Yesterday we visited the core of Concord's territory: Quarrytown, Concord, Abernathy Farm, and Ridge. Before we head south towards Red Tourette's territory, we have some business to do east of Concord. First we'll visit the Drumlin Diner and make sure it's not blocked in terms of progress. Then we need to set up the Minutemen base at Bedford Station. Finally, we'll check in with Graygarden to make sure the robots are doing OK. 

After arriving at the Diner and fighting off a random ghoul attack, we can immediately see that this one needs some work. Not only is the defense value too low, but so is the power amount. All of this is holding back the site from advancing. The good news, of a sort, is that we have unemployed settlers, so if I add a power station I can get it going immediately with the folks on site. However, I will probably still need to recruit another guard to increase the defense value.

While I was setting this all up, the game apparently felt a need to reinforce the defense shortfall, because a strong force of Gunners attacked next, further delaying things a bit. To avoid the rotting corpses penalty, I had to install a cemetery plot in addition to everything else (and by extension, recruit more settlers - ugh!).  The good news, however, is that restoring full power brought the defense value up significantly - enough to cover all the protection needs including the new power plant. This means I only need to add one settler to work the cemetery.

As you can see, the Diner is starting to get pretty crowded. I'll have to put some thought into how we'll keep growing this, but for now its needs are taken care of and it should start improving again on its own.

Next up is Bedford Station. Preston Garvey cleared the ghouls from this location off camera and set up a Minutemen outpost in the location. Initially it will be fairly small, but we do want to create it so it can start accruing 'experience points' for its buildings.

I ultimately decided to use an advanced defense building, so this one will initially be weak on defense, but once its inhabitants are suitably trained up that will cease to be a problem. Now let's wrap up this session of the refresh by visiting the robots at Graygarden.

Immediately I found a problem: despite the fact that I put an advanced defense plot at Graygarden, defense was only 5 (from the dog that lives there). A check on the plot revealed that it wasn't operational because of a shortage of lead. Lead is classified as a machine part by Sim Settlements, so let's start by adding an appropriate industrial station to Graygarden. I chose the "machine parts stores" plot because it allows for two workers... and I built two new robots to work there.

With the machine parts stockpile laid in, Graygarden should be all set for now. The only issue with the Garden is that since its 100% robots, its happiness cannot go up and therefore it cannot upgrade most of its plots. That's OK for now, but eventually we'll have to talk to Supervisor White and see if she'll soften her stance on non-robots. I wonder what she would think about Gen 3 Synths?

I'd expected this leg of the update to take longer, but since we completed them so quickly, let's swing down to Oberland Station and see if the alliance quest is available now. If you remember from when we set up Vault 81's territory, the Station was locked down because I had an active Minutemen quest running. That quest (Greentop Nursery) is complete now, so we might have more options. Let's find out!

Nope, it's still locked. So we'll press on to Chestnut Hillocks and give the settlers there some attention. The settlement here is pegged at 80 happiness and probably can't go any higher since it doesn't have electricity and since its defense value is fairly low. We'll start by installing a power plant and running electrical wires.

Fun fact, all the settlers for Chestnut Hillocks are standing stock still in the middle of the road. Safe to say that this settlement is a little screwed up at the moment. If it doesn't resolve itself next time the cell resets, I'll have to investigate these shenanigans a little further.

With the new power station and defenses up and running, Chestnut Hillock should get a number of upgrades almost immediately, since it already has the 80 happiness required for those improvements. We'll need to revisit what's wrong with he navigation here, but that's not something that needs immediate attention.

The small camp at the entrance of Vault 81 also needs some attention; basically, it needs better defenses, and we'll go ahead and install those today. As the sun goes down, you can see the more robust guard tower starting to take shape, replacing the old vanilla guard tower that the camp had previously.

Last but not least, let's visit the Forest Grove Minutemen base. It needs defense and housing, and fortunately it's in a decent position to develop those both. I've got a few Gunner prisoners locked up here who should be at 100 submission by now, so we'll convert them to settlers and use them to staff the new facilities. Moving into Forest Grove proper is a little tricky since there's a lot of radioactive water to contend with, but the dam needed some additional defenses anyway, so I installed a checkpoint as well as a barracks building. I only ended up having to activate one of the two Gunners, so the other one I left be for now. In either event, happiness is now going up and all needs are met. 

And I think that's that for today. The last segment will cover Walden Pond, Sunshine Tidings, and last but not least the Federal Ration Stockpile. If the FRS doesn't prove to be too stubborn, we might also wrap up with a visit to Concord and Tenpines just to look for opportunities for improvement --- we'll see