Now I've found him a few times during my play though about 3 times to be exact, but every time after failing to get him to my settlement I've always reverted back to a save to before I encountered him. Now that the patch notes are saying he's "fixed" I'm out looking for him again and here's a couple things I'm noticing. Previously the only spot I could get a random encounter (out of the few known spawning locations for lv 4 vendors) was below the Cambridge Police Station. I would use the farming technique by saving just before the encounter spot and keep reloading my quick save until he spawned. Now I'm noticing these random encounters are really not popping up, and when they do and I try the farming technique it keeps spawning the same encounter (i.e. provisioners/enemies) over again like it's not resetting. Did they change the random encounters or maybe move him to another location? I'd like to hear some feedback from the community or even better a admin/dev that can help me locate this vendor.


Thanks

I've several hundred hours, 5 different characters who walked all over the map (hardly ever fast travel), and have never encountered The Scribe, or several of the other level 4 merchants for that matter.

The 4th level merchants are the worst. Haven't seen the Scribe since 1.4, but I did finally encounter both Smiling Larry and Ron Staples within about an hour of each other (and for the first time ever) one night shortly after I patched. No dialogue option to hire either of them, alas, and I haven't seen them since.

The random encounter locations are also inconsistent, and it would definitely be nice if we had more clarity around how all of that is meant to work.

I found the scribe walking along a road near Country Crossing.

All other encounters at that spot have been foes.

Some of the places other people have experienced the random encounters aren't very fruitful for my game.

The one near the drive in for instance I have only ever met the dog seller there but have encountered a number of foes of one type or another.

I have come across the dog seller at other locations on the map though.

It probably varies between games.

I also have feeling that some locations can dry up after a while yet other areas can become more fruitful.

For instance, currently in my game a spot near Hesters Consumer robotics has started spawning randoms quite frequently and some of those are friendlies.

Smiling Larry was the latest to show up there.

Here is a picture of him and his mercs turning around and heading back to the direction they came from after I recruited him and sent him to a settlement.

It was fun following him there as he took the long way round past some of the areas that are well defended.

http://ocau.com/pix/3iyxj

The only ones I've been able to recruit are those at fixed locations, like Ann Hargraves, and the Vault Tec Rep (he really needs a name). I have never been able to recruit Holt Combs or Tina De Luca. In fact I just did the Vault 81 quests again yesterday and still unable to recruit either of them. I've encountered Rylee but was unable to recruit her because there was no dialogue option.

Lately though, I have ran into Gene like 3 times.

~~~

I have yet to encounter Doc Anderson, Ron Staples, Smiling Larry or The Scribe. Does one have to have the certain population requirement for them to even spawn or are they there and can't be recruited?

i believe you have to have a certain settlement population for the option to recruit them to appear, its a combined total among all the settlements you have linked with a supply line, i think for the most part you need to have a combined 30 total population for the option to be available, you can encounter them but will only get the curious dialogue option