Where I Hang My Hat VIII: Taffington Boathouse · 7:17pm Feb 6th, 2017
art by Hollulu
As promised, this week’s blog is another in my series showcasing settlements that I have crafted in Fallout 4. I took an extended break from the game to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Dishonored 2, both of which are excellent games that I can recommend emphatically, as well as delve back into The Secret World with a friend of mine. But now I have jumped back into Fallout 4. This week, I offer my design for Taffington Boathouse.
But first, I have a fun announcement for those who love Fallout: Equestria and/or brony-made games: Empalu has just released a major update to his Fallout: Equestria sidescrolling flash game!
This update includes a starting base, implements crafting, creates penalties for dying, and introduces multiple difficulties (including a hardcore mode)! You can find more details on the update here.
And you can play the game itself here! 
As side note regarding “To Where and Back Again”, which I talked about in my previous blog: one thing I really enjoy is spotting little coincidental things in new episodes that hearken back to elements of my writing – little “I (somewhat) called that” moments. So I was thrilled when the first appearance of an invisibility spell on the show involved Trixie. (I admit, I had to rewind and watch that a second time to make sure Starlight was casting it.) And even moreso – in a moment that echoed the M.A.S. lab’s difficulties designing the StealthBuck – the emphasis that the invisibility spell didn’t prevent detection by scent.
Little things like that bring me a lot of joy. 
"What. Is. This?" by wandrevieira1994
As with Warwick Homestead, I largely took a “less is more” approach to the Taffington Boathouse. The Taffington Boathouse settlement gave us a small property with pre-existing architecture that is fairly unique to settlements. The architecture was in a state of disrepair and dilapidation, but was intact enough that I wanted to restore the existing buildings rather than tear them down and build something entirely new.
In order to accomplish this, I had to download several new mods that gave me the pieces I wanted to work with. The new mods used for this settlement include Snappy HouseKit by robboten and kkthebeast (which adds in most of the house pieces, allowing me to scrap the broken parts of the house and replace them with repaired ons) and Clean Warehouses by dgulat (which replaces the DLC-provided warehouse walls with ones that have intact, transparent glass windows).
To help illustrate the restoration, below are a series of pictures of Taffington Boathouse as it is first encountered. As usual, you can click on the pictures to see a much larger version.
Taffington Boathouse
Click images for larger versions.
The basic concept for the Taffington Boathouse was a small commune under the protection of the Brotherhood of Steel. As such, the Taffington Boathouse enjoys the protection of a military wall. A bus was pulled into the yard from the nearby road and converted into barracks for visiting Brotherhood knights and paladins. The central location of the Taffington Boathouse makes it an ideal location, both for trade with other settlements and for the Brotherhood to use as a hostel for squads patrolling the Commonwealth.
From here, you can see that the sunroom now has repaired glass windows, and you get a good look at the repaired roof. You would not believe the amount of time and effort I spent trying to fix that roof before Snappy Housekit made it easy. Now that I've figured it out, I'll be using the same technique with the Kingsport Lighthouse and possibly Sommeville Place.
The boathouse has is now home to a water purifier and several workstations. For some reason, I was unable to scrap the walls of the boathouse, so I had to use the console to disable them before building new walls with functional glass windows in their place.
In addition to fishing, the settlement boasts a crop of tarberries, transplanted from The Slog. New workstations, such as the fish inspection station (barely) visible above and the butcher station (barely) visible below, are thanks to NorthlandDiggers Resources by ludvig08
Thanks to mods, I have been able to restore power and light not only to the house but to all the lamps, as well as build new ones. The settlement benefits from a medical robot. And in the back, you can (barely) see the BoS-styled suit of power armor stored on-site for emergencies.
Sometimes it is the little details, like fixing the sinks, that really add to a settlement.
Beyond scrapping damaged pieces and replacing them with undamaged ones, restoration of the house required building an entirely new wall to separate the bathroom.
And, of course, there are a few entirely new buildings to flesh out the settlement.
My next settlement is probably going to be County Crossing. I love the original, ramshackle-looking tower that I built on the location, but I want to scrap everything else I built there and rework it with that tower as the central focus.
In Fallout 4 news, the huge texture update is supposed to hit imminently. Unfortunately, I do not believe my system is up to running it, considering the high-end specifications it calls for. Plus, I use so many mods, I am afraid it would look like a patchwork nightmare. Fortunately, there is supposed to be an easy method to opt-out from using the new textures. However, if any of you can enjoy it, I would love to see screenshots!
As always, my settlements are not in the same league as some of the utterly amazing works out there, but I am quite pleased with my own work. I hope you like what I have to share. And please share any settlements you have been working on, or are particularly happy with. I’d love to see them, and I’m sure our friends here would as well.
You accidentally posted this earlier, didn't you?
Really jealous of people who could create settlements like this. I'm myself always end up with fortress no matter what plans I have on beginning :). Kinda like "... what if raider attack from this side? And from this? Yeah, I need turrets... and guard posts!.. And armory... And walls, I need concrete walls! And... What the heck! It's fortress! AGAIN!"
Nice house. Like really, very nice house. Much better than mine. Tiny metal shacks built on platforms several stories in the air and protected by dozens of laser turrets.
I've been game jumping a lot recently between three different titles. I might take a look at one of the games you mentioned, I think I have one of the Deus Ex games in my list of games ready to be installed.
I have to say your work on the boathouse is nice! If I had the patience there are several settlements in places that I would love to fix up.
These blogs have a way of making me want to dive back into Fallout just so I can work on my settlements. As always I look forward to seeing what else you fix up!
I'm actually debating purchasing the game for my PC. Right now, I've got it for the PS4, but there are a large number of restrictions when running FO4 on the console. On top of that, there are lots of mods for the PC that you simply can't use on the console.
I'll probably pull the trigger, but at the same time practice proper adulting.
Stupid bills....*grumble*
Also, I have been considering dabbling into the world of FOE, since I read your story and absolutely loved it. Maybe cross a little bit of Skyrim into it, since Bethesda confirmed they are in the same universe (why, I have no idea).
4411693 I miiiiight have accidentally hit "post" rather than "preview" while working on the formatting.
4411698 I actually know the feeling. Despite how the place looks, it's very secure, with a metal wall and turret-covered entrance chokepoints. Even when they don't look like fortresses, my settlements tend to have unnecessarily high levels of defense. (Taffington Boathouse has a moderate defense of 90.)
4411804
I know that fan theory about "experimental plant" being Nirnroot because they really similar, and so Fallout and TES share the same universe but Bethesda actually confirmed it? Really?
hi hi
I really enjoy city/settlement building in games, with the caveat that it isn't neigh impossibly hard to survive. I would really enjoy Dwarf Fortress if the game wasn't so inescapably brutal. If I ever find a game that lets me build a working Ponyville though, I'll probably spend a few hundred hours playing the heck out of it.
Fantastic work as always. I tell ya, the post-post-apocalypse genre is something that is sorely underappreciated, and it is nice to see such cool examples of people getting things back together again.
(I'm not sure why, but I love those little bobbers on the wall out back, whatever they are.)
4411824 I'll dig up the link for you after I get off work, or you could Google it. But, yes.
Thinking on Taffington and Boathouse, I always thought it was kind of sad you couldn't set up a boat supply line and ferry between Spectacle Island and the mainland. I mean they put in the means to claim it in the game... But no real practical means for trade and supplies to come too and leave the island? That's just feels sort of saddening to me.
That being said, I like all the attention to detail you have here. It makes sense the town would make use of fishing to feed the settlement there with the water close by. I can kind of understand why people would get caught up in personalizing their settlements.
I once had a computer that could play Minecraft, I can't believe how much time I put into making a house into an all purpose fortress with everything I could ever need. From veggies to two of every animal. A kitchen to a workshop. Working alchemy and growing every kind of tree in an enclosed area. Finding a monster spawner close by to farm experience and building a wall, houses and farm land around a village to allow the villagers to prosper so I can trade from the descendants. And I've never ever been to the Ender world before an update on windows on my old computer made it so I couldn't play it anymore.
4411810 Thought so
Easily done
Now that you mention it I do have a new settlement to share
68.media.tumblr.com/67f2dcd16354a5260657ace2ed1c2044/tumblr_oh34dw4LSm1rxuvlro1_1280.jpg
68.media.tumblr.com/d2e3a0af6a44027b051f7b098a1a0991/tumblr_oh34dw4LSm1rxuvlro2_1280.jpg
Pardon the HUD, can't turn it off in Survival.
I like having a settlement all to myself. My own home base. Only other people here are Shaun and a robot I built to mind the garden and shoot anyone that threatens Shaun while I'm away.
Nice! But I want story mode. Sure, it's going to take a damn long time to make it all, but hell if it ain't going to be fun
To risk looking like a fool but were these mods on pc and only on it?
Because I've always been confused by why Bethseda didn't put in the ability to either modify or destroy the existing structures that are in some of the workshops.
So I'm just curious if that's on ps4 or not
(I don't have Internet except on my phone) so just asking even if I look like a ignorant goof
4412585 I use a PC. I'm afraid that I couldn't tell you what is or isn't on PS4 or XBox.
4412592 I figured
Mods (most of the good ones anyway) seem to be on pc
They're apparently the master race after all
pbs.twimg.com/media/CNn9RLVU8AEO-g4.jpg:large
Thanks anyway
I modded my game into corrupted savagames. We seem to like the same things, so what is your essential mod setup?
Well... A little of my Starlight Drive In. Only three screenshots because I don't think that it deserve more.
One - The whole settlement started from capsule in the center. First I added that wooden guard post near it and continue from there.
Two - People obviously need to eat so I added food shop. And Starlight have a perfect place for it :).
Three - and some more capsules. Because why not? :)
4413149 Ooh, that is very nice!
(BTW: be aware that Imgur has blacklisted FIMfiction, so links from there don't work quite right. I recommend Imgbox as an alternative.)
4412669
My essential mod list is ever-changing as I keep adding in new mods... almost all of which are settlement-creation oriented. In this blog, I listed what my most recommended mods were a year ago. I still use most of those (although I did get rid of Settlement Supplies Expanded).
As with this one, in some of my previous "Where I Hang My Hat" blogs, I make mention of new mods that I am playing with. If I recall, both the blogs for "The Slog" and for "Castle" had some recommended mods in either the blog itself or the comments. You can find the previous blogs easily through my blog index.
4413494
It's one of my settlements (together with Sanctuary) that I don't want to tear down completely and rebuild from scratches.
Oh. Never know that.
Is it has is now got one of those?
I like how you set it up, mind if I copy it? Just a bit?
everytime I try to access the game it says content blocked
This is beautiful, and makes my version look like garbage. And I love the little story to its theme as being under Brotherhood of Steel protection, I honestly never thought of designing like that.
I'll definitely have to try those mods out.
For me Taffington Boathouse has a ton of industrial water purifiers, an ugly line of defensive turrets on the streets, and slightly more sightly guns on raised platforms with ladders, including a Minuteman artillery piece.
I don't know about the engineering specifics, but it always bugged me when it looked like artillery guns would be hitting nearby trees and whatnot when on ground level, so I started elevating them with floors.