In a lot of ways Fallout 4 feels very familiar to its predecessor – you’re still wandering a ruined US shooting mutants and collecting stuff. However, one significant improvement is the ability to tidy up parts of this disorderly wasteland and make them liveable. Popular with players who like simulation and resource management games, and compulsory if your chosen path through the main plot involves siding with the Minutemen, settlement building is a major part of Bethesda’s newest role-playing adventure.

However, while the system is impressive, the interface is fiddly. If you find yourself several hours into the game and wanting to rebuild your first few hamlets from scratch, you may have a laborious process ahead.

To mitigate that risk, make sure you learn the basics of building with this handy four-part guide.

1. Set-up

The settlements system is a major part of Fallout 4, and it’s clear the designers don’t want you to miss it. Unless you’re especially contrary, you’ll likely stumble into the quest that introduces settlement building in your first day out of the vault.

‘Oh phew, my robot butler survived the nuclear destruction of the planet. Now get me a drink.’ Photograph: Bethesda

On returning to your pre-war home, your robot Codsworth will recommend you check out nearby town Concord, where you’ll run into a group led by a man called Preston Garvey. Fulfil their request to take them to your hometown, which they call Sanctuary, and one of them – Sturges – will teach you how to turn the derelict manifestations of your character’s painful memories into objects and resources useful for post-apocalyptic life: beds, water, food, and defences.

Think of Sturges as the post-apocalyptic answer to Nick Knowles from DIY SOS

You switch from adventurer to builder through the workshop menu. To access it, find and activate the settlement’s red workshop or use the shortcut command (hold down the “change view” button), an on-screen reminder for which is a handy way to tell if you’re in an editable area.

The workshop view provides stats for your settlement along the top of the screen, with any that are low highlighted in red, and construction categories along the bottom. You’ll need to spend some time getting used to what goes where, especially as you unlock more objects – but Sturges’ requests are easily found: beds come under furniture, water and food under resources, and defences under defence.

Your Black & Decker Junkmate

On selection, you’ll see a ghostly version of the object appear in the world. Move your cursor around until it lights up, which shows there’s enough space to place it, and you can set it down. Thankfully you can move objects after you’ve placed them, so if you notice you’ve placed your guard post facing into rather than away from the town you can just pick it up and turn it around.

Once you’ve figured out the basics of object placement, no doubt you’ll have loads of ideas for the kinds of settlements you want to build. The only limit is your imagination. Oh, and the inbuilt settlement size limit. And the raw materials. Which brings us to …

2. Supply

The most immediate method to gather the components needed to construct the various objects that make up a settlement is to scrap what was there when you arrived. You can’t scrap everything, but systematically removing every broken toilet and fallen tree from a clearly demarcated area is one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever had in video games. It even makes a good noise.

Some settlements, however, don’t have enough of their own supply of raw materials, especially when you want to build more than the basics. The next step is to gather junk when you head out on quests, which, when transferred to the workshop (press “store all junk” to do this as quickly as possible), can be automatically broken down into components during construction.

If you want to build radio beacons to bring more inhabitants to your settlements, pick up every coffee cup you see

Those who played Fallout 3 will be used to selective looting when clearing a building of raiders or super mutants, but in Fallout 4 the useless has become useful, so start picking up those broken lamps and ashtrays. You could level up your strength stat to make sure you can carry as much as possible, maybe with the addition of the “strong back” perk and some grilled radstag, but if you want to be more discerning and gather only what you need for your current project, you’ll want to learn how to tag components so that objects containing them are highlighted (with a little magnifying glass next to their name) in the world.

In Fallout 4, you can’t just nip down to Homebase to get your building equipment – sadly DIY retail didn’t make it through the apocalypse

Tagging items you find is a crucial way of keeping track of what you have and what you need

One way to tag components is to look at the junk you’ve already got in your inventory (scroll right from the weapons tab – it’s just after “misc”), press a button to switch to “component view”, and then press another button to tag as many as you need from the list. However, since this method only allows you to tag components you already have, a more natural method is to do it in workshop mode: when you come across something you can’t construct because you’re missing a component, press a button to tag what you lack.

‘In tonight’s episode of Kirstie Allsopp’s Settlement Style: why not decorate this rusty piece of corrugated iron with the diseased head of a dead mutant?’

If you’re too busy to pick up all that junk yourself, you can get a steady supply of salvage by setting up a scavenging station, which is hidden away under resources > miscellaneous but only requires five wood and three steel to build, plus one settler to actually work. Assign your settler by selecting them in the workshop view and clicking on the scavenging station to set them to work. Apparently, any settler without a job will bring in bits and pieces of junk too.

Send scavengers into the wilderness to bring back useful stuff – it’s like making your parents go to Ikea for you

Oh, and if you need adhesive, which you probably do, follow Rich Stanton’s advice and use a cooking station to make some vegetable starch.

Who’d have thought glue would be such an important part of surviving after a nuclear war?

Finally, the most important thing to do if you’re serious about building several thriving settlements is to set up supply lines between them so that your stock is available to all. To unlock this ability you need the “Local Leader” perk, which requires a charisma level of at least 6 (and an overall level of 14 for its second rank, which lets you build stores and workstations in your settlements).

Get those supply lines thriving by developing enough charisma to be a leader

Once you’ve got the perk, you have to set up your supply lines manually: in settlement A, use workshop view to highlight a settler and press the “supply line” button, then choose settlement B from the list (if it’s greyed out that means that settlement has the maximum number of settlers, ie ten plus your charisma level) and off they’ll go. You don’t need supply lines between every settlement; just make sure each is connected to at least one other. To check your network, head to the map on your Pip Boy and press the button for “show supply lines”.

Starlight Drive-In sounds like a nice place to establish a supply route – or just to make-out

Make sure every settlement is connected to at least one other to ensure healthy supply lines

3. Satisfaction

Aesthetics aside, settlements and the objects within serve a functional purpose, fulfilling the needs represented in the bar along the top of the screen in workshop view. To keep your settlers happy and productive, and stop them complaining every time you visit, you’ll want to tailor your construction to maximise each need. Here’s how:

Food and water

A water purifier will be especially useful here as those irradiated cows are bound to be peeing in that puddle

This one’s easy. Each settlement needs the numbers next to food and water to be higher than the number of settlers who live there. To increase your food supply, plant crops and assign settlers to manage them. For water, build a few water pumps or – if the settlement is on the coast or contains a large puddle – a water purifier. If you lack the square footage for a farm, supply lines will help, letting your settlers share in the spoils of their neighbours’ hard work.

Power

Keeping those attractive fairy lights powered is an important part of survival

Settlers won’t care about a lack of power, but some objects, such as water purifiers, require a supply. Power is quantified, and each object has a numerical requirement. Different-sized generators provide a set amount to objects connected to them with wires (one copper each); link them by pressing the “attach wire” button on object A and then again on object B.

Generators power pylons which supply juice to your settlement

Use your generators to power pylons and conduits (power > connectors and switches), which radiate energy in an invisible field around them, useful for powering nearby objects like lights. With the addition of a switch you can control this radiation so the lights aren’t just always on; you can also use things like pressure plates and laser tripwires to control when things like traps receive power.

Defence

Weird fact: every time I go to this settlement, my companion Piper says, “Somebody’s not interested in visitors,” when she sees the machine gun turret that’s only there because I built it

At first glance, it looks like you just want a settlement’s defence rating to be higher than its population, but you probably want it higher. Raiders and other attackers will target crops and water supplies so, if you can, make sure the number next to defence is higher than the sum of those next to food and water.

Initially you’ll likely rely on guard posts, which only require 10 wood and four steel to build and one settler to manage, but you can get more defence from turrets, the more powerful of which require perks like “Gun Nut” and “Science!” Want to set traps that only hurt your enemies? Place your trap, then wire it up to a powered laser tripwire, and connect a terminal to the tripwire so you can set it to only trigger when a hostile steps through.

Laser-triggered defence networks are an absolute must for the security-conscious survivor

Beds

Sleeping “top-and-tail” seems to be one indignity that post-civilisation Americans refuse to suffer

Settlers will gripe if they have to share beds (apparently it’s not that kind of game), so make sure you have at least as many as you have inhabitants. To protect against the consequences of mass immigration while you’re away, you might want to bump it up to the maximum of ten plus your charisma level. A sleeping bag works as well as a bed, but settlers won’t be happy if they have to sleep outside so make sure you place them under some kind of roof.

I favour these beds because you can fit more of them in a smaller space

Happiness

‘Congratulations, you’ve won our Best Dressed Survivor of the Month award.’

Less immediately quantifiable than the rest, a settlement’s happiness level is often unpredictable, but there are a few things you can do to boost it. For one, make sure you’re looking after the other needs. Some of the stores that you can build, once you’ve unlocked the second rank of the Local Leader perk also add to happiness: trader, food and drink, clinic, and clothing (armour and weapons bring in income but no happiness). You can also please your settlers by carrying out neverending Radiant quests (tune in to Freedom Radio to find out if any settlements need your help) and defending them if they come under attack.

Mr Abernathy’s wife and daughter have been kidnapped so many times I’m starting to suspect the problem is with him

To monitor these needs over your whole network at once, tab across to workshops under the data tab of your Pip Boy and you’ll see a list of all the settlements you’ve unlocked, complete with warning signs for those found lacking in one way or another. Highlight a single settlement to find out which needs need work, and if you manage to get rid of every single warning let me know how you did it: in my game, Sanctuary has one next to happiness despite the fact that, at 83, it’s my happiest settlement, and Greentop Nursery is apparently content with a happiness level of just 45.

Let’s face it, with a name like “Hangman’s Alley”, we’re not surprised the inhabitants are feeling ambivalent

4. Sundries

Once you’ve got the basics down, here are a few extra features of settlement-building for you to check out:

Foundations

As Kevin McCloud would no doubt say, don’t limit yourself to boring flat areas – be more imaginative with your foundations

Don’t make the same mistake I did and limit yourself to building shelters only where the ground is flat. Under structures > wood > floors there’s a very handy “shack foundation” (12 wood, three concrete) that you can sink into the ground to provide a flat surface on which to build. You might need to connect some stairs so your settlers can reach the elevated side, but they usually snap into place quite nicely.

Picket Fences

No self-respecting settlement builder would be seen dead without this magazine

Scattered across the Commonwealth are five issues of a magazine called Picket Fences, each of which unlocks a new kind of object for you to construct. If you want to be able to populate your settlements with things like potted plants or patio furniture, keep an eye out.

Rack them up

Creating your own newsagent shop is a great way of establishing a sense of normality amid the endless death, disease and random, senseless violence

There are so many different kinds of magazines to collect that you may want to proudly display them in your chosen home. To do so, find the magazine racks (one screw, four steel) under furniture > shelves and transfer your collection across. You may need to build more than one.

You can do the same with any bobbleheads you find with the bobblehead stand (three screw, four steel, three fibreglass) under furniture > miscellaneous.

The bell

My bell brings all the settlers to the yard, and they’re like, ‘oh god help us, we’ve nothing to eat and the world is full of monsters’

Crops, guard posts, scavenging stations, and stores all require assigned settlers to work. In large settlements like Sanctuary, however, it can be difficult to find settlers when you need them. Build a bell (four wood, four steel), which is found under resources > miscellaneous (I guess because in Fallout 4 people are a resource) and ring it to gather a crowd before you.

Dress up

Life is tough in the Commonwealth but at least now everyone is dressed like they’re in a Canadian indie band

Finally, despite your best intentions to provide them with a safe and comfortable environment and a productive occupation, your settlers still sometimes look like they’d rather be anywhere else. You might not be able to put smiles on their faces, but you can make them look a little less dejected by putting them in nicer clothes. Just ask them to trade, and you can give them a fashionable suit or hat, pressing “equip” to force them to wear it. Or, you know, equip them with some decent armour and a weapon so they’ll be a bit more useful next time the raiders come. Just get rid of those rages – they’re so last-apocalypse.

