¶ New Settlement Mechanics
Chapter 2 introduces new settlement mechanics which will impact health and happiness in your settlements.
See Pollution, Hygiene, Sickness and Disease Outbreaks for more information.
¶ New Plots
Three new municipal plots have been added to help settlements prevent and recover from diseases.
A new 3x3 Recreational Plot has been added for your settlers to enjoy some entertainment.
A series of stage shows will play out over time to a settler audience.
¶ World Population
World Repopulation causes NPCs to move into the old blocked off buildings in the game world as your settlements progress. You'll find over time doorways are on buildings that previously were inaccessible, and you may find the owner wandering around nearby, or inside the dwelling.
As settlements gain large amounts of excess Power, Food, and Water, they will gain Economic Influence in the area. (Economic Influence is part of a system I hope to expand on for Chapter 3, and much of the support code for this is already in place!)
Once a certain amount of influence is achieved in a region, it can begin supporting people outside the walls of the settlement. Think of it like suburban sprawl. As a city becomes successful, more people will move in and around the city to take advantage of its prosperity. The more influence, the more people will move into the surrounding areas.
Finish the main quest Well Well Well from SS2. (Cheating past the quest works as well) This requirement technically only applies to Concord, but that's the only area we've really rigged up for World Repopulation so far - read the next section for how we plan to expand things.
Any settlement you wish to have influence on a region must be part of an SS2 caravan network - which means it must have a Caravan Services building, and be within range of another settlement with a Caravan Services building. (This requirement will likely be removed in the future, it is only there due to the calculation of surplus resources being an expensive code action, and so we're doing it as part of the Caravan network calculations to save resources. We will likely find an alternative way to calculate this for settlements not part of a Caravan network in a future patch).
Settlements only influence locations within Caravan Services range - which is 70,000 units. This is the same unit of measure we use for most settlement related distance checks, and is the distance the NukaWorld Vassal system uses - so if you look at your pipboy map in a save with NukaWorld raiding in play, then highlight a settlement, you'll see other settlements in the vicinity change their icons so you can get a rough idea of this range. (In the future, we hope to add a map with visual aid showing you these ranges and influence)
Currently, World Repopulation is almost exclusive to Concord. Our plan is to expand this system to a large majority of the unused buildings in the Commonwealth. This will likely occur close to when we update the Addon Maker's Toolkit, as we'll need a lot of help to expand the number of interior spaces to cover so many buildings.
Once the system is expanded beyond Concord, the Well Well Well requirement will then only apply to Concord, and only in saves that are working on the SS2 main quest line.
If we end up expanding the Influence system mentioned above, there will end up being more ways than just Power, Water, and Food excesses to trigger repopulation.
As you begin to build up the settlements around the Commonwealth, people will begin to move in not just to your settlements but the surrounding areas as well, moving into the old buildings left behind.
¶ New Quests
New main quests will be available immediately once installed, after you load an existing save that completed Chapter 1, or if you pick up from a a save that has not completed Chapter 1, your gameplay will naturally flow into Chapter 2.
Two new Factions will appear in the Commonwealth and have their own quest lines.
Three new Unique Settlers have been added for you to recruit for your settlements when they visit your settlement or recruit them through The Ron.
See the Quest Guides for Chapter 2
¶ Headquarters (HQ)
The HQ System is a new gameplay mode that becomes available as part of the main quest during Chapter 2.
The overall goal is to give you the opportunity to run your own Institute or Brotherhood type organization - deciding what to build, what to invest in, and what your people should be focused on each day.
See Headquarters for more information.