Hi Again

I wanted to know how much (if any) difference it makes in giving settlers better armour and weapons

Also same for companions\followers - I am using Piper as I like to have a bit of eye-candy rather than another dude!!!

Simple answer: Yes.

Long answer: If your settlement gets attacked settlers with armor last longer in a fight (I know they can't die, but if the health is down they sit on the floor until the fight is done, so with better armor they fight longer) also the better the weapons are the faster the enemies go down.

It's the same for followers (but they need ammo, settlers have autoammo so they need only one of the according ammo type).

don't give your compagnions grenades or a rocketlauncher, you will die by friendly fire !!

Yes Dogmeat and bots (not humanoid) are safe. They won't use them.

They won't use a rocket launcher unless you also give them the ammo for it.

It's not really important to give settlers better gear as long as you have enough defense in your settlement. Most of my settlers have only their starting weapons and a "uniform" because the turrents often take out every attacker before the settlers even get to the attack.

Higher defense rating also makes it unlikley that your settlement will be attacked.

I have 72 settelers right now and I have only seen 3 settlers engaged in combat and none of them did go down.

+1
I once gave Piper a few grenades and she threw 3 of them in rapid succession while we were fighting some ferals in a metrostation. I barley survived despite T-60 PA.

Correct me if I am wrong but don't you have to equip the 'new' weapon on the settler and then give them enough ammo so that they equip that as well? By equip I mean that small square icon appears next to the item/ammo in question. So with ammo for say the 10 mm pistol - equip it on the settler and then give ammo (think about 4-6 bullets) until the 'equiped' icon shows next to the ammo.

Be carefull if out of ammo for their default weapon they scavange their surroundings and if they find rockets on a body it can end very, very badly for you .

Really? As far as I noticed companions have unlimited ammo for their default weapon.

Settlers ammo is unlimited as long as you equip/leave them with at least 1 ammo of the appropriate type.

My settlers and provisioners do die, especially now I'm at a level where rockets get flung around indiscriminatingly!

In my recent settlement raids, I seem to lose one or two settlers killed each time. Note that these are not synth infiltrators - so when I search the bodies I do not find any synth components.

I think that the game provides an instant new recruit to replace each killed settler, as I often find a noob standing around in their wasteland rags onto whom I just dump all the clothes and weapons I retrieved from the dead one.

You're not still running around with a pistol and a mix of random pieces of raider armor are you? You've found better gear that deals more damage and resists more damage. These same improvements apply to settlers. I equip all of mine, especially at my main settlements, with much better weaponry and armor.

Concerning companion damage, Piper used to constantly damage me by throwing the grenades I gave her. Then I took a perk in the Charisma column that prevents damage from companions. Can't remember the name of the perk, but its 8th or 9th level in Charisma. Now she plays nice and doesn't hurt me, though her decision as to when to use a grenade is suspect (Piper, not on molerats, alright?).

Give settlers power armor, nuka grenades and high speed miniguns. Inf ammo for grenades and non fat boy/missile launchers.

I think it does make a difference. I load up my settlers with plain leather, metal or raider armor and give them combat rifles, shotguns, even submachine guns if I get spares and one bullet. They never run out of ammo and I recently returned to a small settlement to find they'd taken out a deathclaw in my absence. I also give the ones I assign to guard towers +Per headgear or glasses/goggles.

Piper, however, burns through bullets like nobody's business if I give her an automatic weapon. I had to downgrade her weapon because of ammo issues!

All my settlement leaders get Courser Armor. I leave PAs about the place with cores in em'. and try to give everyone at least a Combat weapon, shotgun or rifle, and some ammo for it. I will be, on my new playthrough supplying woven armor to settlers.

I show up, shoot off a couple of rounds and it's over. Even the massive attacks are not that big a deal with the whole crew rocking and rolling!

Since i gave them good Gear they dont get anymore kidnapped, or is it Imaging?

it's your imagination

I play on survival mode. Settlers do die and I have lost 4 settlers in one attack by gunners at about level 50 or so. One of the Finch brothers was killed in this raid. I do not use rocket turrets because of the mess and collateral damage.

Depending on the settlement I equip them all differently. Some settlements are all dressed in clean suits and dresses and carry melee weapons. I just fast travel to a vantage point and watch the mayhem.

I am on survival too, permadeath lvl 14, no power armor playthrough. (nerd bragging xD). Gave my two guards miniguns and they pretty much shredd every raider that tries visiting. Turrets get damaged pretty quickly.


So yeh. Give your settlers gunz and you are golden

One thing to note is settlers will get back up shortly after being downed, unlike turrets that stay broken until you repair them and consume resources, which aren't cheap If you use heavy laser turrets.

yes, them gals just look better in red dresses than cage armor .-)

Heads up (for anyone not yet aware) that settlers will steal your gear if they can reach it.

1. A settler stole a suit of power armor I had parked by the workshop in Sanctuary. That's how I found out.

2. Once I got him out of it I built a floating house accessible by a set of stairs that you had to jump over a gap to get into the house. I stored my power cores there with other gear I wanted to keep 'safe'.

3. Somehow two settlers stole my power cores and (by this point) two sets of power armor and my Fat Boy. I finally tracked them down and moved all of it to the floating house, backed the stairs back so it requires and longer jump, and hope that'll keep their grubby hands off.

It's not as if I don't gear them up with armor, headgear, goggles/glasses, and good rifles and shotguns and more turrets than they deserve! I also keep a box of armor, weapons, etc at ground level they can raid to their heart's content. Greedy little mudgrubbers.

AFAIK, equipping settlers with armor and weapons doesn't raise their happiness, and doesn't lower the chance of getting radiant quests like "kidnapping", "greenskins", etc. It does help when the settlement's population is low, but not as necessary if it's high. If you have 20 settlers, you can get by with some of them having only pipe pistols. But if you have 5 settlers only, better give them some combat shotguns and rifles. Settlers don't have your FPS skills and perks, and fire weapons at their base damage. The best and cheapest defense for them, I've found out, is just to have a high population. I give them armor mainly for cosmetic purposes. Preferably, I equip them with matching sets of armor items. I've found that even with one mismatched item the result would often look ridiculous.

Which brings me to another point. I'm up to level 70 and I've found out that it's hard to find complete, matching sets of armor with all the arms, legs, chest, etc. other than the base, unmodded armor items. When you find modded armor items in loot, the mods are, of course, also random, so you need to be lucky to get matching sets. And the odds are against you getting a matching 5 or 6-piece set of armor items that all have the same material mods and miscellaneous mods. Say there are 5 available material mods, and 10 available misc mods. The odds of finding 5 matching armor items with the same mods are 1 out of 50 x 5 = 1 out of 250! And if you try to buy armor from stores, you get the same probability because stores also offer random armor items with random mods.

Which kind of defeats the purpose, if you don't give them ammo. It's pretty safe to hand settlers explosives, provided, you set a custom fast travelling spot, well behind the lines. Then you can sit back and watch the fireworks, since they can't kill each other.

Companions on the other hand, no way. They always throw their explosives at you. I once had a game with Valentine wielding a missile launcher. Keeping behind him did the trick, but you have to be constantly on the watch, not to move anywhere where they can shoot.

Giving Piper Road Leathers definitely made a difference to me! <3