Transfer Settlements - Finch Farm Institute Surveillance Station 1.0.1

A Transfer Settlements blueprint that answers the question on how a family of farmers can survive with The Forged, Gunners, and Super Mutants as neighbours. This build specifically makes use of the overpass going over the property to create a multi-level Institute fortress that observes the Commonwealth as their experiments carry on below.

Details on this build:

• Features an extensive greenhouse for high production.
• Supports all major stores that bring happiness.
• Mix of living and work spaces.
• Settlers can exist almost exclusively within the fortress without venturing down.
• Forward and aft turret batteries can engage Gunners and Super Mutants. Useful when the colony goes to war with either side due to the player getting too close to the property line and triggering an engagement. Thirty settlers armed with Institute weapons will clear out Revere Station in no time.

Settlement Features
 

• 31 bunks.
• 150+ food.
• 900 defence.
• 420 power.
• 63 water.
• Tier 3 Medical, Restaurant, Clothing, and General Store.
• Dedicated gym area.
• Vault-Tec drink dispenser and slot machines.
• Working sinks and showers.
• Power mostly runs through conduits to minimise visible power lines.
• Settlers occasionally fall through the floors but can move throughout.
• Cat and dog included in the build.
• No visual glitches observed from this build.

Requirements

Downloadable Content

• Contraptions Workshop
• Vault-Tec Workshop
• Wasteland Workshop
• Automatron

Hard Requirements

• Transfer Settlements. To import this blueprint.
• Scrap Everything or an equivalent. To clear out the area as per Setup Instructions.
• Homemaker. Primary build components for most of the settlement, decorations, furniture, and miscellaneous objects.
• Settlement Objects Expansion Pack. Fusion generators, railings, pools, foundation liners, cooking station, and water pumps.

Soft Requirements

• Craftable Working Sinks and Showers Redux. Working sinks and showers.
• Erotic Art. Frames and pictures used throughout.
• Working Fridges. Simple mod that adds working fridges, ice machines, and vending machines.
• Working Washer and Dryer (Immersive Laundry). Player functional laundry machines and dryers with sound effects.
• Singing Settler. Used for additional flooring.

Nice to Have

• Armour and Weapon Keywords Community Resource. Additional types of workshops, namely power armour.
• Videos of the Wasteland. Working televisions and projectors.
• Crazy Sex Animations. Invisible mats that make settlers happy through masturbation, done without using the Advanced Animation Framework, and additionally places assignable gurneys that increase happiness.
• Sex Toys of the Commonwealth. Adds the random placement of sex toys throughout.
• Bad Dragon Dildos. Adds more extreme dildos throughout.
• Companion Ivy. If you happen to have Ivy as a companion, one of her broadcast towers will be added in an out of the way area.

Unrelated But Useful

• Place Everywhere. Allows you to make minor adjustments if necessary.
• Armour Rack Female Mannequin Fix. Fixes the armour rack to support alternate bodies like Fusion Girl.
• Glass Roofs Stop Rain and Snow - Various Mods Patches. Stops rain and snow from going through glass roofs.

Setup

Clearing the area is relatively straightforward. Clear the area of clutter and trash, especially the large mound by the home. Feel free to tidy up the home itself, but nothing changes inside. The overall goal is to create the illusion that the Finches live below doing their thing while a community thrives above providing defence as necessary.

Clear up the overpass of clutter and vines. Those hanging below can stay since they are often a pain to scrap (see below). Be careful when working this area, it's easy to fall through.

For items that are hard or impossible to scrap do the following:

• Select the vines.
• Disable
• MarkForDelete

Build a Transfer Settlements console from Power > Miscellaneous on the roof of the Finch home.
 

Tasks After Import

Confirm all power has been restored.

Notes on Imports

Transfer Settlements recommends leaving the area after import and to not return for 1-2 game days. However, I found that saving on site always crashes the game.

The easiest way to get away and save is to coc Vault111Ext from the console. Wait a couple of minutes before heading into the vault. Once you arrive at the bottom it is safe to save.

I recommend that you import/export Blueprints using Stable defaults. Using other methods has caused ladders, walls, and flooring to appear without collision. In many cases the collision effects are found elsewhere leading to interesting behaviours among the NPC population, and leading to a snap back effect as you push through an area and are forced back by the invisible wall.
 

Lastly Import wired power connections should always be selected as part of the import process. It will reliably re-connect all wired connections. This saves you the trouble of linking up floors, turrets, and in some cases re-establish connections for hidden or buried runs.

Notes on Power and Performance

These blueprints utilize ambient fill lighting to provide a pervasive glow. I use Naked Bulbs to create a lived-in atmosphere for statues, fountains, and roof voids.

Warning for Dynamic Lighting Users

If you use mods that turn all lights into dynamic, shadow-casting sources, the sheer number of these bulbs will severely cripple your framerate. I strongly recommend using the Transfer Settlements Blueprint Editor to strip out all instances of 306F1 before importing.

Optimization for Complex Builds:
Because of the heavy use of conduits to reduce visible power lines, these settlements have high object counts. To steps below may improve performance.

• Enable Faux Power in the Workshop Framework's workbench settings.
• Use the Transfer Settlements Blueprint Editor to strip all conduits from the .json file.

This can reduce build complexity by up to 40% without losing the overall aesthetic of the settlement.
 

A Special Thanks To

Thank you to Caladon for creating the template that makes blueprints installable.

Thank you to PiCSeL for the magazine and painting retextures seen in the screenshots.

Updates

Version 1.0.1

• Added support for Immersive Laundry.
• Removed Fresh Carrots Planters for regular variant. The former cannot be used for crating of recipes and drugs.
• Added stairs on the top level, enables the player to walk on and off the glass roofs.