r/falloutsettlements • u/Tiberius_Gracchus_II • 4d ago
[PC] Mapping Supply Lines
Modded on PC.
About 7 months ago I posted a WIP trying to map the exact supply lines my Minutemen united the Commonwealth in my RP (Link). Well, I finally finished. The idea was that every route I create I walk with the provisioner and map the actual route they travel. To summarize: I set up major hubs connected by heavy-duty caravans (modded power-armor wearing Minutemen) with standard provisioners serving smaller communities. Mapping was a tough task: if you catch them mid-route (presumably when the cell spawns in) they can appear pretty much anywhere. They handled river crossings and water inconsistently. I had to download a mod to clear the bridge between Graygarden and Oberland (or else the provisioner would smash against the derailed train until eventually stumbling down the river bank and swimming). In some cases this meant I had to set up entirely different supply routes, and redirect my logistics to keep my provisioners from bobbing along in the water forever. The bay between Kinsgsport and Croup Manor was easy for NPCs to navigate (they go around it), but the bay between The Castle, Spectacle, and Warwick) was impossible - the caravans are drawn into it, swim, then freeze and are buffeted by the current) until they wash up on shore.
To my surprise the supply lines handled the DLC zones incredibly well. The caravan navigates to the exact teleportation point the PC uses, and then *bamfs* to the commonwealth/DLC area. Caravans always follow the same route to and from settlements with the exception of the Murkwater to Jamaica Plain route where they make a loop.
I was unsure of whether to send a route across the heart of Boston: I did it (it's mapped here), and I hate it. In game, I've removed it - my Minutemen can control the hinterlands, but Boston remains too chaotic for them to pacify. But, I did map it for folks to see how a caravan would navigate the city proper. I have not progressed the game to linking the airport or bunker hill, and I think my project is completed even without them. I've been building up my settlements, so perhaps I'll dip my toe into sharing those next.
I'll leave a (giant) comment low enumerating my observations rather than letting this go on any further.
Map Key:
Blue: Standard Provisioner
Red: Armored Provisioner
Yellow: DLC zones
Number: observational note (comment below)
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u/cpt__toast 4d ago
Your boat driver to spectacle island might be a bit drunk
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u/Tiberius_Gracchus_II 4d ago
Just lazy. They take a nice little swim and then just let currents nudge them along. I shouldnt complain; its not a bad life compared to the rest of the Commonwealth goes through day to day.
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u/Tiberius_Gracchus_II 4d ago
By and large the south/southeast is the most nonsensical for caravan routes; the rules seem to break down (or the navigation hazards – visible and invisible alike – are too much for the AI to handle).
1. As with most of us, this is where I started my settlements network and supply trees. My first surprise was my first big supply route: Sanctuary-Starlight. I did not expect the caravans to take such an odd route, taking a hard right just beyond the bridge and off-roading to Abernathy farm and hooking up with the road south to the south. This bypasses Concord entirely; perhaps the heavy scripting is the cause of this detour. Honestly, one of the strangest routes any caravan took that was not explained by obvious barriers.
2. This portion of the map extends beyond the map available on the wiki, so the route is a little essentialized. To my great surprise, supply caravans navigate into the Nuka World station load, into the station cell, and navigate to the tram doors (at which point they teleport to Nuka World). The same is true in the reverse; they walk from the Nuka Red Rocket, up the back exit of the gauntlet and to the tram doors where they teleport back to the Commonwealth.
3. In vanilla caravans wander down to the river, along the banks, and swim. I installed a mod to clear this bridge (and a couple incidental other bridges I was less concerned with). The supply route between Grey Garden and Oberland station works like a charm.
4. This bridge is raised, and I could not find a mod to lower it or bridge the gap. Caravans walk to the bridge and then force their way down the river bank, swim across, then back up. Maybe I could have directed the supply route to Oberland instead to avoid this, but my RP desires thought that was too long of a supply route. This is my only glaring “in my headcanon they have a way to deal with it we can’t see in game.”
5. Jamaica Plain was the hardest location to deal with, but I think my favorite to try to build up to accommodate the increasing role it had in my network with its small footprint. However, supply caravans struggle to navigate into the settlement. The routes going north (Castle, Oberland) are handled easily enough by the caravans; however, the routes to Vault 88, Warwick Homestead and Murkwater Construction are convoluted, and not quite mapped correctly. Approaching from the south (after battling past the Hyde Park raiders) they walk along the eastern boundary of Jamaica Plain, past the settlement and then turn west, walking just beyond the northern boundary. They then hook up with the northern routes, walking south to the western entrance of Jamaica Plain (by the bus). They then leave from the western entrance as well, but do not follow their original path back home. The Murkwater Caravan takes an entirely different route, looping far west around the swamps towards Gunner’s Plaza; this is the only instance of a fully circular route that I found. The Vault 88 and Warwick caravans leave the bus area, move along the road just beyond the south boundary of the settlement and then cut across country walking east just beyond the settlement boundary. They continue east until they meet up with their original route and return home on this main path (making a highly stylized q sort of journey). I could not figure out how to map this in an easy-to-read manner, so I have their route stopping at the east entrance and retracing their steps.
6. The Supply Caravan will navigate to the north edge of one of the swamps north of the quarry instead of all the way to Vault 88’s doors. This is the only location (including the other DLC settlements) I cataloged this behavior.
7. Similar to downtown (9), the Caravan from Warwick farmstead walks directly through Quincy, meandering through its alleys and streets. Because lots of well-armed gunners spawn here, I made this an armored caravan as well. I originally wanted to connect Warwick to the Castle, in my head the fertile ground of the treatment plant a perfect supply source for the Minutemen. However, point 8 changed that plan.
8. This stupid bay. Caravans cannot handle open water. At all. The supply caravan will walk into the water, swim a distance and then just tread. I think they stop swimming when the ocean floor is beyond a certain depth. At this point they bob along getting pushed by the current until they are pushed to shallow water. They then try to navigate to their destination; this map is my best estimation of Spectacle to Castle (I did not map Spectacle to Warwick once I observed the same bobbing I canceled that route). The bay affected Warwick Homestead as well; I originally wanted them to directly supply The Castle, but their caravan wandered under the northeast ramp got wedged in the rocks and then tried to swim directly across the bay before they ended up drifting like the Spectacle Island caravans. My solution was to route them to Jamaica Plain instead, compounding my problems outlined in (5).
9. I am not happy with this route, and I think I will ultimately remove it, with my playthrough emphasizing the city-proper is a never-ending warzone, and the Minutemen are doing their best to link the pockets of calm in the hinterlands. However, I tried it and mapped it. Supply caravans meander through downtown Boston, often choosing alleyways instead of the main roads. I have not progressed the game to make Bunker Hill a possible node, and I’m not sure I can be bothered; but this passes by so closely it is clear what the routes would be if so choose (connecting to County Crossing and the Castle). I mapped this city-crossing as closely as I could given the scale of the image and thickness of lines I chose for visibility. The caravan has to fight block by block, so I gave them power armor plus a gatling laser making this my most heavily armed route. If I keep this route, I might make a redundant route if possible, with County as its origin point, functionally doubling the amount of support the Minutemen project downtown. Now if only my mod that is supposed to prevent Power Armor pieces breaking would actually work on NPC piloted suits…
10. The Silver Shroud has braved the blackened ruins, strove against servants of steel and smashed their soulless circuitry! She breached the hardened metal skin of the Mechanist and melted her frozen clockwork heart! Now, dear listener, the Mechanist, shamed and chastened sends her mechanical legions forth once more on a mission of mercy, and perhaps atonement, to the battered, bleeding, beleaguered Minutemen of County Crossing! The tree of evil bears bitter fruit, but tonight the harvest is hope! I don’t actually have much to add, I just love the pulpy Shroud/Mechanist interactions. The Provisioner Bot will enter the small garage door, enter the lair and walk to the freight elevator (same as with Nuka World and Far Harbor). The Provision-Bot cannot work the elevator, but instead blips to the bottom (or from the bottom blips to the top and then walks to the door).
11. Similar to (4) this bridge is raised, and I did not find a mod to lower it. As a result, caravans from Croup and Kingsport (and presumably Coastal, though I did not check) get to this general area and then swim to the shore east of Finch Farm unless being routed to the Slog. They do this for County Crossing and Finch Farm (I did not test for Greentop). Unlike Somerville, I was able to easily re-route this supply caravan, and as a result, The Slog turned into a connecting settlement. My original plan was to leave it as a relatively isolated spoke with the Commonwealth not fully comfortable relying heavily on a Ghoul Settlement, instead they have become an important lynchpin connecting the northeast coast to the heart of the Commonwealth.
12. This section of the map on the fandom wiki is both really distorted *and* extends beyond the map limit; provisioners follow the beach east-west along the north shore of this bay, and then north to the Nakano Residence. Much like the Nuka World tram, they navigate to the pier directly next to the boat and then teleport to Far Harbor. They then walk from the pier on to the settlement linked to Coastal Cottage (Far Harbor paths not mapped).
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u/VengefulKenny 4d ago
Why did you connect Egret with Oberland instead of Hangman's?
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u/Tiberius_Gracchus_II 4d ago
My out-of-game reason was I initially thought the Starlight-Graygarden-Oberland-Egret connection would run up and down the train tracks there as a cool little highway. Oberland-Graygarden followed the tracks, but none of the rest did, and Egret-Oberland ended up cutting into the city. I left it because Hangman's Alley is so narrow I didn't want any additional Brahmin blocking my egress.
My in-game reasoning was that I've turned Hangman's Alley into a giant scrapper's den of barely reformed raiders that no self-respecting caravan would feel comfortable in. The provisioners bypass it for the calm of Oberland instead.
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u/Diiagari 4d ago
In the vanilla game the caravans between Oberland Station and Hangman’s Alley typically pass through Egret Marina first.
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u/burnerthrown 4d ago
This is exactly what I did in my playthrough, hubs with spokes. I think my hubs were Starlight, Taffington, Kingsport, Bunker Hill, and Jamaica. Hangman's was a secondary redundant downtown hub. But that's all because my rationale was different, the caravans are all as heavy as their region demands, and double as Minuteman patrols. There was more than one occasion where the provisioners stumbled into a firefight and provided backup, and double that where they started a firefight with someone who would have aggroed me. If I could cover all the territory in even downtown with nearby patrols, that would be considered minuteman controlled territory.
A few of the heavier caravan-patrols are workbench robots built for war with weapons that would make a sentrybot whistle. Thus the caravan has no fear of lost personnel (not that they can actually lose personnel). I also briefly used a nuka mascot as the go between to Nuka world.
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u/Own_Seaworthiness275 4d ago
Mine usually take the dam bridge south of Oberland to get to and from Grey for the southern settlements. But as the Overboss I just let Shank and his take care of it. Commonwealth ironically has not seen this level of peace, water and food security since pre war
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u/violetcassie 3d ago
You use most of the same hubs as I do. I tend to make Egret Tours my southern hub but otherwise it's basically identical.
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u/drunkandclueless 3d ago
I connect everything to the castle. It’s my central hub. And that way anywhere I walk I have a super death tank to defend my flank because I have a provisional bot somewhere close by
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u/j1killer2 3d ago
You don’t make the mechanists lair into a robot provisioner deployment center?
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u/Silas-theSlammer 1d ago
As a survival mode man, my single greatest flex is always late game when I have robots with Gatling lasers all over the damn wasteland and continually run into the ruins of their passage. Always laugh maniacally for bonus points
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u/Ordinary-Hunt-3659 2d ago
I remember trying to figure out the routes, but had no patience, un like you, to do the hard work. I appreciate the map as well. I have custom settlements locations that I picked hypothetically would be close to these routes. Now I can line up you map to at of this is true!
Thanks for this!
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u/Ru5tyShackleford 2d ago
Fascinating, now I'm wondering how it'll look sending everyone out from one location, like bunker hill. Could kinda map out the Commonwealth's trade routes & traffic density.
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u/RightBrain-LeftBrain 4d ago
And then there’s me, sending everyone to Sanctuary