The Forest (the area that Vault 76 is in) is a good place to start. It has loads and loads of wood nodes (look for logs on the ground in areas where there are trees) and it has many good locations. You may want to avoid the area directly by The Wayward as that seems to be the most popular spot in The Forest.
When building it can be useful to rebuild. Rebuilding is building the same structure and camp again. Taking everything apart and then putting it back together again. Rebuilding helps in streamlining your camp and can be a good way to free up camp budget as you usually find better, more efficient ways of building the second or third (or 15042150845th) time you rebuild.
Wires and power connectors can be budget thieves. So trying to get your power grid going with as few wires and connectors as possible is a good exercise.
Lighting can be extremely useful in setting the mood or making empty spaces look "populated". Some floor decorations can also serve as light sources (like the Fasnacht bonfire, place that on your roof and it will illuminate your top floor with a lovely, yellowish light).
Build. Then rebuild. When you feel like your camp is perfect take it apart and build it again. Or build something else. Don't get "married" to your camp. Because even though it is perfect the next thing you will build will be better. Or at least different.
Everyone gets 2 camp slots by default. So you can build two seperate camps at two seperate locations. You can use the two camps however you want.
Very much the 'not by wayward'. I thought it would be nice having some water running thru camp so I'm right by it and I will have to restart 4x just to get my camp loaded caz someone else has their camp too close.
As far as the power connectors, is it just the little pointy ones that cost a lot of budget space? I put in a ton of conduit in my last build and it didn’t seem to take up too much but I can’t tell for sure
Each one does not take up a lot of budget. But if you have loads and loads and loads of wires, conduits and connectors then the sum total can be a noticeable chunk of your budget. Loads of wires and connectors can also look "messy". Especially if the rest of your camp is not in the "hodge podge clutter style".
How much budget the wires, connectors and conduits "steal" may not be apparent until you build enough in your camp to max out the budget. Though when you run out of build budget you can usually free up a little chunk to keep building by streamlining your power grid.
There is a camp drop down menu in the upper left corner of your map. You can use this to swap between your camps.
When you swap camps it just hides your other camp. Nothing gets lost. Each camp is a seperate camp. So what you do in one camp does not have any effect on your other camp.
When you have placed both your camps you will have two camp slots in two different locations. Your active camp will be yellow and your stored camp will be grey. You can click on the grey camp and activate it. This will store the other camp and make its icon grey. The stored camp will be hidden from the game world and immortal until you reactivate it.
You can safely make two camps. They are completely separate. And when one is stored it is safe and nothing can happen to it. This is handy for example if one of your camps is about to be nuked because you can just activate your other camp and the first camp will then not be in the game world when the nuke lands (people nuke everywhere occasionally, mostly to farm "unstable flux" or materials for making "stable flux", which is only available inside nuke zones).
If you afford the alien generator with atoms thus week I believe it emanates power for your lights meaning no connections needed.
Still need to manually connect to resource nodes and water purifiers though.
One way to think of it is, camps are fast travel points. If you’re new, a camp by Top of the World will be good because you’ll be doing a bunch of quests there.
For me as a lvl 500+, I have a camp by Harpers Ferry and another right near Watoga, because there are no free fast travel points there, and I travel there often. Just something to think about.
The Forest (the area that Vault 76 is in) is a good place to start. It has loads and loads of wood nodes (look for logs on the ground in areas where there are trees) and it has many good locations. You may want to avoid the area directly by The Wayward as that seems to be the most popular spot in The Forest. When building it can be useful to rebuild. Rebuilding is building the same structure and camp again. Taking everything apart and then putting it back together again. Rebuilding helps in streamlining your camp and can be a good way to free up camp budget as you usually find better, more efficient ways of building the second or third (or 15042150845th) time you rebuild. Wires and power connectors can be budget thieves. So trying to get your power grid going with as few wires and connectors as possible is a good exercise. Lighting can be extremely useful in setting the mood or making empty spaces look "populated". Some floor decorations can also serve as light sources (like the Fasnacht bonfire, place that on your roof and it will illuminate your top floor with a lovely, yellowish light). Build. Then rebuild. When you feel like your camp is perfect take it apart and build it again. Or build something else. Don't get "married" to your camp. Because even though it is perfect the next thing you will build will be better. Or at least different. Everyone gets 2 camp slots by default. So you can build two seperate camps at two seperate locations. You can use the two camps however you want.
A lot/all of The Forest is also in a nuke-free zone.
Thank you so much for this detailed answer, this helps a lot.
Very much the 'not by wayward'. I thought it would be nice having some water running thru camp so I'm right by it and I will have to restart 4x just to get my camp loaded caz someone else has their camp too close.
As far as the power connectors, is it just the little pointy ones that cost a lot of budget space? I put in a ton of conduit in my last build and it didn’t seem to take up too much but I can’t tell for sure
Each one does not take up a lot of budget. But if you have loads and loads and loads of wires, conduits and connectors then the sum total can be a noticeable chunk of your budget. Loads of wires and connectors can also look "messy". Especially if the rest of your camp is not in the "hodge podge clutter style". How much budget the wires, connectors and conduits "steal" may not be apparent until you build enough in your camp to max out the budget. Though when you run out of build budget you can usually free up a little chunk to keep building by streamlining your power grid.
How do you use the 2nd camp slot? What happens to your first one? I was afraid to use it as it wasn't sure if it disappeared all your things.
There is a camp drop down menu in the upper left corner of your map. You can use this to swap between your camps. When you swap camps it just hides your other camp. Nothing gets lost. Each camp is a seperate camp. So what you do in one camp does not have any effect on your other camp. When you have placed both your camps you will have two camp slots in two different locations. Your active camp will be yellow and your stored camp will be grey. You can click on the grey camp and activate it. This will store the other camp and make its icon grey. The stored camp will be hidden from the game world and immortal until you reactivate it. You can safely make two camps. They are completely separate. And when one is stored it is safe and nothing can happen to it. This is handy for example if one of your camps is about to be nuked because you can just activate your other camp and the first camp will then not be in the game world when the nuke lands (people nuke everywhere occasionally, mostly to farm "unstable flux" or materials for making "stable flux", which is only available inside nuke zones).
Thank you! I appreciate the detailed explanation
If you afford the alien generator with atoms thus week I believe it emanates power for your lights meaning no connections needed. Still need to manually connect to resource nodes and water purifiers though.
One way to think of it is, camps are fast travel points. If you’re new, a camp by Top of the World will be good because you’ll be doing a bunch of quests there. For me as a lvl 500+, I have a camp by Harpers Ferry and another right near Watoga, because there are no free fast travel points there, and I travel there often. Just something to think about.
Yes. Plenty of each. Check YouTube for tutorials.