Making Better Looking Settlements In Fallout 4

Fallout 4 certainly has its perks, but there are also a few areas in need of some minor tweaking. By which I mean, settlements could look a lot better. Call me crazy, but if I’m building a refuge for folks in the Commonwealth, I’m going to put some effort into it. It may be the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean the settlements have to be haphazard buildings. Wooden ones are made out of boards that always have gaps between them. Metal buildings don’t line up correctly. And don’t get me started about the rugs. If you’ve just made a rug, and you’re at a settlement like Sanctuary with uncontaminated water, wouldn’t it be clean, spread evenly, and have no holes in it?

There’s nothing those of us with the console versions of Fallout 4 can do about this yet, but PC players have risen up and said, “No more!” A number of mods have already been released to make settlements look a little more like home. Because just because people are living in a wasteland doesn’t mean their houses have to look like pigsties.

To start, I highly recommend Mikor’s Pristine Pre-War Home. It makes the Sole Survivor’s home look the same way it did in the very beginning of Fallout 4, untouched by the ravages of time. There’s a Min version, which only has the minimum amount of upkeep done by “Codworth” over the years, and a Max version that makes it look as good as it did back when your avatar was leading a happy, normal life.

But it isn’t about only making your home better. It’s about making every possible building within a Fallout 4 settlement great. A good place to start is with Expanded Settlement Buildings by FloorBelow. It takes content Bethesda made for settlements and left in the game, but for some reason didn’t make functional and accessible, and gets them ready for you to use. They’re as weathered as the original walls available in the game, so everything fits well together. It’s all about giving people more options for authentic buildings. If you want 10 more items that could have been in, but for some reason didn’t make the cut, these work quite well.

While all that’s good, there are people who are going to want to go extravagant. There’s one Fallout 4 settlement mod that answers that call, and it’s amazing. TroyIrving’s Settlement Supplies Expanded 2.5 adds an incredible wealth of items that fits within the series’ lore. There’s a running tally of absolutely everything added within this mod, and it adds 243 static objects, 73 pieces of furniture characters can interact with, 66 doors, 4 miscellaneous, interactive objects to allow for special functions, and an extra Power Armor Rack option. The creator is even taking requests for possible items to add to this particular mod and improve homesteads. The video does a rather nice job of showing the level of detail that went into the mod, and how it provides people with items that don’t look like they were dragged through a river, thrown out of a truck, and cleaned by Super Mutants before being placed in your settlement.

Those mods cover major adjustments, but there are minor settlement issues that could use some small adjustments. When I was going through these mods, I could swear people were reading my mind. Drago856’s Simple Intersection allows some items to overlap a bit, so you don’t get those obnoxious and unrealistic holes in the walls. JamesPK23’s Good Generators gives you better generators and water purifiers that provide the amounts of energy and water you’d expect from such massive machines. Plus, it lets you save space for other, more valuable items for your town. It works well with Brighter Settlement Lights by Elvani, which makes existing lights brighter and more useful. Again, think of it as a space and energy efficient mod. Lemures32’s Quieter Settlements allows a player to adjust the volume of generators, hammering from settlers, turrets, and water purifers.

Now, as for installation. There’s no convenient way to install Fallout 4 mods yet, since it doesn’t have Steam Workshop support at the moment. All of the mods above have information in their respective text files that go over how to add them to their games. However, it is also possible to use the Nexus Mod Manager or Zoryn’s Yet Another Fallout 4 Mod Manager to make installations a little easier.

Just remember to always back up your save files before adding mods to Fallout 4. These are all works in progress, Bethesda is still patching the game, and you want to be sure you never lose any of your progress.