Spectacle Island

Spectacle Island is a location and potential settlement in the Commonwealth in 2287.

Background
Spectacle Island is an island on the coast southeast of Boston, near Warwick homestead. It was once home to an eccentric millionaire with dreams of his own private island paradise. A mansion was built on the northwest shore of the island.

After the Great War, the original settlers on the island had constructed a basic settlement with a sonar pulse beacon that released a high pitched sonic pulse capable of repulsing or killing mirelurks. The beacon is represented by a structure similar to a siren or radio antennas connected by a long wire to a sunken ship, as the ship's generator room is still operational and provides power for the beacon.

The appearance of a raider on the island suggests the settlers fled or were killed by raiders or mirelurks. The raiders apparently disabled the pulse beacon, and one was killed by either Randy, whose body is found on the south end of the island, or the mirelurks soon after, as he is found near Randy's corpse. Any other raiders looted the area and left, allowing the mirelurks to return.

A beached barge on the northeastern portion of the island has a large shipment of Vault-Tec crates within it.

Settlement
To unlock the island for use as a settlement, the Sole Survivor must first go to the metal shack with the radio tower at the center of the island on top of a hill. Then they are required to go to the partially submerged boat to the south and flip the switch on the circuit breaker. If the circuit breaker in the ship is touched and the player goes to the tower only to return back to flip the generator switch, this will trigger a bug to occur.

Once the circuit breaker aboard the ship is turned on, it will cause the screen to shake and a mirelurk queen and several hunters will emerge, as well as a mirelurk deep king.

To finish the unlocking process, one must go back and flip the circuit breaker on the radio tower. After a few seconds, this will send out a pulse that will drive all remaining mirelurks to the shores of the island. It is not necessary to kill the queen, as she is affected by this pulse as well. The workshop will then unlock, and one will be able to build at any point on the island.

Spectacle Island has at least one specimen of all the wild strains of common plants (corn, tato, razorgrain, gourd, wild mutfruit, melon, tarberry). Due to a bug though, the wild razorgrain cannot be harvested unless scrapped.

Layout
Spectacle Island can only be reached by swimming or walking across the sea bed in power armor. The island has several buildings scattered across it, consisting of mostly shacks and ruined houses. The north side of the island contains several crafting stations in a small shed across from a destroyed house. The main workshop, along with a radio tower, is located in the center of the island. To the south is a destroyed boat containing the Luck bobblehead as well as a large power generator that connects to the radio tower through a series of pylons. Mirelurks populate the shores, as well as the wreckage of several boats. The island has plentiful resources, the most common being wood.

Notable loot

 * Fat Man in the half-sunken green tugboat on the southern tip of the island.
 * Luck bobblehead on the same half sunken tugboat to the south, sitting in a locker.
 * Mini nuke on the first floor of the destroyed house, sticking out of some debris on the floor.
 * Signal checklist in a small shack in the middle southeast of the island. This describes the instructions regarding the island's most unique feature: a sonic pulse beacon that repulses mirelurks.
 * Two Nuka-Cola Quantums in a broken fridge in an underwater, wrecked house (with a skeleton in a wheelchair facing a modern TV and radio) just off the southwest coast. From the derelict hut where Randy is found, head west towards Warwick homestead and dive down 33-50 feet out to sea. These are often glitched under soil within the fridge. The water physics can make them roll out onto the wooden floor when approaching, however, so check it occasionally and the player may be able to reach one or both.

Settlement

 * Just after the outhouse near the rocks/shore there is a hubflower plant. While looking in build mode it says it produces 0.5 food, yet it is unassignable.
 * Setting up and turning on a recruitment beacon on the island will work despite the surrounding water; the settlers will only appear if the player fast travels off the island and then returns. However, if the settler nearby happens to be a ghoul, they may appear without the need for fast traveling.
 * The island can be chosen by P.A.M. as a location for a new safehouse for the Railroad during the quest Mercer Safehouse.
 * There is a barge that ran aground on the eastern side of the island that has multiple safes inside it. Three are locked each in increasing difficulty: Novice, Advanced, Expert. A fourth safe can also be found behind the barge directly below where the main three safes are found. This also has an Advanced lock.
 * Spectacle Island possesses the largest build area of any other settlement in the game. However, due to the game's settlement build limit and hilly, rocky terrain, the area requires extensive work before it becomes a viable build space. Most of the area's pre-existing structures are cluttered or too badly damaged to use properly and require extensive reconstruction before use. The island also features the second largest height map, meaning one can comfortably build structures of up to ten stories high if constructed on the beach, and up to six stories high when constructed on the highest point on the island.
 * The generator on the ship, once activated, provides 20 units of power for free. The circuit breaker box itself can be picked up during build mode, it can be placed awkwardly halfway through the ground anywhere around the island, but cannot be attached to walls and cannot be placed back where it started if placed somewhere else.
 * When starting this settlement, the size limit is almost half-filled. By spending some time scrapping everything possible, one might find that there are still more items to be scrapped but cannot find them. There are many items hidden in the surrounding ocean, and in order to get to them, one has to dive around the wreckage of the barge and the boats to find barrels, junk, and crates. There are two submerged shipping containers near the barge with many crates and barrels in them.
 * The settler spawn point is typically near the radio shack or on one of the hills near it.

Nearby locations

 * There is an unmarked cluster of boats and debris moored to a concrete pillar with a shack on top of them with two sleeping bags and some crops to the northwest of Spectacle island; it is about halfway in between Spectacle Island and the Castle.
 * There is another location of the sort mentioned above about one map square due south of the island. Built around a tall brickwork pillar, it appears to be a small shanty for a population of three, judging by the number of sleeping bags. It features a compact greenhouse of sorts with a wild mutfruit plant inside a blue freight container, a radio tuned to Diamond City Radio and some packs of dirty water.
 * Visible due north of the island is a barge with a hut and a doghouse on it, alongside a wooden loot crate and locker for loot.
 * Diving into the waters on the southwest coast of the island reveals an underwater scene where a submerged ruined house is half buried into the seafloor. Inside this house exhibits several items like a television, a half buried fridge, a side table with a surprisingly fully functioning radio on it, a lampshade and a skeleton sitting in a wheelchair. Two Nuka-Cola Quantums can be obtained under the detached fridge door.

Other

 * Firing a flare here will still summon the Minutemen.
 * There is a skeleton with a briefcase hidden in one of the sand dunes.

Appearances
Spectacle Island appears only in Fallout 4.

Behind the scenes
The island is based on the real Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor. For most of the 20th century, it was a garbage dump used by the inhabitants of Boston. During the construction of the civil engineering megaproject known as The Big Dig, the island's garbage dump was capped off with dirt from tunnel construction and the island transformed into a park. It is now a part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area and features a marina, life-guarded swimming beach, visitor center, snack bar, walking trails, etc. Spectacle Island is staffed by park rangers and staff year-round by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Incidentally, "The Big Dig" is also the name of a quest that incorporates elements similar to the real project.

Bugs

 * Sending Robot companions to Spectacle Island after dismissing them may cause the companions to become lost/stuck in the water about 100 feet off the island. They just stand at the water bottom and are no longer available for play.
 * Even after turning the power generator on, the circuit breaker still signifies that the power switch is off even though the tower pylons are lighting up and showing powered on. This occurs when all mirelurks are not killed which corresponds with the event of turning on the generator. It can be fixed by resetting the quest using . This should reset the boat to off (graphics are still shown as switched on and the generator sound is playing but the boat is technically off). Click the boat switch again to re-activate power after reset, return to the switch at the radio antenna and it should fix the issue.
 * If one activates the generator before finding the metal shack, the game sometimes won't let the player character flip the second breaker. On PC, to solve that issue open command, target the workbench and type . Then flip the switch one or two times to be in the upper position (again). Now you should be able to open the build menu but maybe cannot store things to the workbench. To solve that, fast travel to another location and back and it should work fine.
 * If the boat generator was put in the on position before returning to further explore at a later time, the switch in the boat may be stuck in the on position with the nearby light still off and no generator sound. If one picks up the note in the metal shack and returns to the boat the switch can be activated again to turn on the lights, though the breaker in the shack will still note it is non-functional. Entering then  will allow activation of the shack breaker and normal completion of the workshop activation requirements. This may also apply to the scenario above and can be safely tried first.
 * If one places a structure that affects settlement stats (such as a turret, bed or a water purifier) on one side of the island and moves to the other side, the stats given may go away, even if it is fully operational. This can affect the happiness of the settlement in a negative way and can be fixed if you move back to the side with the structure, but this is a very temporary fix, as the bug may repeat itself.
 * This is due to the game engine being set to load only 5 world grids (which it is by default) and it, therefore, unloads resources after traveling to the other side of the island.
 * This can be fixed by setting (default is 36) and  (default is 5) in Fallout 4.ini/configs or using Fallout 4 Tweaker. This will increase the load distance of resources. This will, however, reduce FPS slightly on standard or lower end machines.