Fallout 4 – How to Build a Factory

This guide is about how to build any factory. I created buttercup factory in vanilla game. If you want to mass-produce armor or weapons for your settlers, this could give you the missing spark of inspiration.

Guide to Build a Factory

Note: Credit goes to Edward

Preparation

Max out intelligence, get a trustworthy companion and some rest before you start building, to maximize XP gain. Companion is optional, depends, if you found the 5% bonus XP Live&Love or not.

Find a suitable location without interuptions from Mirelurk-Queens or Supermutants.

Have plenty of human junk….and I mean a lot.

Planning

Without a plan this will end in tears.

Plan your approach before you start building. You lose a lot of materials, if you build things you don’t need. Imagine your factory. What will you build? Calculate. How many items do you want to build? How many scrap items do you need. Big things have small beginnings.

And don’t forget to gather junk (a lot of junk).

Scrapper lvl 3 helps with gears, screws and springs from weapon-scrapping.

If you throw them on the ground and scrap them, you can even revert the building limit.

You need a lot of gears for the production lines. Gears are pretty rare at the beginning. Look for desk-fans and typewriters, they’re cheap compared to shipments.

Execution and Testing/ Improving

Build your first assembly line. Place a power switch between the factory and your power source.

The best way to get a factory to actually work, is to use raw components. There are too many junk items that can ruin the whole work in a few minutes and make a totall mess of your settlement. E.g. Buttercups!! fishing rods, microscopes, all round items, all small items (gold watches, circuitry cards).

Raw components are designed to work with the conveyor belts, it seems.

Start simple. input output…done, add sorter (don’t forget to put the item in the sorter), use hopper ( the big thingy) to mix different components and feed them to a builder.

The best way to allign a conveyor belt perfectly under a hopper is to use an elevator unit.

Use divider to split your components to another line and a second builder (and another and another).

Timing is the key. I tried everything, even logic gates (they’re bugged btw). I managed to sort my stuff with one flip-flop and the rest are three delayed switches, to manage 32 splitters and 40 hoppers. You’ll need at least one seperate power source for every modified electrical circuit. One power source for all belts, elevators, builders and sorters, but a different power source for timed/ delayed switches (programmed or not), or everything gets bugged.

After a few hours you’ll get the hang of it and want to go really big.

I just wanted to build a fully automated factory, that creates 5 maybe 6 Buttercups at the same time.

But I ended up with 10. That isn’t the output at the same second, but the builders are always busy for 10-15 seconds, crafting one item at a time.

Surely there are faster ways to get what you need or want, like feeding every single builder, cheating.

But you’ll never get the same satisfaction, as when you create something that actually works.

My personal record, 179 Buttercups per hour, the sorting of components is the worst part, almost 60 minutes to sort 2100 items. Output timer is set to one per second, idk. My factory can still handle 4200 components per hour with only 10% misguided items.

Pretty good outcome for a not perfectly timed assembly line.

Okay, that’s it. The whole construction thing goes way too far into mechanical and electrical engineering. Hope you can get something out of all that, maybe some inspiration for your favored settlement.

And don’t listen to Strong! Leave human junk, is useless!