it's as the title says.

i give them heavy laser turrets, many giuards with laser and plasma weapons, and I need to defend this damn thing?

whats the point of building defenses then?

if they can't protect themselves from stupid raiders, they deserve to die.

having 200 of defense and yet failing to defend it against raiders or some supermutants just because i'm not there? give me a break.

IT. IS. STUPID.

it's part of the minutemen questline.

if you don't do that, you don't get that.

at least i think so

I don't disagree I just think you being there as a requirement is stupid. Sure if your defenses are rather weak then there should be some damage but a decently defensible settlement should be able to hold off most attackers on their own. If you happen to be nearby to help then it could add a bit of fun to it all. Right now it was certainly poorly thought-out.

Yep, the current system is daft, and if these idiot's are gunna drag me half way across the wasteland to watch the laser turret's shoot 3 raider's dead, then yep, I'm gunna go ahead and exploit them in every conceivable way by selling their own water and food back to them whilst I'm there.


Something I've wondered, is how do the 'no fast travel' purists deal with this shoddy mechanic? Do they simply ignore this part of the game? Or do they literally WALK to every settlement EVERY time it's attacked? Do they make it in time? How have they kept their sanity? OR is it fast travel that triggers these attacks, maybe they are the clever ones, maybe they never get attacked. So many questions, so little fast travel.

I don't understand the OP.

My settlements, on the whole DO defend themselves very well. I don't install laser turrets or missile launchers or plasma cannons or any of that guff. They get heavy machine guns and all the settlers are well armed.

Sure I have to occasionally attend to a settlement, but, when I fast travel back, I usually just end up watching as my settlers settle matters on their own.

Sometimes there's some damage to repair, but I've yet to have anything flatten an entire settlement. Let me tell you, 20 settlers with laser rifles and shotguns can take down a Behemoth, a Primus and assorted other Supers (total 10) in short order, even without my help. On the plus side, at least they let me headshot a couple of them.

I'm unsure if the OP was referring to the Minuteman quests, but that is massively flawed, at least logically:

1. Preston "hears" about some attacks on a settlement far, far, far away, by magic.

2. The settlement is being tormented by Feral Ghouls, even though they are far, far, far, away from the settlement. How does the settler know where the Ghouls are? He can barely plant corn, let alone travel halfway across the map.

3. How are the Feral Ghouls organizing this attack? How do they make it halfway across the map to the settlers?

4. I have to report back to the settlers upon easily killing the ghouls - so easy the settlers could do it BTW. How come the settler doesn't know I killed the ghouls? He seems to know everything else about the ghouls, like their exact location.

5. I have to report back to Preston upon helping the settlement. Why didn't Preston use his special powers to see what I did? (See #1.)

I think this is part of what the OP meant. If the settlement has 200 defense, why can they not defend themselves without him? Or, in your example, why must you return if the settlers are perfectly able to defend it themselves?

I think you're missing the point. Why is it necessary for you to travel back there only to watch your settlers and turrets mow down a few Raiders?

Good point. Fortunately it's obviously not EVERY attack that you have to return for. So far, after 140 hours in this playthrough I've only had to hit Sanctuary once (of course I've had to hit TenPines a few times & Abernathy & Oberland though), but it's always the same. The settlers kill them and I'm only there for the show.

I'm often surprised at how many bodies I find at my settlements when I arrive back. It's always something. From supers to bloatflies, from deathclaws to raiders to gunners, apparently, somebody is always attacking the settlements.

nono, they _do_ defend themselves. like in "there won't be any casualties after the attack".

you just fail the quest to come to their aid, regardless of that

(the other way around, if you just _appear_ there, sit on your fav patio chair and have a nuka while your settlers are getting dismembered, you'll still succeed the quest whenever the last attacker is dead for whatever reason).

and that quest's from the minutemen. that's what i meant.

Absolutely. I've only lost 1 settler in all this time (at Abernathy). I usually end up on one of the roofs watching the action and occasionally sniping. Dem dere settlers with their laser rifles and shotguns can deal some serious damage. Of course, when you're settlements get to 20 or above settlers, whomever tries to invade really doesn't stand a chance.

Starlight is at 27 for me right now and we had 6 poor raiders invade last night. Poor things, between the settlers and the turrets, I'm surprised there's any of them left.

My guess is because engine limitations.

Computers have been able to calculate battle stats since Matthew Broderick played War Games in 1983. Most likely before then as well.

Unfortunately, not all game engines have the same capabilities, nor do they do the same things with equal efficiency.

I'm pretty sure it would be trivial for this engine to do an auto-calc on raid strength vs. settlement defense rating (maybe it already is; there are variables for how much damage is done, how much food / water is stolen from the workshop, etc...). But I'm not so sure it can currently do one based on the inventories of the individual settlers, and I am absolutely sure it can not do one based on terrain advantages or settlement layout.

It doesn’t matter. The game has its own idea of what happens to the settlement weather you’re there or not.

I’ve had two attacks at the castle recently, both of which I was there, one by the Institute and one by a small group of Gunners. After the major battle with the Institute I had three heavy turrets and one power generator damaged. Which surprised me because after the earlier attack by the Gunners, which never reached the wall, every turret, every power generator, one water purifier, and all five artillery pieces were damaged. Another WTF moment.

I used to think that, but now...maybe not. Settlers will never be as high level as you or have your combat skills so they always need help. Regarding defense, having a high defense value may mean little if your settlement is large and your turrets don't cover the area adequately. Yes, some attacks are just a few "stupid raiders", but some are decidedly not. Some attacks can be intense, and your settlers COULD lose if you weren't there. If your settlers lose, I don't see what possible outcome other than all your crops and turrets damaged, which is what we see. And yet, some of you complain about that. You expect enemies beat your settlers and leave some of your turrets alone? The main thing is that you don't lose often. But for realism's sake, you need to expect to lose sometimes.

I confiscated all laser and plasma weaponry from my peasants when I realized, that yet again ash/plasma piles are infact 'permanent'.

I like to have ash piles around since they are constant reminders that my settlers and I are badass.

Once again modders to the rescue...

Does it bother you that ash and plasma puddles are too many or that they have the bug that you can't loot them ?

Look at it this way. What would be the point of having settlements attacked if you never had to defend them yourself?

It's not that I can't loot them, I have enough weapons, ammo and armour to invade a small country. Its a bug(yet again), it should be fixed. If I ever decide to build on top of one there will be red fumes coming through the floor.

See you would have a point there, but unfortunately every time I show up to defend settlements that would have been destroyed if I hadn't rushed there all I do is stand still and 5 seconds later my turrets/settlers have mopped everything up. Sooo yeah, maybe I'm raising their morale by just being there and turning them into badasses.

Presently, having finished the main game my character doesn't fast travel.

He hitches rides with the BOS flying machines, walks, runs and swims everywhere.

I don't play much anymore as i am waiting for DLC.

However when i do play occasionally my character will be at the opposite side of the map to the call out destination.

He has learnt not to take the Vertibird ride over the entire map because of the consequences.

The game considers flying over a cell as the player being present in that cell, so if the presence of a player in the cell triggers an attack it's unlikely they will notice so it's an instant fail requiring repairs when discovered.

In my game defend the settlement callouts tend to come in pairs.

So if I only get one notification I first return to where I came from and quite often will catch an ongoing attack at my recent point of departure.

From previous experience when i fast travelled all the time, i would quite often find trashed settlements that I had visited recently. Using game saves showed me that seconds after i fast travelled out, an attack had occurred, which didn't qualify for a warning notice because the game considered me to be there at the time of attack initiation.

Presently in relation to callouts I find the game gives you enough time to walk from one side of the map to the other, respond to help defend the checkpoints on the way and deal with any other foes you might come across.

I also diverge a little and visit other settlements and the campsites where those random encounters occur (if it's night time) on the way.

The destination foes are very considerate as they don't actually start their attack until you enter the game cell of your destination. So by walking there it's rare for me to engage with the foes unless I happen upon the second wave of attackers because we are approaching from the same direction.

If you don't turn up then the game punishes you by destroying a large percentage of you improvements.

If you do turn up you receive minor damage which mostly self repairs, ( although I have noticed that market stalls and scavenger stations don't self repair in my game). You can tell they are damaged because they are unmanned and their assigned settlers just stand around twiddling their thumbs.

Running is actually faster than "fast-traveling" as far as I can tell.

Try it. Load a save. Look at the date/time on your pipboy (and make an entry on paper with two columns: location / time), jog to another location and entrer the name and time for that one, do a third one, fourth if you want, but just two should be enough.

Now go back to the original save, and repeat, except: instead of running between them fast travel.

Based on my limiting 'testing' it is about 2 to 3 times slower in the game world to travel by fast travel than to travel by slow travel.

I didn't look at time elapsed in real world time, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't much quicker to fast travel there, at least for fairly short routes.

Maybe you arrive the settlement late and you see the end of the battle (if your settlers put up a good fight). Sometimes settlers DO defeat the enemies without you, as evidenced by the occasional new dead bodies in the settlement. As I said previously, I used to think how you think. But I'm up to level 69 and I've seen many different kinds of scenarios, from fast mop-up to really intense fighting. The opposing armies come in all sizes as well, from just a few bloodbugs, radscorpions, deathclaws to over 10 mutants or synths. Some who are up to level 100 and beyond have reported seeing opposing armies of even greater number and strength.