Summary Overview

Anna is a single-level, SS2 city plan for the Castle, designed specifically for use with the Rebuild The Castle mod by Aurelianis. It also supports the Faction Housing Overhaul -The Castle mod by leaving its location untouched.

Three plans are included:

• Anna (5a) -- legacy -- is the result of my initial inspiration and my primary emphasis for development, but it relies on a broken mod – more info below 
• Anna (5b) -- legacy -- which is a stopgap solution for folks that want to check out the plan but don’t want the Plain Plans hassle or aren't interested in adding Shazbot's Cots to their Load Order – it’s the same as 5a except that Bare Essential bunks are used – it’s workable, but tight.
• Anna (6) -- is 5a with a couple very minor improvements and uses Shazbot's Cots for residential plots.
  

All plans are set to Player Select only and support 23 total settlers: 19 general purpose settlers, a mayor, and accommodations for Ronnie, the radioman, and an artilleryman. Also note, only 8 total residential plots are provided, so you will need to add another plot if you adhere to the SS2 Plots rule for commercial development and want to add said plots.

Facility Resources: 130 power, 23 water, 22k resource storage, 74 defense, and 36 plots.

Mod Status: Beta/Experimental Normal Release with Lingering Caveats

Two items were keeping this plan in the beta/experimental phase: (1) I am hopeful that SS2 Chapter 3 will bring a few improvements such that I anticipate releasing an update shortly after it comes out and (2) the mod I used primarily for residential plots is only partially functional – please reference the Known Issues section below.

Update 2023-08-19:
I have now finished SS2 chapter 3 with a pre-release version of Anna -- not the ideal test case, but, because it's functionally identical to the release version, it was the quickest way to test for major incompatibilities. My test results: I love the plan. I think it works great as a City Plan and as converted to an Outpost.

With initial testing complete and the residential issue at least partially addressed, I don't foresee the need for any sweeping changes due to incompatibilities, and consider the mod to be in a normal release state. However, I have noted the low endorsement rate and would like to change that. I am stickying a development post to keep everyone in the development loop, and I am personally requesting that you drop a post if there's anything you'd like to see and/or note any problems you have.

To address what I suspect is the biggest issue, I am kicking off the development cycle with an implementation of my mod, SS2 Addon - Shazbot's Cots. It feels weird/cheap to use my own work here, but this City Plan is the primary reason that mod exists. So, I guess I'll live with it...

Finally, if anyone has experience releasing patches for other people's work that have (1) a 'request permission' requirement in place and (2) have gone AFK, please contact me. As I understand it now, without explicit permission from the author, there is no way forward -- and, to me, providing a 'how to' is really in the gray zone.

Player: To Do

The following is a guideline intended to minimize headaches.

Before applying the plan

• If you have Faction Housing Overhaul installed, verify that it loads before Rebuild the Castle (reference the posts here).
• Complete the Old Guns quest.
• Scrap items according to the Scrapping Article. In short, scrap the scaffolding walkways, the Destroyed Artillery pieces, and various other junk.
• Rebuild the walls in accordance with the Rebuild the Castle mod
  

After applying the plan

• Connect power to the radio
• Connect power to the water pump, per your desire
• Twiddle the wireless spotlights in workshop mode (if you have Whisper’s mod)
• Twiddle the dynamic furniture outside the barracks (if you have the Vault-Tec Add-on)
  

Aside from any headaches arising from the residential plot issue, that should be it. Maybe drop back by and leave a comment or request…

General Description

Anna adds 10 3x1.5-tile structures (with 3 vacancies) to the top of the wall, a small retreat on the north-west side, and two raised
1x1 platforms for guard stations

Settlement Assets

• Power (130): 120 provided by the connectors in the generation room and 10 by the connector just above the radio tower console.
• Water (23): 20 is provided by the large tank in the large north-west room, and 3 is provided by the fountain in the retreat.
• Defense (74): 64 via vanilla turrets and 10 via Whisper’s Enhanced Spotlights.
• Junk Storage (22k): located in the north-west corridor.
  

Plot Selection
The default plot selection is mid-game (ish) and includes the following:

• Agriculture (3 basic): 1 3x3 single-worker and 2 2x2 single-worker plots. They'll need upgrading at some point.
• Commercial (0): for my playthroughs I intend to convert two or more of the industrial plots.
• Industrial (6 interior): 2x junk collection and one each of building materials, organic collection, machine parts, and rare materials.
• Martial (3 basic): two 1x1 and an interior plot.
• Municipal (7): caravan, cemetery, communications, hospital, power, sanitation, and water.
• Recreational (9): 4x relaxation and agility, endurance, intelligence, perception, and strength.
  

Recommended SS2/WSFW Settings

The following recommendations reflect the design condition and my personal taste. With a touch of modification, the plan should accommodate just about any play style - select carefully and have fun.

SS2 City Building/Bypass Locks = ON
SS2 City Building/Designer's Choice = ON
SS2 City Building/Starting Plot Levels = OFF
SS2 Immersion/Commercial requirement = OFF or Population
WSFW Settlement Build Limit = 200%
WSFW Import NPCs = ON

Regarding "WSFW Import NPCs", this needs to be ON to get Whisper's turrets but, as a side effect, you'll also get one extra dog and brahmin. Delete the respective spawners in workshop mode to get rid of the extras.

Known Issues

Plain Plans version 1.1
Several of the Building Plans within the Plain Plans SS2 add-on, version 1.1, are not correctly configured as multi-occupant residential plots. Most are correctly configured in terms of bed count (as displayed in workshop mode and in your Pip-Boy) but not in terms of assignable occupancy (as displayed by the plot HUD elements, e.g. [1][/2] for “one assigned of two possible”). The upside is that you end up with the correct bed count, so recruitment of settlers works normally, but the obvious downside is that they can’t all be assigned a bed.

Since this mod, or the idea of it at least, provided a lot of the inspiration for this design and because I really like how it turned out, I am determined to make the layout work through some combination of helping the author make corrections, releasing the patch I’ve created when/if the author grants permission, providing guidance for others to make their own patches, and/or create my own add-on pack with similar plots as a complete replacement.

Current solutions: (1) ignore the issue if settlement happiness is not a concern, (2) make a patch – see article (COMING SOON -- I need expert advice on this issue, please Mod Status section above) for details, or (3) use the alternate bunks variants (5b) or (6).

City Plan Scrapping
The settlement is not getting fully scrapped according to the plan. I tried several different configurations and variations of scrap definition, with varying levels of success. At this point, I am hoping the problem goes away with Chapter 3. In the interim, reference the Scrapping Article for items that you should scrap – for your own sake, ideally before applying the plan.

Requirements and Recommendations

Hard Requirements
DLCs = Automatron, Contraptions, and Wasteland Workshop
Bare Essentials or Plain Plans, preferably both, for 1x1 residential
Rebuild The Castle – and possibly PRP and associated patch
Sim Settlements 2 – version 2.2.4 or newer
Snappy HouseKit – most of the build is based on this mod
SS2 Super Structures – the power distribution system relies heavily on this mod

Soft Requirements (OK without, but will leave holes)
Functional Objects Overhaul – handful of decorations including dressers and plants
Previsibines Repair Pack(PRP) Stable Branch – while optional for AUR's Rebuild, I am not sure that the plan will work as expected without it; testing required
Settlement Objects Expansion Pack – spotlights that highlight the installations; I may try to replace these with SS2/WRK elements in future revision
Vault-Tec Tools – dynamic furniture
Whisper's Enhanced Turrets – wireless spotlight turrets

Recommended Mods
Longer Power Lines - I use the 3x version
Clean My Settlement – removal of debris, trash, and scrubby bushes 
Raze My Settlement – great mod, but DO NOT USE it with this plan as it may scrap items that are not replaced by the plan
Place Everywhere –especially for out-of-bounds items and ‘extra’ items; though this plan keeps everything in-bounds
Workshop Plus – flight can be very helpful

Recommended SS2 Add-ons
Bare Essentials – 1x1 residential
Junk Town 2 – interior industrial and recreational
Wasteland Venturers – 2x2farms, interior {martial, municipal, recreation}, and 2x2 recreation
Vault-Tec Tools – dynamic furniture
Scrappers – 3x3 farm,1x1 martial, and interior municipal
Shazbot's Cots – 1x1 residential plots (I feel so dirty)
SS2 Super Structures – underground power connectors and interior caravan
Tiny Living - 1x1Sanitation

Want to recommend SS2 Add-ons, but can’t without caveats
Plain Plans – potentially great 1x1 residential plots, but it needs an update or patch to achieve full functionality. I have contacted the author and requested a fix or authorization to release a patch