I’ll admit at first I thought the whole thing was sort of pointless… until I realized how addicting building a Willy Wonka style factory in the heart of Sanctuary was going to become. For those who avoid cheating, it’s officially time to pull up those console commands and give yourself a couple of hundred thousand lead, asbestos, steel, etc. and absolutely go to town on creating contraptions.
Will your factory look this good?
As with the base settlement building system, Bethesda didn’t feel the need to put any sort of tutorial in there for any of this, and the settlement screen doesn’t in any way mark what objects are new to the DLC, so you pretty well have to figure it out yourself by trial and error.
For a full run down of the new additions, what crafting materials are required to make them, and the three new Contraptions Workshop achievements, head over here.
Become An Industrial Giant
Builders, Forges, Auto-Looms, Pyrotechnics Plants, and Explosives Mills now allow the opportunity (without mods) to mass produce pretty much anything you want.
You can create your own ready supply of ammo using all that junk found out in the Commonwealth (with enough lead and fertilizer, you’ll never run out of ammunition for that minigun), put together nearly any weapon you’ve never found on enemies, or even ensure all your settlers are properly armed and armored.
1st bowling pin fresh off the factory line!
Of course, there’s more than just weaponry that the Forges let you create, as the Builder offers up a host of non-combat options, either just for hijinks’ sake, or for filling up your pitching machine to constantly send a stream of objects at whoever you have incarcerated in the stocks.
I’m not sure if I have enough bowling pins yet…
After you’ve created your giant factory of Forges, you can use a maze of sorters, hoppers, and conveyer belts to automatically distribute the needed items to each factory… but honestly it doesn’t save any time over just putting the crafting materials in the appropriate places yourself.
There is something to be said for building a fully functioning gigantic factory in your settlement that works all by itself with no human labor necessary though (other than throwing all the ingredients in and changing the settings at a terminal).
Storing 5MM ammo with conveyer belts
What the conveyer belts are most useful for (other than looking awesome) is moving all your items either to an area away from everything else, or even into a storage facility you can easily access.
Thankfully you don’t have to guess as to the ingredients for each type of ammo or item, as building a terminal gives you info on what to put into any factory that is connected to the same power supply,
Using a terminal to select ammo build options
Fireworks Displays
You can file this one under “useless, but fun.” Haven’t you ever wanted a fireworks display to celebrate your many victories over the enemies of the Commonwealth? How about fireworks that somehow magically change the weather in your area?
Now both are available to you. If you build a Firework Mortar and either craft the appropriate shells at chemistry lab or make them using a Pyrotechnics Plant and an attached terminal.
Necessary? No. Fun? Oh yeah.
Crime And Punishment… And Annoying Your Settlers
The Pillory was perhaps a long-overdue addition to the Fallout 4 settlement building options. Can you never find your settlers? Is there one who is just always annoying the ever loving nuka-cola out of you like Preston Garvey or Marcy Long?
Build yourself some stocks (referred to as the “Pillory” here) and assign a settler to it! No fuss (and no trial) – they’ll just meekly walk there and remain incarcerated until you say otherwise.
But that alone isn’t nearly all the fun to be had. Why just leave them to sit in their own filth when you could also pitch a host of inanimate objects at them?
That’s where the Pitching Machine and Junk Mortar come into play. The Pitching Machine is super simple – just plop some items in and they will automatically fire at regular intervals in whatever direction you’ve chosen.
Yes… I am pitching bowling pins at that settler’s head. What of it?
The Junk Mortar on the other hand takes a little bit more work, and you can set the firing angle and force with a connected terminal. Unlike with the Pitching Machine where you can bring up the item menu, you have to manually set something inside the junk mortar each time (by holding “E” in the PC edition).
And yes, somebody immediately realized you can in fact launch YOURSELF out of the junk mortar.
What did you think of what we came up with using these wacky new settlement tools? Let us know what crazy designs you’ve created using the Fallout 4 Contraptions Workshop DLC in the comments below!
