Sometimes I enjoy things that are bad.

Zelda CD-i cutscenes. The Johnny Depp remake of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Fallout 4 base building. 

Maybe it shouldn’t have been one, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover the settlement building community for Fallout was quite robust. These folks, like myself, have been inextricably drawn to the janky base building that the fourth mainline entry in the series offers. And while much of my maligning comes from a place of fondness, I would still describe the base building, at its base, to be… Well, bad. 

Not for lack of trying though, as like a lot of Bethesda games, the fans end up running the ball into the end zone on ideas the development team maybe got halfway there. Like in the case of the Place Anywhere mod. Without it, the perimeter fence I built around Sanctuary doesn’t clip into place, instead turning frustratingly red to indicate it can’t be placed because it’s within two mere feet of another structure. My suspension of disbelief won’t allow perfect Raider-sized holes in my perimeter fence that said assailants can poke their pipe guns into and shoot my settlers. With the mod, the fences clip into each other and create a perfect wall.

Tricks and glitches are the names of the base building game. Well, some of the names. Many avid settlement builders are familiar with the pillar glitch, where players craft a structure they’d like to freely place in the world, then attach a specific pillar object to it. From there, the game allows the player to grab the entire build, including the pillars, for placement practically anywhere. You’ll find this trick used by numerous members of the (surprisingly large) YouTube settlement building community.

They’re very passionate and do things with Fallout 4‘s build system that blow my mind. Many techniques have to be learned, and luckily, the community is very welcoming and ready to teach. The compiled knowledge of the community is based around several common exploits, like clipping vendor counters into other objects to create immersive storefronts and placing sleeping bags atop couches and tables to make slapdash beds. Something about this system lights up player creativity for some reason, and I’m not immune; I’ve logged about 80 hours rebuilding Sanctuary alone.

There are folks that have built versions of Sanctuary with crammed streets, packed with item vendors and NPCs bustling about. I’ve seen The Castle converted into a veritable fortress that makes Diamond City look like Riverwood from Skyrim. There are jaw-dropping Brotherhood Boston Airport conversions that fill me with envy. As undeniably impressive as it all is, though, it bears mentioning that this system, out of the box, as Bethesda has shipped it, is almost completely inadequate at allowing the player to build an immersive settlement. Without bending, breaking, or completely modifying the system, you can’t do what you want. And believe you me, I’ve freaking broken it.

My current build of Sanctuary is a bit… Uh… Massive? Numerous skyscrapers line the streets, electrical lines webbing across the surface of each building like vines. When standing on the dilapidated bridge that crosses over into the city, the game stutters, having a hard time loading in the structures.

Directly to your left upon entry is a large apartment building built atop two of the homes in Sanctuary. My vision for this building was to create a room for each companion, decking it out in designs that fit their personalities. The build limit, however, had other, much more nefarious plans.

You see, another one of those handy tips that the community teaches to new builders is how to increase the build limit. Most common is the build limit exploit, utilizing how the game counts any dropped item in the settlement as being a part of the settlement. When those items are removed in any way, like dismantling or stowing them, you get some of your build limit back. One could drop their entire inventory of guns, go into build mode, send the items back to the workbench storage, and continue to do this to lower their build limit gauge. This can be done indefinitely.

Incredibly handy, no? A finger on the monkey’s paw curls.

Some of you probably know where this inevitably leads. One day, I discovered that when placing items in the first-floor office of my apartment building, the game just stopped. No crash report. No popup. Just “Rocket 69” continuing to play alongside wilderness ambience and generator chugging sounds. In fact, my interface freezes and I can’t do anything until I reset the system.

Not discouraged quite yet, as I’d of course encountered a fair number of crashes at this point, I instead started work on the other side of the settlement. This time on a hospital. As I placed the first conduit on the building to give it power, connecting wire to conduit, it crashed again. From there, I attempted to begin three or four new projects in a desperate and pathetic cycle of crash, reboot, crash, reboot, unable to go more than 5 maddening minutes without a problem.

Exhausted and defeated, that save has laid dormant now for a good while. At its final count, I had hit 100 hours of work on Sanctuary. 

It was hubris, I know, and I’m ready to accept my part in my own downfall. However, Bethesda must accept that they need to give the settlements enough storage space to hold more than a single chair and a dresser. Or maybe, the engine kept crashing when they tried and they gave up, defeated like me.

Fallout 4 Settlement Builder: 6.3

Addicting but prone to infinite crashes, Fallout 4’s settlement builder acts as a testament to the community’s resilience and the ingenuity of modders. If you’re a masochist or just enjoy exploiting Bethesda games for pure aesthetic value, this one’s for you.

Gameplay: 5.5

Atmosphere: 8.5

Story: 5