I game some armor and guns to a setler but he is not using them nor equiping them.

Is that the case for every setlers/NPC ?

Gotta have them equip it when you trade it to them - it's the Y button on consoles.

T button on PCs. Be sure to give them some ammo too. Though how much I'm not sure. I dont know if the AI actually subtracts ammo from settlers when they attack stuff.

A single round. Settlers don't use ammo. Not sure about Provisioners.

Same for provisioner, and same for any companion that is not travelling with you but residing at a settlement, gave strong a minigun to defend one of my settlements with, he's really making that single bullet last

Argh. Knew should have tested this instead of trusting a post.

I had read only the default weapon of settler/companion housed at settlement uses unlimited ammo.

Are you guys saying any weapon or modded weapon given to a settler will only need 1 round of the correct ammo type to fire indefinitely?

Will try to test this but hoping people arent mistaking the settlers pulling put their default guns when ammo runs out for modded gun. This would,make arming my settlers so much easier. Only been making them well armored so far.

That's XB1. Triangle on PS4

The test is to give them a non-.38 cal gun and one round, then shoot them. You'll see it if they switch back to the default gun, and you can check their body afterwards to see if they used up the single bullet.

Or just give them a Laser Rifle - if they fire more than one laser blast at you, they don't use ammo.

I've done it, but by all means do it yourself- only takes a second to reload the save and peace of mind is invaluable. Also, there is a regularly respawning Snub .44 that spawns near the SE shore of the lake near Sanctuary. Comes with a box of about 4 rounds, making it near-useless for farming ammo for yourself, but perfect for supplying Farmers - easy to mod the .44 into a total beast gun, as well.

Note that this works with grenades, but not things like Fat Man's or Missle Launchers (fair enough, I guess - miniguns all around for Guards, tho, eh? )

As a very exciting aside, I've read around here that Companions who are not currently following you will also not use ammo - that gels with what we know about NPC ammo generally, and the poster claims to have tested it. Companions actually following you will use ammo, but only for guns you give them - if they use their default gun they get Magic Companion Ammo.

Edit: lol - turns out 'around here' is http://www.gamesas.com/user/255805-axe-gaijin/'s post a few above this. XD

Settlers use ammo in my settlements outside of their default gun. Many raided my armory for fatmans, and machetes much to my surprise and humor some equipped power armor then after the fight left it hanging in the middle of some farms lol.

Well, awesome tip here I learned. Tested it various ways and can 100% say for my game at least (always say that caveat because who knows), settlers use 0 -zero- ammo as long as they have 1 round of correct type.

Did following tests to ensure I didn't miss some loophole scenario- test was as described by helpful tip here - gave gun I wanted to test, +1 ammo for that gun type to settler and stripped of everything else other than armor on settler - in my case, taking away default weapon cause them to auto equip the new weapon I gave them.

Shot settler a few times to trigger their hostile response and then they blazed away at me with a hell of a lot more than 1 round of fire before I died. Tested the following:

1- non modded fusion cell weapon - laser rifle - to confirm non modded lasers with magic 1 bullet ammo

2- non modded ballistic weapon - .45 combat rifle

3- modded laser rifle with the works

4- modded combat rifle with the works

Unless there is some per-gun type exception (like the missile launchers and fat man noted by reply above), it seems all conventional ballistic and fusion weapons work as per magic bullet NPC ability. Not quite sure as didn't bother to test whether they even needed the 1 single round, as default companion weapons don't even need that, but I put 1 round just to be safe and didn't bother testing the zero rounds scenarios.

This is pretty awesome for me, being a settlement play style player - will have to start amassing huge stockpile of guns to equip my new militia. Like that line from starship troopers, everybody fights - so everyone will need guns. I'm going to need to massacre a lot of raiders and mutants.

Zero ammo = no use of gun. They have to have one.