The game says the MIT members hid in just the basement and only years after the war 'The Institute' was established.
They do have some equipment, and plenty of labor.
Not actually sure about that one. There is no obvious area that they deposited it.
Game implies they built this equipment after the war and institute foundation and used for expansion.
As far as I can tell, it is never fully explained. It just sort of... happened, you know? Since they had actually robot synths they could have made them into worker bots and equipped them with shovels or drills as hands, something to speed up digging. I'm sure initially it was a bunch of science nerds digging with the plastic spoons they got from the cafeteria though.
The robots would come after the main tunnel digging is done. What I am wondering is where does all that dirt go? Either they somehow fashion it into some material to make their stuff out of or some magic plot hole makes it disappear.
Not trying g to defend Bethesda and their stupidity but that is more of a gameplay element than a lore issue. It's intended to allow you to keep building in settlements without going and wasting time looting everything in a building.
Meant to be saying that shipments are from the Institute. All their unwanted materials are just given away to be sold.
I always just supposed that in reality, the Sole Survivor would have help from the settlers to build all these structures. We just wouldn't see it in the game proper since Bethesda is lazy.
Fair enough I suppose.
Eh settlements are fine, you just have to throw that suspension of belief out the window and make sure the garbage truck destroys it. I quite like the thought that you more of help these people build this stuff not you magically pull a wood floor out of your ass with a pencil and a clipboard. In this case you can't make something realistic as it would either A) take much too long or B) be a pain in the ass to do. Bethy just made it incredibly simple so just about any schmuck can do it.
