tour of my lair here: th-cam.com/video/nRI6iuRcTWM/w-d-xo.html
I figured mine out pretty much by accident early in the game while trying to send people out of Oberland Station. It wasn't well-built at the time but horribly overburdened with settlers after I put my radio beacon in and came back for an attack; it had max settlers while Sanctuary only had 18 at that time but was considerably better built. It became my primary hub, but after I figured it out, at least a few settlers from each camp go to my primary camps. The map is a bit of a mess, kinda like an explosion from Oberland with chinese checkers dotting the map. Your constellation one was well-thought. Wish they explained it better in the game!
I use a "hub" system, similar to airlines. Basically Sanctuary, the Castle, etc, serve as hubs to smaller settlements, and the provisioned also transfer between these main hubs.
I do something similar to the first hub idea except I split it up into 3 hubs, starlight, Jamaica plain and county crossing. And all of my provisions are heavily upgraded robots and they always originate from the satellite settlement and because they are robots, I can name them "sanctuary-starlight" and if I randomly came across one, I would know exactly which line I am seeing. In case one goes down, it makes it easier to repair or replace from the settlement that sent the robot. And each hub has color coded robots. All white ones go to starlight, orange ones go to Jamaica plain and blue ones go to county crossing.
I used to like your third example because I felt like in a dangerous land like the common wealth it would be better for the shortest route. But I like the circle because it makes it out that your supply lines take a safer route by avoiding cities. I really liked that one.
that part about the circle was one of the first things i noticed too, it pretty much avoids the entire area of diamond city except for one stop, which... that place is just a never ending warzone between raiders and supermutants
One practical benefit of the 'Loop' or 'Circle' is that it only occupies one settler pr settlement. That's something I like, anyways.
Just watched this video. Gave me some fantastic ideas. Thanks. Gone back to playing FO 4 since my broadband has died. Forgot how great this game is. And the Mods have given me a new gameplay again.
I still like the star. Yes, it's messy on the map, but it's simple and effective, and allows you to see your suppliers more often.
Robo provisioners coming as a star from the Outpost, I find they don't follow a straight path, rather they follow roads. It's always cool when I catch the Abernathy, Red Rocket, and Sanctuary provisioners rolling through Concord blasting any raiders that re-spawned in.
small note for people, you should only have ghoul settlers going to spectacle island if you can. i have heard on reddit and other sources that the radiation from swimming can kill the settles that run the supply lines
My supply lines are set up along three or four different thoroughfares that meet up at a central hub so instead of 30 different suppliers showing up you only have four and the suppliers between settlements run shorter or the shortest routes possible for them.
I think a hybrid between the hub and loop would make sense, because the downtown area of Boston is so hostile settlers and provisioners would avoid it
I did the same thing with The Mechanist’s Lair, build robots at a settlement I didn’t use and made them only for supply lines, I named them all supplybot and of course they all had there own number, max amount I have is 27, and I had all this done weeks before I watched the video haha but you beat me to it since this video was posted 4 years ago 😂
you could do a loop and a star in the middle that acts as a central major hub, or you could even do two or three of those, spacing them out per region, like hangman's alley, starlight drive-in, and mechanist's lair.
or, if you spend some time going directly from settlement to settlement while following roads, you could make supply lines from the new settlement to the last one you discovered. this would make for the shortest distances between settlements and would be pretty enjoyable to think strategically about how provisioners would act
My central hub is and always is Sanctuary. Its where I build my most elaborate base and store everything major.
I use a tree method, but random. No crisscrossing supply lines though. I also use Starlight for my "Trade Hub" because there's more room for all of the Brahmin running around everywhere.
I have used all except the around the world approach.
I liked doing hubs the most as it gave me the feeling of multiple cities as opposed to 1 megalopolis.
The mega city I used Tarkington boathouse and with the huge open spaces there it actually worked fairly well.
My solution is similiar to that of number one. Have one or two settlements have a recruitment beacon active, and the necessary resources and beds needed. Then, create supply lines to every settlement from this recruiting settlement.
I always find it fun to give my supply line provisioner some OP weapon that makes a lot of noise and give them long route and then I will encounter them in the wild and help them fight
I love the constilation one I use it in all my play throughs and challenge runs combined with a mod that gives me a bunch of resource at every settlement I can usually build non stop
I use the Castle and Sanctuary Hills as major supply bases and use Outpost Zimoja, and Star Light Drive in as provisioner settlements
Shortest distance between any 2 settlements is the way to go. I reconstruct them as the game progresses.
One thing that makes a provisioner look better is if you can reduce the probability of pathfinding errors, such as or that lead to wallbonking.
THERE IT IS!!! I knew I used to use a mod that replaced Pack Brahmin with something, I just couldn’t remember what. I’m downloading that Eyebot mod the second I get home haha!!!
Also I’m using a version of the constellation, trying to have my provisioners travel on the main roads as much as possible.
The ring method has benefits, downtown Boston is really dangerous.
i made a black widows web, messy but it increases encounters with your provisions greatly when venturing out into the Commonwealth
well if you own the mechanist lair it makes sense lore wise that eye bots fly around with your robots as little guards and scouts you use the one eye bot to scan for stuff you need anyways
All of my provisioners are adorned in a full postman ensemble.
Mine in survival mode is a mix of all. I sometimes send a provisioner all across the map, just cause that's how I'm running that settlement (I'm also the new Vault-Tec. The drive in workers have to work in radiation) , but some of them have minigun and I run into the randomly on the road and follow them for a bit since they're more powerful than I am half the time
Ok this is a bit of an old video now but I've only just started playing Fallout 4 as of a couple of weeks ago. This was very helpful thank you.
Discovering ALL Bethesda's Broken stuff again (same as it was with Skyrim SE) is annoying but we fix them with the aid of the Modding Community.
I usually make Starlight Drive-In my first central provisioneer's hub, because it has the necessary space for homes, and the road access to many other settlement locations. Then after Preston starts sending me to further away locations I'll set up another main hub centrally located to that region of the Commonwealth. The Slog covers the N.E. settlements, Egret Tours Marina covers the southern region. I thought about using the Mechanists Lair but getting in and out of there is a pain in my ass and loading screens aren't my favorite activity to partake of, contrary to Todd's "vision" of fun game-play. Murkwater Construction site I usually don't bother developing as a "settlement", since it's in a swamp and the weather is crap most of the time, if I do anything there it's my escape home or trophy stash where I don't have to worry about settlers stealing my Legendary collection items or my power armor sets, because there aren't any there. The best thing I like about the hub system is the caravans tip me off to hostile activity, that I can run to and third party fights for the extra goodies. I am going to look into the Eye-Bots replacers though, this is the future after all and cows are FOOD.
Making your provisioners robots with good Firepower and keeping their routes along roads increases their survivability by reducing the chances they'll be attacked by Wildlife on the road during radiant encounters because your provisioners can and will go missing if they happen to be attacked in an active cell and die
My preferred route is route all of the settlements through regional hubs, and construction a massive trade city at starlight. When it came time to build up the small single family farms I noticed that most of the traders coming out of the mechanists layer pass through the T next to country crossing.
I wanted to set up a supply line to every settlement from the Mechanist's lair. So I cleaned up the lair, replaced the old catwalks with new ones, and got to work. I built 4 robots. Assaultrons. And I decked them out as amazingly as I could. Each one was unique, including their weapons. And when they were finished, I named them Gold Leader Alpha, Blue Leader Beta, Green Leader Gamma, and White Leader Delta. They would be in charge of the entire operation, connecting the Mechanist's Lair to my 4 most important settlements. Sanctuary, The Castle, Spectacle Island, and Vault 88. I then moved on to the next phase. I would delete all my other current supply lines to start all over. And that's when I gave up. After 20 minutes of trying to cancel them I just ended up murdering one of my provisioners, a Mr. Handy from Greygarden. And I felt terrible and couldn't do it again. So I just decided to leave the supply lines intact while I start the new ones from the Mechanist's Layer. I planned on building more Assaultrons. Nothing special about them. Standard, no personality mode activated, grey color, basic armor. And they would connect the Mechanist's Layer with every other settlement. But first I decided to try and set up the other supply lines with the 4 leaders. 3 of them did as they were told. But Alpha absolutely refused to start a supply line with Sanctuary. It just stood there wandering aimlessly no matter how many times I told it to go to Sanctuary. And that was when I gave up and forgot about the whole mess and said fuck it this is too broken. One good thing that came out of it is that Beta is ridiculously OP and I'm considering taking it with me as a companion because it kills everything
Cool video! Will admit its my first playthrough so i mostly did the star method off Sanctuary as i didnt know all of the settlements to setup a hub style route system and i was too lazy to track down each settlement's provisioner to reset the route so figured it'd be easier to setup as i discover them. Ill try this my next playthrough.