I haven't finished the story yet, i have yet to do the "glowing sea" but I'm sidetracked by settlement things and I think I'm actually enjoying it.
What's your favorite settlement?
I'm gonna spoiler this, because I'm going to mention one of the settlements you can take over, related to a side quest, and maybe some won't like that spoiled. But that's all it is. I'm not going to mention side quest details.
I'm moving on to the next one because I've done all I can for that settlement. I attempted to create a boardwalk on one of the settlements on a beach on the east side of the map, but I ran out of wood just trying to build the floors and railings. My plan was to build a mansion* on the boardwalk, with a few rooms, like an inn, then add stores, benches, and cool lights. I even extended part of the platform out into the sea (as far as I could), so there could be some sort of look out point. Had to reload, maybe I'll try it out again once I have more wood and figure out how to get more.
I also tried Starlight Drive-in, built some kind of two-story "barracks" with lots of beds in there, but the 12 people seem to have trouble getting into their beds. Ended up opening the walls and adding outside stairs just so they could get in faster. But then my settlement bugged out, it seems the settler count doubled somehow and it was showing 24 settlers, I only had 12 there. So ultimately ended up reloading it, and gave up on it for now.
No other settlement seems good enough to build on. Such uneven terrain in most of them. Sanctuary has flat surfaces if you clear out ruined houses but it's on the edge of the map! I wanted to rebuild my old house but it seems it's impossible with the tools.
Also, how do you even build a house? It seems the inner walls won't snap, can't add doorways to inner walls, and there are really no windows. Best I could do was use the walls that have holes in them. I'm kind of disappointed now that I can't even build a small house like the ones in Covenant.