Remember, remember the 10th of November? When you were exploring Fallout 4 and racking up Settlements and going through the overwhelming grind of finding materials and creating supply lines and finishing Preston quests again and again and it felt new and wonderful and great? And then it just didn’t ?
The tedium of settlement management soon shined light on some logistical flaws overshadowed by the launch hype. Issues with supply lines and anonymous settlers and Preston’s constant badgering got to be a bit much when you started racking up dozens and dozens of hours. But the Far Harbor DLC changes that (for a little while) and I wanted to share some of my experiences exploring the new settlements in Far Harbor.
If you were a settlement junkie like me, prepare for a relapse. The Far Harbor DLC has some amazing settlements, but beyond that they become your best settlements almost by default. You get to apply all the knowledge you wish you had when you started rushing through those first dozen settlements when you got them back in November. It’s an excuse to start fresh, and if you wanna know how to start then please read on.
Far Harbor Settlement Guide: Longfellow’s Cabin
This is the first settlement you’ll get your hands on in Far Harbor. It’s directly north of Far Harbor itself, so it seems easy to get to. But you’ll spend some time wondering if the fast travel time is less than the walking time (it isn’t).
Old Longfellow is part of the questline in Far Harbor so he’s easy to find. He’ll soon give you the “Walk in the Park” quest which will grant access to the workshop and let you begin setting up your settlement. I’d recommend stocking up on some crops, as well as some stuff for electrics (gears, steel, aluminum, rubber, copper, glass, ceramic). You’ll eventually be able to set up a supply line with the mainland, but you’re going to need to get a radio beacon (which requires a generator) up ASAP.
The settlement itself has a nice layout. A big rock formation near the tool shed provides a lovely foundation for building housing, and the shoreline location means you’ll soon be able to get a decent-sized water purifier set up. Longfellow’s Cabin also has a lot of wood to salvage, but not much steel. Once you get a supply line going this isn’t a concern, but if you’re trying to hit the ground running and get things set up before the settlers pour in then bring extra steel and cloth.
Just because of where it is and how early you get it, Longfellow’s Cabin will likely be your “go to” settlement in Far Harbor. It was for me, at least as I played the main storyline but I found myself wanting to spend a lot more time fixing up the other locations.
Far Harbor Settlement Guide: Dalton’s Farm
Dalton’s Farm is a tough settlement to gain access too. You have to complete a few missions for Cassie in Far Harbor before she gives you the Blood Tide quest which unlocks this settlement (and only after you take care of a nasty Fog Crawler).
It’s also the most open layout of the Far Harbor settlements. The others all have some pre-existing structures to work with (more on that below) but Dalton Farm is a big plot of land on the sea, basically Longfellow’s Cabin but without the cabin. It also doesn’t offer much in the way of scavenged resources, providing mostly wood and surprising amount of rubber strewn along the beachfront. You’ll need to depend on a supply line to make any meaningful construction though.
Maybe it’s because it has “farm” in the name, But Dalton’s Farm became my breadbasket of Far Harbor. I set up a lot of crops there. Which crops, you ask? Well, any Wastelander worth his caps will tell you that the ideal mix is heavy on the mutfruit, but also include corn and tatos too. Why? Because you can craft vegetable starch at a cooking station if you’ve got all three of those ingredients (plus purified water) and being able to make your own adhesive can be a lifesaver when you decide to go on a weapons/armor crafting spree.
Far Harbor Settlement Guide: Echo Lake Lumber
The Echo Lake Lumber settlement is on the western side of Far Harbor, and this glorious location can be yours as soon as you finish the first set of Far Harbor sidequests. And talk to Small Bertha. And kill a bunch of ghouls. And have a conversation with some crazy ass dude who won’t leave that you need to just kill because this is THE settlement in Far Harbor.
Once you finish all that, strap in. This is easily my favorite settlement in the Far Harbor DLC. It’s got plenty of wood and steel to cover building costs, but you barely have any because the existing factory makes an amazing place for a kickass settler shelter. It made me think of Taffington Boathouse in The Commonwealth. The centerpiece of that settlement is the ramshackle bayside cabin, so if you spent time refurbishing that house you’ll know what’s ahead at Echo Lake Lumber.
If not, let me warn you. Making a workable shelter out of a ruin can get tricky. My advice is to have the courage to cut rooms up a bit for the sake of having solid walls. In particular, there were a few strange gaps on the top floor I couldn’t fix. I ended up placing my generator and beacon up there, cutting the rest in half with some new walls. You will need to run wiring down the exterior walls on multiple sides, too. It’s a big interior space and you’ll want to hang lots of lights everywhere. It’s big, too, so stock up on cloth for all the beds and furniture you’ll want to put down. Then take it all in and realize it’s probably nicer than where you live right now.
Far Harbor Settlement Guide: National Park Visitor’s Center
Similar to Echo Lake Lumber, the quest that gives you this settlement comes after you complete the Rite of Passage sidequest. After that, you talk to Mitch the bartender in Far Harbor and he sets you up a quest named “The Hold Out.”
Once you finish that quest The National Park Visitor’s Center is yours. Like Echo Lake Lumber, it has a nice pre-existing structure for you to build inside of. But it’s not as big or exciting as the Echo Park Lumber building. Also, the settlement comes with some defensive fortifications in place, but a large portion of the settlement area exists outside those walls. So you’re either wasting the fortifications that are already there, or you’re setting up a kind of no man’s land outside the walls.
I focused mainly on refurbishing the main cabin, but there is a large parking lot that offers some potential as a good building site if you want to start from scratch. There was a decent amount of wood and steel scattered around but, after all the time I spent in Echo Park, this settlement didn’t do much for me.
There you have it. A little bit of info on each settlement in the Far Harbor DLC that will, hopefully, inspire you to dive into the game and start playing Fallout: Sims again. And who knows, the next time we get a big fat DLC (probably Nuka World just sayin’) there might be console mods, too, so PC improvements like an expanded library of decorations or longer power lines could be available too. In Todd We Trust.
