I love FO4, but it's also driving me crazy.


Settlements being the main reason I love it and also my aggravation.


I sow ingame 280 days, and I barely have done any of the story, but what I can tell you is that I have cleared national guard armory at least 20 times as well as numerous raider/supermutant locatons.


Not because I want the resources, or just like killing ghouls, but for the sole purpose of not failing a settlement quest.


It's at the point now where always have 2 of them active and soon as turn in I get 2 more.


It so much reminds me of gta's girlfriend/friend system where they just can't give you 5 minutes of peace. Sure I can ignore them or do something else but it seems everytime I try , I get the notice they will be failing soon, and my ocd won't allow that.


Please remove timer on these or at least the time on which they trigger.

I used to be like you... I got sick of it and stopped responding to the settlement attacks. I protect my 3 main based (which don't get attacked often because of insane defense rating) as well as abernathh farm and graygarden (2 important concrete merchants in those) the test of the settlements are useless and if the settlers there die no biggie.


It is best to consolidate all settlers to 2-5 main locations

Keep your defences HIGH.

My average settlement has a defence of well over 100 (sanctuary has over 1000), usually in the 120-150 range. They rarely get attacked.

As far as Quests go, it just occured to me that there is a better way to do things. Do EVERYTHING in your Quest Tab before handing in any missions at all. Then go ahead and turn them all in at once. It will clear out your Quest Tab nicely and still allow you to advance various Story Arcs.

Just complete the objective and never turn em back in should work fine, also never listen to Freedom radio or go near Preston(move him to some settlment you rarely visit) that should prevent like 95% of those quests, oh yeah and turn the loudspeakers in Castle off so you dont pick em up from radio when you visit the location.(btw arent only kidnapings and defences timed at least i have never seen any other quests auto finish/fail for me but i do normaly finish the objective just never turn em back in when i dont want to do settlment related questing)

This.

If you complete the task, but don't tell Preston, that buys you a ton of time.

I found taking on Preston as a follower for a bit, (after doing some settlement quests & the Minutemen questline), then dumping him off at an out of the way settlement, is a good way to solve the problem. You finish up whatever jobs the settlers have, report to them but never go visit Preston again.

Wrong. Just turn them in and when Preston says "If you have the time, I have something else for you" just run away. Don't lose out on exp just because he will try to shoehorn in another quest, so once he finishes his dialogue about "that's great news blah blah blah", just let the dialogue finish or left click to end the dialogue and when he tries to tell you about another settlement, start backing away from him. After you back away from him, the quest should complete and you won't get another task.

It seems a lot of people don't know that you can move away from a NPC while they are talking.

I turned in the quest to Preston, then when he started talking about having something else for me I ran away from him and I didn't get the next quest. Now I just stay away from him. and like others have said I turned off the speakers at the castle

just don't do the quests , the quests are there for exp grind , if u want to reach level 200 or so

I've tried running from him, guess not fast enough because he always manages to shout out the name of the new settlement under attack

Just crack open a bottle of whisky and proceed to beat all your settlers to death with lead lined boxing gloves, they quit complaining real fast.

Yeah, Preston's quests are infinite/Radiant ones. He'll always have more for you. And unlike the "settlement under attack" things, they don't have a timer on them. Just ignore them and do other stuff.

(I've only gotten like 4-5 "settlement under attack" events, but I didn't build up my settlements much. And I gave most of them a decent amount of defense - 2x the food+water or more. Not Greygarden or Abernathy, too much food there. )

Hmm I have prolonged the talking to Preston part for turn in, just not in definately as I wasn't sure this was causing my morale to drop. I do like the backing away part tho, wasn't sure if got quest completed if did so didn't try but yeah also had him at the castle. Thanks for responses.

I have two hot female settlers in Sanctuary, and one of them is always being kidnapped. The other one then runs up to me and begs me to rescue. Hard to avoid, but I moved my FT landing spot to inside my house, and now I rarely interact with the town itself. I sent Preston to the Coastal Cottage as punishment for being such a tool.

I've had several of Preston's quests fail because I ignored them too long. Greenskins and Clearing the way both. Doesn't seem to be any consequences for that failure, but they do fall of the quest listing.

Ah, I hadn't thought about morale dropping when I said no time limit. I was just thinking about the "mission failed" result if you don't respond to an attack. But yeah, I usually run around with those missions completed, but don't go back to Preston to report in.....

Heh, that could be a problem. I've been based out of Red Rocket (alone) the entire game, I only wander in to Sanctuary when I want to talk to Preston....

If I remember correctly, Clearing the Way quests are side-quests that give you new settlements and probably shouldn't be avoided. Kidnapping and Ghoul/Super Mutant/Raider quests can be ignored though.

I have decided I'll do each one once. Too bad about the Raiders at wherever, I already cleared that place, you are on your own.

Ignore the whole thing. I wander past once in a while to fix the damage but I've never had a settler die in any of these quests.

Not that I can tell ether. A few spare parts for the damage is it.

They do have a timer on them. I've failed a quest once for Preston about saving a settler who was captured by raiders. If you don't complete it in time, the settlement ended up paying the ransom and the settler is returned. And then they are unhappy for a bit.

The only ones that don't have timers are the important ones (such as taking over The Castle) and clearing the way ones. (Note: The normal clearing the way ones, not the ones about the settlers telling you a location).

I think my game is glitched. Preston doesn't even give me radiant quests anymore lol or even ones to find the rest of the settlements. Don't think I even found every settlement in this play through compared to my other one that got corrupted. Not even Radio Freedom tells me anything as of late guy just says all is quiet.

Tip: when you finish a settlement quest, DO NOT TELL PRESTON. As long as you dealt with the threat, you won't fail the quest. It will sit in your quest log for several in-game days until it eventually auto-completes.

During this time, you won't get any new settlement quests. Afterward, you'll only get new settlement quests if you:

-Talk to Preston

-Listen to Freedom Radio

-Hang out at The Castle

Enjoy your peace & quiet, sir.

Just let them fail, then don't talk to Preston afterward. It will clear the quests from your quest log, and there will be no serious consequences for it. Those quests are unending. You won't stop getting them until you do this.

Send Preston to a settlement that you don't often go to so you won't accidentally bump into him. Don't tune into Freedom Radio. If you go to the Castle often, turn off the speakers with the blue breaker box at the base of the tower so Freedom Radio won't be playing there. Then let the active Minutemen radiant quests fail, don't talk to Preston, and you'll be free of them.

Not talking to Preston has worked for me.

The key is to cover your ears and yell "No, no! Not again, no!" while you're running.

I think I've seen that plot used in- wait. Uhh. Nevermind.

Simplest solution: When Preston asks you to lead the Minutemen say "no."