Walkthrough and settlement details for the Taffington Boathouse area in Fallout 4.
Taffington Boathouse is a settlement on the peninsula east of Lake Mystic, due east from Covenant. Unlike Covenant, however, Taffington Boathouse is a much more straightforward area - to claim it as a settlement you merely have to clear out the Bloodbugs infesting the area. This may or may not be the subject of a generic Minuteman radiant quest [Clearing the Way], but you’re not guaranteed to have it assigned and aside from a bit of extra XP and Caps, it’s not terribly important either way.
The Bloodbugs can spawn moderately leveled - expect Bloodbug Hatchlings, Bloodbugs and Red Widow Bloodbugs. While not individually dangerous, their numbers can be troublesome, so keep your guard up and be wary of the flying pests. They’re not always keen on making a beeline towards you and attacking, some will undoubtedly make a meandering approach, and with half a dozen advancing at once things can get hectic if you can’t put individuals down quickly. Squash the half-dozen insects outside, then head into the house and exterminate two more hiding upstairs.
You can find many more Bloodbugs down a canal to the east, but killing these isn’t required to claim the Workshop, and with any luck you won’t antagonize them while clearing Taffington Boathouse.
After killing the bugs, search upstairs to find some beds you can rest on, a Safe [Advanced] and a Steamer Trunk [Novice]. Search the corpse of Mary Sutton to find Margaret’s Note, which talks about a hidden chem stash that the former inhabitants weren’t capable of collecting - their greed may have disturbed the Bloodbugs nesting there and led to the demise of the former residents of Taffington Boathouse. This will be covered in the Malden Drainage page, below.
Next investigate the boathouse adjacent to the larger, main building. Pick the locked door [Novice] and cautiously enter, as there are two Laser Tripwires on the far (northern) side of boathouse. These are rigged to a shotgun to the west, and shouldn’t be triggerable unless you approach via the water. Keep dry, disarm the shotgun, then harvest the tripwires and loot the boathouse.
Taffington Boathouse as a Settlement¶
Taffington Boathouse is a deceptively good settlement. The house itself is of limited utility, as, like most pre-existing structures, there’s not a whole lot of space to do more than place a few beds or Scavenging Stations. The build area for the settlement is pretty large, however, and the land to the west of the house makes for a large, flat canvas for you to create almost anything you could wish. It might not have the potential of Sanctuary, Abernathy Farm or Starlight Drive-In, but it’s got enough space to build an all-in-one structure of some profligacy.
If you somehow find the road and dirt to the west of the house insufficient - a possibility if you don’t have access to Garden Plots - you have other expansion options. Although it’s a bid unorthodox, the water to the south of the house is all in the build area, and if you don’t care about physics (the game sure doesn’t) you can build a fairly large structure over the water. You can fit around 6x7 tiles almost entirely over the water, although a structure this large will tease the edges of the build area, so a 5x6 or smaller may be a better fit. Of course, if you expand north onto the shore you can comfortably fit another five or so tiles. This is enough space to build an unnecessarily large structure while also not touching the dirt in front of the house, thus preserving it as prime faming ground.
Suffice to say, you shouldn’t be too inhibited by a lack of building space, if you don’t mind the fact that some of your buildings will be floating over water.
Despite the fact that the boathouse is clearly assembled out of warehouse parts, you can’t tear it down, nor can you do much about the main house, either. Despite these limitations, you’ve got plenty of space for building, dirt for crops, and water for Water Purifiers. It’s hard to fault Taffington Boathouse as a settlement, and you should be able to develop it however you wish.
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