the biggest issue with settlements (aside from the fact happiness drops for seemingly no reason) is that when I assign one if the 20 interchangeable settlers to a task, and if he's not on that takes at that moment, I have no idea he's already assigned.


If selecting them in workshop mode showed what their job was next to command and move and all that, it'd make organization so much easier.


Like "Farming - Mutfruit" or "restaurant" or "clinic" would be awesome. That way I wouldn't constantly be looking for people to assign without messing with my existing tasks.

100% with you on this!!!

While it's not super obvious, you can. If you look at, or hover over, the settler, highlighting them, you may notice that some of the surroundings highlight up with them. Those are the areas your settler is assigned. Most of them, if not manually assigned, will auto-farm. Unless I just don't remember assigning them myself.

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Yea but that highlighting "feature" is extremely hard to do if you dont put everyone you want to check in kind of a central position first, so you can spot every corner he might be assigned to.

If they wont give us a list of jobs, just auto- rename them with a job title, just like it happens with the Provisoners.

Put someone on food = Settler turns into XXXX

Put someone on Guardpost = Settler turns into Guard

Same for scavenging stations etc.

Or just let us name them.

I agree, although I temporarily fixed it by making them equip different clothes for each job. For example those I assign for farming have farming clothes, those at shops have an scavenger outfit with a different hat for each kind, bar gets chef hat, etc. I only put 1 on security but they seem unreliable, I think turrets are better, not to mention everyone gets to fight anyway.

It's only half of a solution that the game makes it fairly easy to see which resources have already been assigned: In Build mode hover the cursor of an assignable task like a crop to be farmed or a Defense post that needs to be manned, and if unassigned, a red person figure appears along with the resource name. If already assigned, the person figure is green. But assigned to who? If you grab the nearest settler and assign him/her to that task, you may inadvertently be UNassigning some other needful task -- which you will have no idea what it was or where it is.

As I see it, this fixit is an absolute Must Have in a near future patch.

Exactly. For now I can just give the advise to closely watch your food and defense rating when you assign someone and the drop will let you know it was the wrong person. After that it might be a little easier to find that now unassigned food or guard post to fix your mistake. :/

You hit the nail on the head. Settler managment is non exsistant or might as well be.

Giving settlers an outfit that corrisponds with the task you have them on works ok for one settlement. But there are around 30 possible settlements. If you take an average of 20 settlers in each settlement your looking at finding 600 outfits to do them all. Not happening in my game. Even with mods to make clothing its not worth the hassle.

My advice is pick one or two settlements to focus on and let the rest manage themselves. I have found that if you build the things, (food, water, shelter, beds, and defenses), that they need the settlers will automatically start farming so they don't starve and hover around 70% to 80% happiness.

Right now its like the game is broken into two parts. Settlements, Sims Fallout style, and all that goes with them. Dealing with micro managing them, scavenging to get building materials, radiant settlement quests and attacks, happiness, etc. Then there is the rest of the game you can't play because your getting spammed with all the other settlement stuff and don't have time for it because your busy trying to avoid failing a kidnapping or raid and ending up with stuff destroyed and/or dead settlers.

I am currently on my third character/play through. My next one is going to be limited to just a few settlements and the rest are going to get ignored beyond what I need to advance the Minutemen quests. I am planning on using Sanctuary because of the Minutemen tie in. Greygarden for food production and the merchant Green. Starlight Drive In will have a defendable building built over the water hole with some defenses but there will be no settlers. I will use this location for water production above and beyond what Sanctuary puts out. This is my money maker. Finally I will make the Red Rocket Truck Stop my home base with no settlers allowed in. Just me and my companions. I may relocate my base to the Drive In once I unlock the perks that allow me to build workshops.

Every other settlment will be cleared and salvaged. The salvage will get taken back to my home base for building there. If there are people already living at those settlements I will move them to Sanctuary/Greygarden. If the settlers can not be moved they are on their own after I get done.

I have not decided yet, but I may set up defenses at The Slog as well. Just so I can have a place to send the Ghoul settlers that might show up at Sanctuary and Greygarden.