Hello friends!

Does anyone know, hard number or otherwise, how much defenses affect happiness? I love the settlement building and I've made the places that have so many turrets Liberty Prime couldn't storm my gates. But I really want to try a more natural looking settlement... you know, open spaces kinda feel. So I was thinking, well... just equip your settlers well and let them take care of it. I haven't seen any spawn yet that could withstand 20+ settlers armed with combat rifles and shotguns.

I want a gritty, vigilante justice sort of town. My own Good Neighbor, if you will.

If I have food, water, and shops aplenty... how much would a low defense rating (guard posts only) affect happiness?

Follow up question: What are the penalties for low happiness? Abandonment?

I'll be glad when we get some hard numbers of this stuff.

Edit: I also want this because I LIKE settlement attacks. So I'm hoping to prompt a lot of big shootout battles. It's a win win.

Not sure anyone can answer these questions before we can look under the game hood when the Creation Kit gets released (find the "hard numbers"). I'm sure there are plenty of players that have experimented enough to give good advice, but there could be factors we have no idea about that effect the "numbers" (like maybe each settlement has it's own "modifier" that alters how each resource effects "happiness").

Getting to 100 happiness is still something of a mystery to me. The highest I've managed to get is 97 in Sanctuary. I don't know what more I can really do. I have like 8 of the biggest generators in a bank down near the river. They're all walled in to reduce noise. I have 8 industrial water purifiers there, which makes me tons of caps. The food rating is in the 50s I believe. I have 40 beds for 24 settlers, and the beds are all the nicer beds and are spaced out in all of the different houses. I have a rank 3 bar/restaurant in a dedicated building, and another "general store" kind of building that has all of the rank three merchant stands, plus the Vault-Tec Rep (who is a rank 4 seller) running the trading post. The defense is around 390, and the settlers are equipped with Army Fatigues or Military Fatigues with full suits of light or sturdy combat armor on top. They're also equipped with good guns, mostly 10mm pistols, combat rifles, assault rifles, and combat shotguns. I bought a Junkyard Dog (another +5 defense) and sent it there. A couple of brahmin stay there and have the appropriate feeding troughs to hang out at. I spend a lot of time there and try to wear my +5 charisma boosting outfit whenever I'm there. It just won't go higher than 97. I might just need to play around with decorations more or something like that. Maxed settlement happiness is one of the few achievements I've yet to earn, and I want it.

Hmm. Yea, I know we won't get any details till the GECK comes out... but I know some people have looked through the .esm and such.

Yea, I've read the requirements to get 100 happiness are ridiculous.. which is another reason I'm not overly concerned - except in the instance that having NO defense (or incredibly low defense) would cause my happiness to plummet to a level that would make my settlers abandon ship.

Maybe having radios and TVs running helps with happiness?

don't know, but I have had a settlement with 2 people and zero defense and happiness stays at 50%, and nothing I do seems to change it. unless it gets attack and I don't show up or a kidnapping. untill they either fix/change things with settlements then settlements are more of a pain then anything.

That's actually fantastic compared to my experience.

I've got Sanctuary at a population of 24.

I have:

880 Water

36 Food

138 Power

40 Beds

An enclosed Mall with all the shops, each at Rank 3 or 4.

A separate outdoor patio Bar and Grill with a pool table, juke box, all the vending machines, umbrella tables with seating for 4 at each, all the trimmings (radios, trash cans, ashtrays, etc.).

Lots of furnature, art, etc.

Over 1000 defence.

Dogmeat in full combat gear.

Preston.

Supply Lines going in and out to 10 other settlements.

My happiness has never hit 90.

It usually falls in the 82-84 range.

Right now it is in the high 70's.

And falling.

from what i've read, you need to get the vendors out in commonwealth to come join your settlements (eg. the vault-tec salesment). This helps boost happiness.

Pale_Ryder, how many do you have? 97 is the highest i've heard of.

I had to buy about 15 clinics to boost my happiness to 100. Not sure if it's possible to get 100% without abusing the stores. Kinda sad.

I have a rating of 95%. I have 11 settlers, 24 food, 30 water, 500 defense. I have giant high walls, a bar with tons of patio furniture, and 40 beds. I put one of each vendor level 3 and 1 extra bar.

It's really all just a mystery to me. I had it at 97 but then I quit trying to boost it. Currently it's somewhere in the 80s. I feel like there's some kind of glitch in this whole system preventing 100% happiness from being attained. Has ANYONE gotten 100% happiness? I haven't heard of any. I've heard a lot of various tips though. One thing I heard that I haven't tried is that there needs to be kids in the settlement to get to 100% happiness. I've only seen a couple settlements with kids though, and I've unlocked them all. The default settlers at Somerville Place are a dad and two kids. I'm not sure if you can send them to a different settlement or not. I know you can't trade with the kids or assign them to tasks. There's a kid at Warwick Homestead as well. I'll get back to reaching 100% happiness at some point, but for now I'm not too worried about it. I still haven't even completed the main quest line. I'm going to be headed to the Glowing Sea soon enough though.

LOL, I guess no ne can be 100% happy. jk =P

Also, I hear no matter how much defense you have, it will not prevent kidnappings. Is that true?