Building the settlements is probably my favorite thing about the game. I probably wouldn't play it if it didn't have it. Sure, the vanilla selection is absolute garbage, but that's why we have mods. The purpose of this thread is to share ideas for settlements. To inspire others to build new things. Sharing creative ideas is always fun as you may not have thought to try something and then do it.

I'll start. For disclosure, I use many mods to add new buildings, decorations, and even NPC "jobs". The "jobs" mods add things for the settlers to do so they don't all have to be farmers. For example, I can build a fish butcher and it'll produce various aquatic edibles when a settler is assigned. There's also a sandbox that settlers can "play" in to produce happiness. There's many different "job" stations for various purposes. If you're curious about them, I can link you to a few I've found.

Sanctuary:

1: This is pretty much always my "town" settlement. It holds a bit of everything. I tear up each building and build whole new ones. I have a clinic, a restaurant, a bar, a rebuilt version of the PC's house, a warehouse for producing power, a warehouse for producing water, a lodging house, a trader shop, and a farm area. There are still slots open and plenty of room to build, but I'm running out of ideas for it unless I decide to divide up the shop emporium into separate buildings.

All the buildings are wired to the power grid so there aren't just generators everywhere. The powerlines come from the warehouse that produces power. Inside the warehouse is a few fusion generators with plenty of room for more if I need to build another. It's right next to the workbench house on the corner.

The restaurant has a food trader, but also has a player cooking station and a "scavenging" station that produces various prepared meals. The restaurant is a small diner with a counter with stools and a few benches. Settlers often gather there mid-late afternoon. It's located right next to the player's original house

The bar is pretty straight forward. Just a wooden building with a bar trader and a "Drink mixer" that produces various alcoholic drinks. There are a few tables and stools at the counter. There is also a small porch with some tables outside. I also put a few "animation markers" inside to add some flair to it. This just means that a settler may walk to that marker and perform the animation. I have a dancing marker on the stage and a radio hooked up so they dance to the music. It's got a nice feel to the bar. Not too fancy, but not too wasteland-y. It's right next to the bridge on the right side.

The water producing warehouse isn't in a traditional house slot. It's at the end of the partially destroyed wall on the edge of the river and hangs over the rover so the water can be collected(not that it needs to, but it's a-e-s-t-h-e-t-i-c). Inside, there are four mod-added water pumps that I think produce 45 water. The partially destroyed wall is covered in mod-added mini-gun turrets and a missile turret.

The farm is located right next to the bar, where the chemistry crafting table is found. I tore out the whole building so there would be plenty of room for crops. Unfortunately, there was a computer in the building that I couldn't delete so I had to make a small shack for it. It worked out in the end because it's sort of a "break room". The shack has the computer sitting on a desk, a chair, and a bathroom(from that mod that adds working toilets/baths/showers). I also put up a junk wall surrounding the farm with a few guard outposts for some added protection.

The trade emporium is lacking. It's right next to the farm. It's just a clean wood shack. Nothing special about it all and it's fairly empty. All it has is clean floors and a few traders with a crate for me to store things that I intend to sell later on. It needs more work.

The lodging house. It's on the end of the street. It's just a moderately sized square shaped wooden building. The first floor has a few things like a mailman station(produces happiness), a tax collector(produces caps), and a janitor station(produces happiness). There are multiple floors that will be continuously added. There's nothing really fancy about it. Each floor is just packed full of bunk beds so I can house more settlers. I just build another floor and pack it full of bunk beds if I start to run out.

The clinic. It's on the very end of the street on the slot that's closest to the river and just above the water warehouse. It's a small two story brick building. Inside is clean institute concrete floor and relatively clean walls. There is a hospital bed and a medical trader by the counter. Along with that, there are a few other "stations" that produce various things like chems and other medical related things. On the second floor is where the main doctor sleeps, but there is also an "autopsy table" that I think produces gore bits and bones. I really need to wall that table off so it stays away from the doc's bed, but he can rough it out for a bit.

That's pretty much that settlement. I use a mod to expand the reach so I can also build up where the vault entrance is, but I just don't know what to build up there and then there is the issue of settlement attack spawners being right in the way. I put up mini-gun turrets all over to eliminate any and all threats. My guard settlers rarely have anything to do.

Starlight Drive In: This one is on a previous file that I never really got to finish, but I can explain what I had done and what the plan was. Basically, it was my end-game settlement. It was supposed to tower over the rest(literally). I tore down the big screen and all the junk cars and barrels, but left the little store part mostly intact. I then built a large wall surrounding the entire build area out of warehouse foundation blocks. The plan was to fill the walls with turrets, but I deleted the save before I could finish. Then I got to work on the main building. I was going to build a skyscraper. I have the Homemaker mod, so I could build with institute objects. The tower was going to be clean and luxurious so those parts were a necessity. The foundation of the tower was pretty expanse and ended up taking up most of my time. It pretty much took up a third of the walled off area. There was a basement level that held a few fusion reactors so I could have ample power to do what I needed to. The entrance of the tower was a nice green yard with a walkway. I have a mod that lets me place down various "ground" tiles and I put down green pre-war grass tiles. I put a small "pond", a kid's sandbox, a playscape, a small clean wood shack, a dog house, and a few flower bushes along with a nice big tree. It was a pleasant view. The first floor was the lobby. I never really got around to decorating it so it was just a big empty room that was 3 floors high. The only things in it were a door to the stairwell and a door to the pool area. The pool area was a nice custom pool from BYOP. It overlooked the small water filled crater. The pool itself was 3x4 tiles of water and the poolside floor was clean wood. On the other side of the pool, there was a small lodge of sorts which had a staircase go down below the pool. In that basement, you could look into the pool via a window. It was a luxurious pool area. Moving on, I'll talk about the next floors. The first few floors were going to be settler homes. Each room would house one or two settlers an if they were named settlers, they got a customized room. This would probably take up a few floors, but I only got around to making 3. Each floor had more than just settler housing though. On each side of the stairwell, there were un-even amounts of space so I didn't want those to be settler rooms. So I turned them into various other rooms like a shower room, a bathroom, a lounge room, a kitchen, and a small dining area. Each floor also had 2 big rooms in the center. These were designed for companions for when they weren't following me. Each room was customized to best fit that character. Nick's room had a desk and a bunch of files and filing cabinets. Piper's room was cozy and had various press related things like a printing press, news papers, and typewriters. Preston's room was fairly simple and just had Minuteman things. McCready's was full of weapons. Deacon's was just full of mannequins with various costumes since he likes to dress up a lot. Curie's room was nice and clean and also doubled as a clinic. I didn't get around to doing other follower rooms. It's at this point that I deleted the file and lost the building, but I will briefly explain what the rest of the tower would have had.

The next floor after the lodging would be the food floor. It would have just been a giant greenhouse and settlers would tend to planters full of crops all in the safety of the tower. The next floor would have been the shopping center. There were going to be a few shop rooms for armor, clothes, weapons, and junk. Then the next floor would be the dining floor. It would have had the food traders and bar trader, but also have a big cafeteria and it would have also housed the man clinic. Deacon would have worked the bar when he wasn't following me. The next floor would have been the workshop. It would house all the crafting stations and various other production stations added via mods. Those would produce things like screws, metals, and various other components. The next few floors were undecided. If you have suggestions to what those floors could be, I'm all ears. The final floor(s) would be my penthouse suite. It would have been a luxurious playerhome filled with the nicest stuff I could build. That was pretty much it for this one.

Custom Settlement: This one won't be as long as the previous one. I just built it recently. I was inspired by the movie Water World. Since no existing settlements were on the water, I needed a mod to be able to create one where ever I wanted. I chose the middle of the ocean. I went off the coast of spectacle island and found a barge with part of an airplane on top and it was floating right next to a half submerged tug boat. I'll spare the lengthy details of the start-up and just give the result. I made the tug boat my main house of that settlement and put bulkhead doors on it along with stairs leading to the upper parts of the ship. The barge was cleared and I put down a few cargo crates on it to act as settler homes. There was also a small metal shack on top of some of the crates with a garage door as it's main door. Each crate used the truck trailer sliding door. On the end of the barge, I placed the front end of the big plane. It hanged over the water and it was primarily a lounge type area with a shower and toilet in the two closets in the front. Extending from the barge were two walkways. One led to a market center that had a bar/restaurant. In the center of the platform in front of the bar was a few trader stations. On the side, there was a dock which had a sailboat and a small coastguard boat. On the side of the bar was an outhouse and a shower. Next to that was a stairway leading to the water. At the bottom of that stairway, was a partially submerged platform with a prisoner stock. The other walkway left to two additional platforms. One was supposed to be a renovated water rig station. The pumps there produced fresh water and the control building was retro-fitted to be a commons of sorts and also housed the clinic. The other platform held a small warehouse that produced power and a small greenhouse that produced food. That's pretty much it for that final settlement. The only problem I ran into with this was that attackers would spawn directly on the platforms and that led to problems.

If you have any ideas for what I could add to any of these, I'd like to hear them. If you want to share any of your settlement designs, feel free to post about them here. I'm curious to see/hear what other people have built. Maybe we can inspire each other to build new things.

I agree entirely with ya there.
I'll share my Spectacle Island concept.
So I originally had my player home in Sanctuary but it got too crowded and settlers wouldn't get out of my house, so I moved to Spectacle.
I started off with a simple house on the North Eastern side of the island near the crashed freighter ship, it was built before any dlcs and mods so it wasnt much to look at, however I felt the urge to have some form of security on my island, wouldn't want the General to get murdered on his faraway island retreat with an icepick or something like that.
So I reassigned some Sanctuary guards to my security detail, around 6 armed with military fatigues and combat rifles and shotguns to differentiate them from my normal settlement guards who wore army fatigues with little equipment.
But then the guards required food so I needed to bring in more settlers to farm the land. So I cleared the trees all across the island everywhere but the southern part. I built some guard towers and placed large amounts of every crop on the hills and on some of the rare flat land near the center of the island. I took away every weapon and all clothes from the farmers and gave them only, pool cues with spear head attachments and either Suspenders & Slack or Black Vests with Slacks.
Also to clarify, no ghouls allowed.
I built an admittely crappy sort of barracks near the island center , barely worth mentioning, I did however spruce of the pier house fairly well and add a minuteman statue with some nice lighting on it.
I built very custom houses all around the island with built in stores like sort of drive thru windows so the merchants could just stay at home and close up the windows at the end of the day, unfortunately none of the unique merchants would ever show up even though I told them to go to Spectacle. I had cute little boardwalk restaurant on the western coast run by a settler and Buddy Bot.
However, at that point settlers start wandering into my home so instead of just packing up and moving settlements again I just decided to build a new home on the furtherst point of the island away from the settlers, which worked thankfully.
At that point I think the first workshop dlc dropped and I built a huge mansion/ castle/ fortress completely out of the new concrete.
It was about 3 stories tall with a basement underneath containing my power generators. The first floor was actually two stories tall, containing a kitchen, dining area, living room, office and Dogmeat had his own corner by the entrance, all decorated with lights, knick knacks, paintings, banners and statues. taking the stairs up led to a walkway/ open air sitting area, I split the area into 3 areas.
The first was a medium to small armory displaying mostly ammo and some mods with containers holding every unique I had ever found.
The Second became a three level area high power armor storage warehouse.
Third became my home tower. It was tall enough to be able to use a 4 tier elevator with. the first two levels were just open stairs, third was an office and bathroom and the fourth was the actual bedroom.
I think i even had the gall to add some stairs and add a chair to sit on the roof of the tower.
Still was my favorite settlement

New settlement additions:

1: Prison.

I decided to make a prison settlement to go with my then current playthrough role play. I was using a mod that lets you make synths by scanning existing NPCs. With the synths, they'd look just like the scanned NPC, but they'd be a settler. My goal was to scan and "clone" various evil people in the game and throw them in prison. Even though I did kill the real counterparts, I just like to imagine I captured them instead. Unfortunately, the mod wasn't working so I had to abandon it after I built the whole facility. It was a nice and clean prison made with Institute technology and materials. I built it on a big asphalt platform with concrete foundation walls. Each prison cell was 2 blocks in size and only had a bed and toilet. The cells were in the cell block which was closed off from the rest of the facility with a powered door. The cell block is connected to a small mess hall and also has a door that leads to the outdoor recreation area. The outdoor area is where they'd spend most of the day. It has a few things like a small farm area, a workout area, a cookout area, and various animation places(a mod lets me place mats that make NPCs perform various animations). The mess hall is just where they go to eat. There are numerous guard posts along the prison walls where guards wearing Clone Armory Clone Security Armor patrol to keep an eye on the inmates.

There were two special prison cells though. One in the basement was just a cramped and dirty cell. This one was for Kellogg. I was going to put him in there and blow off his leg(dismemberment mod) so he could only sit and rot for however long his prolonged Institute-tech life would be. The other cell was more cozy and luxurious. It was for Father/Shaun. I didn't want to kill my son, but he couldn't be allowed to go free. So I settled for locking him in prison. His cell was more akin to a luxurious apartment than a traditional cell. It was only accessible via elevator and was high above the complex. It had a few rooms and a glass enclosed porch with a small lawn. The rooms were a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a medical room(he was sick after all). There were a few things for him to do while imprisoned. He could tinker, he could cook, he could relax to some music, do some mild science experiments, bathe, and even relax in the grass with a cat. He was going to live peacefully until he passed away. I was going to visit him and spend time with him to make up for all those years he didn't have me. Unfortunately, the Synth mod wasn't working so I had to cancel the whole project. Apparently the fix I had gotten after finding out it was broken, would only work on a new save so all that work was for nothing. If any good came out of all this work, maybe it's that someone may decide to try this for themselves.

2: A spaceship. Not a functioning one unfortunately. Just a floating one above a settlement area. Let me tell you, it was a pain in the ass to build. Even with noclip, it was annoying. noclip building in mid air means that you would constantly have to jump in and out of it to snap another block to it. I had to jump in and out of it a lot in order to build the basic floors so I wouldn't fall to my death(which happened a few times). So, some details about the ship. It was built with Institute materials so it was clean and pristine. It had 5 "floors". I'll start with "floor" 1 and go up to the top.

Floor 1: This was the power floor. It had a few generators designed to power the whole ship. It had a Vault generator as it's main power source and a few slightly smaller generators. Along with the generators, there were a few scavenging stations based around repairing and stuff. A few mechanic settlers were assigned to these stations to look like they were doing maintenance. I was also thinking of putting in a small hanger for vertibirds.

Floor 2: This floor wasn't really that special. It did however house the main entrance to the ship and a stairwell to the generator floor. There was also stairs leading to floor 3. Floor 2 wasn't all that special unfortunately.

Floor 3: This floor was arguably the most eye-candy/functional floor. I think it'd be best to start from the back of the ship and work our way to the front. The back was the mess hall. A small kitchen with a few settlers and a food merchant. The mess hall had a few tables and cooking stations where you could prepare and eat food. Settlers would go there to eat. Just in front of the mess hall was the "center" of the ship. It was fairly spacious. In the direct center of it was a clean pool with a small patch of grass. This was designed as a recreational area. After all, if you're going to be stuck on a spaceship for an uncertain amount of time, some nice nature areas are a great way to stave off cabin fever. Settlers could relax by the pond, sit in the grass or on the bench, or even take a dip in the water. To the left and right of the park were two doors which led to two small hallways. These hallways were just for connecting the settler rooms. Each settler got their own room. Nothing too flashy though. Just a bed and window. In front of the park was the front of the ship, just below the command deck, but also somewhat connected. The very front of the 3rd floor was a few glass walls. Somewhat like the area just below the command deck in Halo 1.

Floor 4: Like Floor 3, it'd be best to start from the back and move forward. Above the mess hall was the infirmary and weapons hall. The infirmary had a few doctors doing various medical jobs like making chems and even doing autopsies. The weapons hall was where you could buy/sell weapons, armor, and junk. It also had a few scavenging stations. In front of these rooms was the park room's overlooking walkways. Nothing too fancy. Just 1 block wide walkways bordering the walls to you could get around that floor more easily. The ceiling of this floor was a large glass dome so sunlight could gleam through and make the place more relaxing. Like the floor below, there were also two halls just above the living quarters. These would also include a few beds and various things like bathrooms, showers, storage, etc. Whatever other role type room I could think of. In front of the park room was the command deck. It was to be filled with various terminals and stations for the flight crew. The very front of the deck had a nice big glass dome-like wall. It provided a nice view of the Commonwealth. On the command deck was also a 2 story elevator which led to the final floor.

Floor 5: This floor was just my living quarters. It wasn't too large. Just a place for me to call home. Nice clean carpets, my own bathroom, and even a nice balcony overlooking the park room.

Crew: The crew of the ship were all given Institute clothing as I felt is best represented a space crew. Most wore basic Synth uniforms, but some wore colored Institute lab coats. Red for food, green for medical, etc. The security force/soldiers wore something a bit more unique. I was using the mod UCO so I could dye some armors and clothes. I dyed the Synth outfits black, and then dyed the Synth heavy armor chrome. So they resembled the Sith Troopers from KOTOR a bit. The command deck crew members wore Imperial officer uniforms from the Imperial Armory mod. I equipped each crew member with blasters from the Clone Armory mod. They all looked clean and sleek in the pristine spaceship.

I actually have some screenshots of the spaceship, but I'm far too lazy to really upload them properly. So, if you want to see them, you can check my Steam screenshots page here: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198066358263/screenshots/

The pictures aren't that up-to-date. They don't show the more complete version which has settlers, finished construction, lights, and some various objects. It's more just the frame of the ship.

There's a mod called abduction that lets you capture npc's and make them settlers. you could use that to fill your prison.

@Choochoo1 Got a link? Sounds like an interesting mod by itself. How does it work with unique and scripted NPCs?

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/21982


I believe it works with some unique and scripted npc's, but it's been awhile since I had a chance to use it so you may wanna double check. I use it mostly to get arena contestants, but for getting some gunners or raiders to sit in a prison cell, should work fine.

More settlements

County Crossing: For one playthrough, I am using the Dustbowl mod to turn everything into a desert. I decided to make CC a true wastelands settlement. I places a few big rock formations to form a small walled off area to build. I patched the holes in with foundation blocks and guard posts to make it seem like a fortified little canyon. The buildings here were make of scrap materials so there were many holes and patch jobs. The main gate was comprised of a heavily guarded wall. Settlers all wore dirty clothing to help make it seem like a wasteland hub and to make them all look slightly grissled. The main gem of this settlement was the "throne room" building. It was meant to be my "home" there. It was a large terrarium-like room atop a tall tower overlooking the settlement. Only accessibly by riding two 6-story elevators, it was more luxurious than the rest of the builds. The top of the elevator was surrounded by pools of water and a single walkway. The walkway led to a very small stairway to a higher ledge which also had another pool of water that had waterfalls to the lower one. At the end of this walkway was my throne. The idea of this tower was that it was a jewel of luxury in the harsh desert. It was a place to relax. It had multiple places to sit in and by the water. The roof was mostly glass so it had much natural lighting and some windows to overlook the surrounding wasteland. Lost due to an "update". Will rebuild with more quality.

Spoiler:

Gray Garden:
I tried to go a bit Borderlands style with this one. I didn't use the garden below. I just went straight up to the highway above. I built a lot of scrap shacks hanging over the edges and made a few bus-houses along with a monorail hanging over the edge which had a few beds over the seats to act as housing. It was a settlement that I enjoyed, but never got to finish because an update bypassed my settings and broke the save.

Starlight Drive-In:
Starting up the tower settlement again, but this time it's less "Institute" and more "old world luxury hotel that survived mostly intact". It's the same concept as above, but less clean and a bit bigger. It's a lot better so far as each floor takes quite a bit of time to construct due to the amount of detail. The end result will be a really nice tower. Somewhat similar to Tenpenny Tower from FO3.

Spoiler:

I have a mod which expands settlements greatly, and so I like to just completely ignore the main area of sanctuary, and instead just build out onto the lake to make a fishing town. I haven't played too much of 4 because the dialogue is extremely cringey to me, but IIRC, this is one of the few places where you can build a proper water-based settlement, as most of the other areas cut off too short, even with some of the mods out there. The mod I use covers the entire lake, and so I've never run out of room doing this. This is probably a pretty shitty description, but I like to basically build a path straight into the middle, which then becomes a hub. I then expand outwards evenly on all sides as more needs arise. I mainly just fortify the abandoned town to build up defense, and use all the demolished land (using a scrap everything mod) as a place to plant food & leave animals. I also use it as a place to spam all the generators I need, so they don't clutter up the town. I really like how it ends up looking ingame. It definitely gives it a unique feeling that no other settlement has.

I mostly ignore the other settlements all together, aside from using them as a place to quickly stock up and save on survival saves.