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About this mod
Automatically cleans up to 70 settlement locations from game start without breaking precombines.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
INTRODUCTION:
After all these years playing FO4 I still love the settlement system. I love trying new settlement locations, clearing them out, building my own stuff, and having provisioners running all around the Commonwealth. But with 70 or so settlements initially setting them up on each new game became a pain. Clearing out each settlement and gathering all the junk so it doesn't interfere with my builds started taking a significant amount of time and effort. Even with tools like 'Raze my settlement' and 'Amazing Follower's Tweaks' it was a chore.
I even went so far as to write a script that takes Workshop Framework layouts for untouched and cleaned settlements and generates batch files to remove everything not in the latter from the former using disable/markfordelete and my current load order. Then I would run the batch file on each settlement. But this is not the proper way to remove things and it still didn't get the many, many loose items, corpses, clutter, etc... Finally I broke down, opened up FO4Edit, and did what I wanted in what I believe a proper manner.
FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES:
* With all optional modules instantly cleans 70 settlements with all removed items hand-selected in FO4Edit. As of this writing 20,000+ items removed from base game settlements, 2,500+ removed with the Red Rocket module, 7,600+ removed with the Tenhat's and Glitchfinder module, and 1,900+ removed with the Misc module.
* PRP compatible and no broken Precombines. This mod should be fully compatible with, but does not require, PRP 74. Everything was tested with their PRP versions along with PRP specific precombines for Rebuild from Camora and Tales of the Commonwealth from Hapless Accreditation. I wrote a script to make sure nothing removed was in a cell's XCRI record and used PJM's previs patching script to doublecheck precombines.
* Highly compatible and correct item removal. Uses the new super safe and efficient way to remove base game references according to the latest in scientific FO4 modding research: Utility cells. No base game references are deleted and cell records themselves are untouched for maximum compatibility. There aren't even any references to Worldspace cells in my mod other than the global persistent ones used to do things like add containers and modify map markers. I like this very much as not touching things helps guarantee compatibility with the downside of being able to modify fewer things.
Will this improve performance? Possibly. I don't think just disabling items alone really improves performance much. Sure there is less for the engine to draw but I still think it does some processing on the CPU side even if it's disabled. What did seem to really make a difference was moving them out of the Worldspace cells and into utility cells. There is a noticeable difference in speed between when I just have items disabled when editing versus when I move them to the utility cell when finished.
* Old and Next Gen Compatible. Tested with both. Personally I'm using Old Gen (1.10.163) with PRP 74 so that is the most tested. I also occasionally test with a non-PRP Next Gen (1.10.984) install to get both combinations.
* All hostile NPCs like molerats, radroaches, and mirelurks have been removed and settlements that depend on you clearing them out will be ready to go! If your looking for something to automatically open ALL workshops I recommend SKK Workshop Utilities. That mod will do it in a more compatible manner than I can with FO4Edit.
* Some Quick Start features. Since I was moving all the magazines and bobbleheads in settlements I went ahead and just put them on top of the workshop in Sanctuary. Easier for me and a nice little bonus to get started. I also enabled fast travel to all the settlement map markers and Home Plate is instantly available, (I unlocked the doors). Finally since there are no longer any bloatflies in Sanctuary I rigged Codsworth to skip his initial quest and be available right away.
* Smart Scrap Toolboxes in each settlement. Each workshop has a toolbox next to it containing important items. CHECK THESE IN EACH SETTLEMENT! It's not just for scrap but can contain important items like keys, notes, and holotapes. Specifically I wrote a script that adds both loose items lying around and things inside containers including dead NPCs into each toolbox. It currently handles the following: ALCH, AMMO, ARMO, BOOK,KEYM, LVLI, MISC, NOTE, PROJ, and WEAP.
This isn't really intended to provide accurate scrap. It's more so you get the important stuff. Notably this does not include static items, for which I would need to do a more involved script to break things down into components. You can't have a tree in a toolbox, you want the wood. Because of this each toolbox also contains 1500 of every component instead.
DISADVANTAGES VS SCRIPTED SOLUTIONS (for example Raze my Settlement or AFT):
* Because these are manual edits it can't know about any additional mod added items other than what it was built with. Scripted solutions will catch these with the downside of having to run them in each settlement so are much more time consuming.
* Scripted solutions will provide accurate scrap. This does not.
ISSUES & CONCERNS TO BE AWARE OF (READ ME):
* Absolutely requires a new game!
* For most settlements you should actually walk up to the workshop instead of just long-pressing the menu button to open it for the first time. You need to be in it's proximity before the settlement is officially cleared. You may also have to try opening it a couple times before it registers as available. Anything more than that and there is probably something else you need to do to unlock it.
* Settlers will no longer have beds and possibly jobs if they were farming so make sure to build and assign them ASAP or your happiness will go down.
* Possible weirdness with the new repair stuff. I started this long before this functionality existed and it took me awhile to get the hang of it using FO4Edit. Mostly this manifests in inefficiencies where the newer mods collect related things into one big item that can be enabled or disabled and I still do it individually. This can lead to unrepaired items if I missed anything.
INCLUDED CLEANUP MODULES:
* Rebuild Collection AIO, along with Demo Finch Farm and Outpost Zimonja:
While all these plugins can be used separately this is really the base for this mod and will clean all the base game settlements included with Rebuild as well as Demo Finch Farm and Outpost Zimonja. Other settlements like Abernathy, Boston Airport, Hangman, and Home Plate are also cleaned but retain their base game precombines so will still be a little trashy.
Rebuild works with both PRP and vanilla Fallout but I recommend both using PRP and the PRP specific precombines built by Camora.
* (NEW!) Tenhat's Nuka-World Settlements Pack along with Pra's Nuka Farm:
This module cleans the 6 settlements from Tenhat's new AIO and the farm from Pra in Nuka-World! Both are required. All workshops should become available as you approach them with the exception of Hubologist's Camp. For that one you have to do their Quest.
* Red Rocket Settlements by Tarsis31 and Yagisan:
Red Rocket Settlements has been one of my favorite mods for years. It provides 16 settlements spread out nicely around the Commonwealth and Far Harbor that all work properly. A great mod if you like having a lot of easy settlements that don't require anything to own and then sending provisioners all over the map.
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT RR Nahant and Rebuild: These two mods have a previs conflict at Red Rocket Nahant and Croup Manor. If you want to use them together you must either use my patch which will remove the Nahant settlement or generate a patch to fix the previs yourself. Because of this RR Nahant is not cleaned or otherwise modified.
* A selection of Glitchfinder and Tenhat settlements:
These two are some of the more prolific recent modders and their settlements can be trusted to use the most recent modding techniques. They aren't the only ones, but when you see a new settlement by them you know it's good. Many of these use the rebuild mechanism described above but are now prebuilt and cleaned.
You must install all of these in order to use this cleanup module. Sorry, but it makes things much easier for me. There are rumblings of possible AIOs on discord and if that happens I'll clean up any additional settlements and switch to those.
Glitchfinder. All require you also install their corresponding previs file:
Tenhats:
* Tenhats (currently) PRP and Immaculate incompatible extras:
There are a couple Tenhats settlement combinations I use that got broken when updating to PRP 74 thus will only work for non-PRP users until they get updated. I took them out of the above module and put them here in the meantime. Once updated these will be merged into the above.
* Miscellaneous settlements of high quality:
A few more settlements from other authors who produce high quality settlment mods.
FAQs:
* What load order? I'd say at the end but pretty much every mod says to load it at the end. Everything can't be very last. Anywhere after settlement mods and of course PRP should be fine. If your using a mod manager it should handle loading these after the mods they require.
* Why is there is still some trash or debris in my settlement? Immaculate Settlements is both compatible with PRP and doesn't break previs. This means leaving in some junk I would of preferred to remove. This is most visible in settlements aren't included in Rebuild and just use base game previs: Abernathy, Hangman, and Boston Airport.
In a few cases a piece of furniture, (ie: a lamp in Covenant and RR Atom Cats), was part of a precombine so had to be left there floating. I thought about leaving the furniture supporting it but figured you probably want to replace it with something else if your using this mod.
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED MODS:
In addition to the required mods I also highly recommend the following:
* PRP - This rebuilds most of the lackluster precombines across Fallout 4. This is not so much for settlements since all the mods I use come with rebuilt precombines but for the rest of the game.
* Rebuild PRP 74 precombines - Rebuild precombines built specifically for PRP 74.
* SKK Workshop utilities - Very useful if you want to take over all settlements at game start. He also has several nifty 'Fast Start' mods that lets you skip early quests.
* FO4 Seasons - If you can't stand how brown and dead Fallout 4 is you probably want a greenery mod. This is the one I use. It looks great and is relatively lightweight.
SPECIAL THANKS:
* VlanceD - I had some great discussions about FO4 modding with him back when he was first doing DCnR and learned a bunch going through his mods.
* FrogPrincess - Back when I was more ambitious I was going to add things like landscaping and asked her for permission to use her assets. While I dropped this idea she was very generous giving me permission and was generally very pleasant to talk to. Check out her discord here if you want to try her excellent FO4 Seasons or just want to chat about FO4 landscape modding.
* Tenhats - He's pretty approachable on Discord and answered some of my initial questions about utility cells. He's on the Collective Modding Discord and seems pretty active.
NOTES (mostly for other modders, everyday users can skip this):
* A note about how normal references are removed. Your not supposed to delete base game references since this can cause crashes if they are referenced by anything else. Basically your supposed to set them to 'Initially Disabled', Enable State opposite of Player to make sure they don't come back, and move their Z position to -30000 to get them out of the way without moving to another cell. FO4Edit will 'undelete' references and do this same process if you run Quick Auto Clean.
A mod author may reasonably ask themselves what can possibly reference some random bit of scrap in a settlement, and of course you can see references to an item in FO4Edit, but you never know with mods. Stuff you'd never expect can become part of a precombine or landscape record or something else. Who knows? One of the first things I do when downloading a cleaning mod is open it in FO4Edit and see if it disables or just deletes things.
I basically do things the clean way with the addition of also moving everything out of the Worldspace cells and into a utility cell.
* Hostile NPCs in settlements are more complicated. The problem is these workshops usually need the location to be marked 'Cleared' before opening and this isn't something that can be edited in FO4Edit. It's an internal variable that setting NPCs to 'Starts Dead/Initially Disabled' and removing them from Location records won't change. Easy to solve with Papyrus but I found that just placing a default ClearLocation marker at each workshop works. This will force it to recognize the NPCs as dead and open up as the player approaches. No overriding workshops, custom scripts, or deleted references required. It also has a side benefit of opening basic workshops with settlers without faction quests because it thinks you killed them, (you didn't). I mention this because it took me awhile to figure out using only FO4Edit and thought it might help other modders. I really didn't want to override every workshop or require a script just for this.
* I might have gone a little overboard removing things like grass mounds and asphalt chunks. Sometimes they are used to cover things like ugly texture edges and sometimes even accounted for in a cell's Navmesh, which I didn't think about at first.
* Possible old edits. I started doing this a *long* time ago and it was initially much more ambitious. I was going to add prewar landscaping, structures like second stories to all the Red Rockets, and rebuild all the precombines so I could remove more junk. Eventually I dropped everything except the core cleaning functionality. Getting navmesh working properly on my new stuff and building precombines for so many settlements was too much work and I'd never finish.
At various times I've had versions for CAS, DCnR, and finally Rebuild not to mention a ton of miscellaneous settlements I dropped when I decided I wasn't going to break and rebuild precombines. Over time I also switched some mods to newer ones by different authors. What this means is that there may be a stray edit or two that I missed that shouldn't be there. No cells are modified that shouldn't be but in particular persistent references can be easy to miss in FO4Edit when they are alongside a sea of other references. Nothing game breaking and I tried my best to avoid this and triple checked everything but I thought I'd mention it in case others go through my mod and see a stray item removed. On the plus side it won't break precombines, (I have a script to check that as well as PJM's), and if I missed something it will show up in one of the nearby containers I added.
After all these years playing FO4 I still love the settlement system. I love trying new settlement locations, clearing them out, building my own stuff, and having provisioners running all around the Commonwealth. But with 70 or so settlements initially setting them up on each new game became a pain. Clearing out each settlement and gathering all the junk so it doesn't interfere with my builds started taking a significant amount of time and effort. Even with tools like 'Raze my settlement' and 'Amazing Follower's Tweaks' it was a chore.
I even went so far as to write a script that takes Workshop Framework layouts for untouched and cleaned settlements and generates batch files to remove everything not in the latter from the former using disable/markfordelete and my current load order. Then I would run the batch file on each settlement. But this is not the proper way to remove things and it still didn't get the many, many loose items, corpses, clutter, etc... Finally I broke down, opened up FO4Edit, and did what I wanted in what I believe a proper manner.
FEATURES AND ADVANTAGES:
* With all optional modules instantly cleans 70 settlements with all removed items hand-selected in FO4Edit. As of this writing 20,000+ items removed from base game settlements, 2,500+ removed with the Red Rocket module, 7,600+ removed with the Tenhat's and Glitchfinder module, and 1,900+ removed with the Misc module.
* PRP compatible and no broken Precombines. This mod should be fully compatible with, but does not require, PRP 74. Everything was tested with their PRP versions along with PRP specific precombines for Rebuild from Camora and Tales of the Commonwealth from Hapless Accreditation. I wrote a script to make sure nothing removed was in a cell's XCRI record and used PJM's previs patching script to doublecheck precombines.
* Highly compatible and correct item removal. Uses the new super safe and efficient way to remove base game references according to the latest in scientific FO4 modding research: Utility cells. No base game references are deleted and cell records themselves are untouched for maximum compatibility. There aren't even any references to Worldspace cells in my mod other than the global persistent ones used to do things like add containers and modify map markers. I like this very much as not touching things helps guarantee compatibility with the downside of being able to modify fewer things.
Will this improve performance? Possibly. I don't think just disabling items alone really improves performance much. Sure there is less for the engine to draw but I still think it does some processing on the CPU side even if it's disabled. What did seem to really make a difference was moving them out of the Worldspace cells and into utility cells. There is a noticeable difference in speed between when I just have items disabled when editing versus when I move them to the utility cell when finished.
* Old and Next Gen Compatible. Tested with both. Personally I'm using Old Gen (1.10.163) with PRP 74 so that is the most tested. I also occasionally test with a non-PRP Next Gen (1.10.984) install to get both combinations.
* All hostile NPCs like molerats, radroaches, and mirelurks have been removed and settlements that depend on you clearing them out will be ready to go! If your looking for something to automatically open ALL workshops I recommend SKK Workshop Utilities. That mod will do it in a more compatible manner than I can with FO4Edit.
* Some Quick Start features. Since I was moving all the magazines and bobbleheads in settlements I went ahead and just put them on top of the workshop in Sanctuary. Easier for me and a nice little bonus to get started. I also enabled fast travel to all the settlement map markers and Home Plate is instantly available, (I unlocked the doors). Finally since there are no longer any bloatflies in Sanctuary I rigged Codsworth to skip his initial quest and be available right away.
* Smart Scrap Toolboxes in each settlement. Each workshop has a toolbox next to it containing important items. CHECK THESE IN EACH SETTLEMENT! It's not just for scrap but can contain important items like keys, notes, and holotapes. Specifically I wrote a script that adds both loose items lying around and things inside containers including dead NPCs into each toolbox. It currently handles the following: ALCH, AMMO, ARMO, BOOK,KEYM, LVLI, MISC, NOTE, PROJ, and WEAP.
This isn't really intended to provide accurate scrap. It's more so you get the important stuff. Notably this does not include static items, for which I would need to do a more involved script to break things down into components. You can't have a tree in a toolbox, you want the wood. Because of this each toolbox also contains 1500 of every component instead.
DISADVANTAGES VS SCRIPTED SOLUTIONS (for example Raze my Settlement or AFT):
* Because these are manual edits it can't know about any additional mod added items other than what it was built with. Scripted solutions will catch these with the downside of having to run them in each settlement so are much more time consuming.
* Scripted solutions will provide accurate scrap. This does not.
ISSUES & CONCERNS TO BE AWARE OF (READ ME):
* Absolutely requires a new game!
* For most settlements you should actually walk up to the workshop instead of just long-pressing the menu button to open it for the first time. You need to be in it's proximity before the settlement is officially cleared. You may also have to try opening it a couple times before it registers as available. Anything more than that and there is probably something else you need to do to unlock it.
* Settlers will no longer have beds and possibly jobs if they were farming so make sure to build and assign them ASAP or your happiness will go down.
* Possible weirdness with the new repair stuff. I started this long before this functionality existed and it took me awhile to get the hang of it using FO4Edit. Mostly this manifests in inefficiencies where the newer mods collect related things into one big item that can be enabled or disabled and I still do it individually. This can lead to unrepaired items if I missed anything.
INCLUDED CLEANUP MODULES:
* Rebuild Collection AIO, along with Demo Finch Farm and Outpost Zimonja:
While all these plugins can be used separately this is really the base for this mod and will clean all the base game settlements included with Rebuild as well as Demo Finch Farm and Outpost Zimonja. Other settlements like Abernathy, Boston Airport, Hangman, and Home Plate are also cleaned but retain their base game precombines so will still be a little trashy.
Rebuild works with both PRP and vanilla Fallout but I recommend both using PRP and the PRP specific precombines built by Camora.
* (NEW!) Tenhat's Nuka-World Settlements Pack along with Pra's Nuka Farm:
This module cleans the 6 settlements from Tenhat's new AIO and the farm from Pra in Nuka-World! Both are required. All workshops should become available as you approach them with the exception of Hubologist's Camp. For that one you have to do their Quest.
* Red Rocket Settlements by Tarsis31 and Yagisan:
Red Rocket Settlements has been one of my favorite mods for years. It provides 16 settlements spread out nicely around the Commonwealth and Far Harbor that all work properly. A great mod if you like having a lot of easy settlements that don't require anything to own and then sending provisioners all over the map.
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT RR Nahant and Rebuild: These two mods have a previs conflict at Red Rocket Nahant and Croup Manor. If you want to use them together you must either use my patch which will remove the Nahant settlement or generate a patch to fix the previs yourself. Because of this RR Nahant is not cleaned or otherwise modified.
* A selection of Glitchfinder and Tenhat settlements:
These two are some of the more prolific recent modders and their settlements can be trusted to use the most recent modding techniques. They aren't the only ones, but when you see a new settlement by them you know it's good. Many of these use the rebuild mechanism described above but are now prebuilt and cleaned.
You must install all of these in order to use this cleanup module. Sorry, but it makes things much easier for me. There are rumblings of possible AIOs on discord and if that happens I'll clean up any additional settlements and switch to those.
Glitchfinder. All require you also install their corresponding previs file:
Tenhats:
- Breakheart Banks
- Charles View Amphitheater
- Lake Cochituate
- Lake Quannapowitt
- Nuka World Transit Center
- Prospect Hill - Choose expanded build area.
* Tenhats (currently) PRP and Immaculate incompatible extras:
There are a couple Tenhats settlement combinations I use that got broken when updating to PRP 74 thus will only work for non-PRP users until they get updated. I took them out of the above module and put them here in the meantime. Once updated these will be merged into the above.
- Fiddlers Green - Conflicts with the PRP 74 version of Red Rocket settlements.
- University Point - No PRP 74 and Rebuild compatible version exists yet.
* Miscellaneous settlements of high quality:
A few more settlements from other authors who produce high quality settlment mods.
- Fairline Hills from Pra
- Listening Post Bravo from HaplessAccreditation
FAQs:
* What load order? I'd say at the end but pretty much every mod says to load it at the end. Everything can't be very last. Anywhere after settlement mods and of course PRP should be fine. If your using a mod manager it should handle loading these after the mods they require.
* Why is there is still some trash or debris in my settlement? Immaculate Settlements is both compatible with PRP and doesn't break previs. This means leaving in some junk I would of preferred to remove. This is most visible in settlements aren't included in Rebuild and just use base game previs: Abernathy, Hangman, and Boston Airport.
In a few cases a piece of furniture, (ie: a lamp in Covenant and RR Atom Cats), was part of a precombine so had to be left there floating. I thought about leaving the furniture supporting it but figured you probably want to replace it with something else if your using this mod.
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED MODS:
In addition to the required mods I also highly recommend the following:
* PRP - This rebuilds most of the lackluster precombines across Fallout 4. This is not so much for settlements since all the mods I use come with rebuilt precombines but for the rest of the game.
* Rebuild PRP 74 precombines - Rebuild precombines built specifically for PRP 74.
* SKK Workshop utilities - Very useful if you want to take over all settlements at game start. He also has several nifty 'Fast Start' mods that lets you skip early quests.
* FO4 Seasons - If you can't stand how brown and dead Fallout 4 is you probably want a greenery mod. This is the one I use. It looks great and is relatively lightweight.
SPECIAL THANKS:
* VlanceD - I had some great discussions about FO4 modding with him back when he was first doing DCnR and learned a bunch going through his mods.
* FrogPrincess - Back when I was more ambitious I was going to add things like landscaping and asked her for permission to use her assets. While I dropped this idea she was very generous giving me permission and was generally very pleasant to talk to. Check out her discord here if you want to try her excellent FO4 Seasons or just want to chat about FO4 landscape modding.
* Tenhats - He's pretty approachable on Discord and answered some of my initial questions about utility cells. He's on the Collective Modding Discord and seems pretty active.
NOTES (mostly for other modders, everyday users can skip this):
* A note about how normal references are removed. Your not supposed to delete base game references since this can cause crashes if they are referenced by anything else. Basically your supposed to set them to 'Initially Disabled', Enable State opposite of Player to make sure they don't come back, and move their Z position to -30000 to get them out of the way without moving to another cell. FO4Edit will 'undelete' references and do this same process if you run Quick Auto Clean.
A mod author may reasonably ask themselves what can possibly reference some random bit of scrap in a settlement, and of course you can see references to an item in FO4Edit, but you never know with mods. Stuff you'd never expect can become part of a precombine or landscape record or something else. Who knows? One of the first things I do when downloading a cleaning mod is open it in FO4Edit and see if it disables or just deletes things.
I basically do things the clean way with the addition of also moving everything out of the Worldspace cells and into a utility cell.
* Hostile NPCs in settlements are more complicated. The problem is these workshops usually need the location to be marked 'Cleared' before opening and this isn't something that can be edited in FO4Edit. It's an internal variable that setting NPCs to 'Starts Dead/Initially Disabled' and removing them from Location records won't change. Easy to solve with Papyrus but I found that just placing a default ClearLocation marker at each workshop works. This will force it to recognize the NPCs as dead and open up as the player approaches. No overriding workshops, custom scripts, or deleted references required. It also has a side benefit of opening basic workshops with settlers without faction quests because it thinks you killed them, (you didn't). I mention this because it took me awhile to figure out using only FO4Edit and thought it might help other modders. I really didn't want to override every workshop or require a script just for this.
* I might have gone a little overboard removing things like grass mounds and asphalt chunks. Sometimes they are used to cover things like ugly texture edges and sometimes even accounted for in a cell's Navmesh, which I didn't think about at first.
* Possible old edits. I started doing this a *long* time ago and it was initially much more ambitious. I was going to add prewar landscaping, structures like second stories to all the Red Rockets, and rebuild all the precombines so I could remove more junk. Eventually I dropped everything except the core cleaning functionality. Getting navmesh working properly on my new stuff and building precombines for so many settlements was too much work and I'd never finish.
At various times I've had versions for CAS, DCnR, and finally Rebuild not to mention a ton of miscellaneous settlements I dropped when I decided I wasn't going to break and rebuild precombines. Over time I also switched some mods to newer ones by different authors. What this means is that there may be a stray edit or two that I missed that shouldn't be there. No cells are modified that shouldn't be but in particular persistent references can be easy to miss in FO4Edit when they are alongside a sea of other references. Nothing game breaking and I tried my best to avoid this and triple checked everything but I thought I'd mention it in case others go through my mod and see a stray item removed. On the plus side it won't break precombines, (I have a script to check that as well as PJM's), and if I missed something it will show up in one of the nearby containers I added.