Hi,
Is there a guide or manual available for the faction camp? I talked to an NPC and had gotten help through that avenue but it doesn’t go into a ton of detail. I have a number of questions:
Is assigning NPCs the only way to get things built? For example, I’d like to build a well, but none of my NPCs have the Survival 4 required. I have a book to teach others to Survival 3, and then another book to teach to Survival 8 but it needs a minimum of 5. Meanwhile, my own character has like 10-12 in the relevant skills. Am I stuck without a well until one of my NPCs manages to grind their way to a skill up?
I have a central building with a fireplace and a stove. But none of the camp missions for cooking show up because the stove is empty. I tried setting up a firewood source near the stove and filled it up, but that doesn’t seem to register with the basecamp inventory. There is plenty of wood within “Basecamp Storage” designated areas but it doesn’t register there either. So how do you load up a stove?
I built a farm expansion and even a shed but for some reason the “Plant Fields” option is greyed out despite saying “Ready for Planting: 156”. I went to the farm area and even designated buckwheat fields, and then dropped the seeds in storage, but it doesn’t register in the basecamp menu. How do you plant fields?
What are the requirements for butchering? I set it as priority 1 for all the NPCs, there were corpses in the storage designation, and I had a butchering rack, but no one did anything.
Is there a difference between straw beds and mattresses? In the base game, mattresses can’t be built. They’re widespread and easy to find in cities, but they are 300L of volume, and cargo spaces go only up to 250L.
I have no answers for 1. and 2., but…
3. Is it winter or close to it (early spring / late autumn)? The ground might be frozen…
4. Do you have a clean surface (workbench, …) and the tools necessary to butcher in storage (tool with butchering of any value, a saw if it’s a big body)? Make sure they are not used by an other NPC at the same time.
5. As far as I know: No. At least not for NPCs (there’s a better chance for you to fall asleep on a mattress, last I know).
Yes and no… As far as I understand (more speculation and previous discussions, but no actual hands on knowledge), the game doesn’t recognized anything built by the PC. However, you can build a well in a place that doesn’t conflict with any of the game’s blueprints, with the absolutely safe way being to build it outside of the camp area (e.g. in a tile immediately outside).
I believe camp orders run on tinder, so you’d have to make some of that (which should be an order).
I haven’t built a field yet, so I don’t know, but I’d look at Valase’s answers first. Note that there’s time in spring when it’s warm enough for planting only for a short time in the afternoon. I didn’t start the camp until the middle of the summer, and as I’d already planted most of the tiles of the adjacent farm I didn’t see an immediate need for camp fields. I went for a kitchen as my first expansion, which I haven’t regretted (getting the companions to make the pemmican was great).
I haven’t bothered with butchering yet as my pemmican stores (and dried meat to make it earlier than that) has been sufficient. There’s enough chicken and turkeys on my adjacent farm for doing it, but I just haven’t given it sufficient priority to test it out. However, based on vehicle dismantling, the companions aren’t particularly good at equipping themselves with the tools needed for the job, so I’d start with giving them the right tools. I don’t allocate the companions to the camp, but give them orders directly (ask about current activity and then give the order). There’s a lot of book cramming going on, but my character has apparently been more successful in collecting books than your character, despite less experience (or maybe because of it, as I haven’t done that much Survival activities).
Don’t know, but I go for the real thing (the first ones were even down mattresses [and they can be made in the base game, although I don’t know if it’s automatic or a book is required], because I didn’t know how to pick beds apart, and it was a pain to collect enough down as both pillows and blankets take up huge volumes). My current method is to end a day of looting in town with picking a bed apart and then carry it in the hands while driving (there are no cops to tell you it’s unsafe, and the game doesn’t seem to care). I haven’t tried, but it might be possible to take the weapon from a companion and tell them to use a mattress as a weapon, although they may well consider fists to be better and refuse. However, it doesn’t take many trips to collect the mattresses needed (and my character has finally cleared out a nearby prison, and so can just fetch a mattress in half an hour or so).
Edit: Also note that you can get your companions to forage, which should train Survival.