As many of us know, many of the repeatable quests have time limits: defend settlement attack, rescue kidnapped settler, clear a location of enemies as requested by a settler, etc. I'm interested to know what some of you think are the limits. In real-time hours/minutes? In in-game hours/minutes? My first speculation is that the clock seems to be ticking ALL THE TIME, and quests could fail at any time. I've had expired quests fail after I fast-traveled. I've had quests fail IN THE MIDST of my playing those quests: once I was killing mutants in a hospital and the quest failed in the middle of it because I hadn't yet killed the boss mutant, who was only a few feet away from me! That told me that merely arriving at the location of the quest does not stop the ticking clock; you have to actually kill the boss enemy, if any, or kill all enemies.

My experience has been that I would run out of time most often right after I fast-travel. That indicates to me that fast-traveling seems to speed up the ticking clock, thus increasing the chance of your reaching the time limit. This makes sense since fast-travel speeds up in-game time (by 2x or 3x, I believe).

That, in turn, seems to indicate that the IN-GAME CLOCK is used for the quests' time limits, i.e. the clock shown in the Pip-Boy. We know that in-game "time scale" is 20 to 1, i.e. 20 hours of Pip-Boy time corresponds to 1 hour in real time. When you fast-travel, that ratio is even higher (maybe 2x or 3x higher). My experience has been that (and this is just an estimate) that a quest would fail perhaps in 2 to 3 hours of REAL-TIME gameplay. That would correspond to 48 to 72 hours Pip-Boy time. In other words, a quest would fail within 2-3 days of Pip-Boy time in my rough estimates were true.

That means if you have one hour in-game time left, you have only 3 minutes left in real time. Two hours in-game = only 6 min real time left. And so on. Those settlement defense quests can be finished fairly quickly, maybe within 2 minutes, so they are less of a worry. But when your quest is to clear a large location, and you don't remember where the boss enemy is, you may have to spend 10-15min of running and gunning in that location. That means you need to have about 4 to 5 hours in-game time before the quest expires.

Some of these quests have multiple stages too: you may have to talk to settler to be given the quest, then do the quest. My experience seems to indicate that each stage has its own ticking clock.

Finally, the clock doesn't seem to click when (a) the pause the game by bring up the game's menu, ( the gameplay pauses during inventory transfer. I don't know whether VATS slows down the ticking clock; it probably does.

I have found from playing Beth games that there are no time limits.

But remember that sometimes, not often..... you are MEANT to fail the quest, no matter how hard you tried to get there in time, it is not possible.

I have a question.

Preston sent me to Tenpines Bluff to help the settlers there. I went to talk to them and they sent me to Corvega to clear out the raiders. Now I'm level 4 playing only melee (and stealth) and Corvega will be too much for me now.

When did the timer start ? When I agreed to do the mission for Preston or when I agreed to do the mission for the settlers at Tenpines ?

There's no timer for that quest (that I'm aware of)

There is no timer. That is an actual quest for the minutemen faction. You have nothing to worry about.

What's with the people who say there are no time limits? Of course there are. Those repeatable quests certainly do, and maybe some of the unique quests as well.

Next time I get one of those quests I'm gonna wait and wait until it fails (my guess is 2-3 days Pip-Boy time), so I'll know more precisely about the time limit. Maybe some of you have already done this, and if so, please advise.

I failed the 'rescue the settler' yesterday as I was off doing another quest. Damn it, I didn't know the 'hurry up we need help' was real. Lol.

I have a feeling that with those radiant quests the game gives you a warning message. Something along the lines of your time is running out for the "whatever" at Ten Pines Bluff

You can lose a settlements affiliation with the minutemen and the ability to use the workshop there, but you'll eventually get another mission to help them with something and get it back, so it seems there's no real long term consequences to ignoring something and letting it fail. Same holds true with settlement defense- it'll auto repair eventually eventually as long as you still have settlers there.

The best is getting those "Help Defend Such and Such Settlement" when you are in the middle of a dungeon crawl for another quest. I've gotten to the point where I don't care anymore. Let them all die.

I finally got some definite idea about the time limits. I got two settlement defense quests simultaneously at Pip-Boy time 10.22.2288 8:21am (https://www.dropbox.com/s/s9ea9ksol6914hc/2015-12-29_00007.jpg?raw=1). So I just sat there and waited hour by hour until they failed. A mere 15 in-game hours later, they both failed, at 10.22.2288 11:28pm (https://www.dropbox.com/s/2zx1zkiik0f62jc/2015-12-29_00010.jpg?raw=1). 15 in-game hours translates to only 45 minutes in real time!

Now I need to figure out the time limits of the other quests, such as those where a settler asks you to kill all enemies in a location.

It turns out the time limit can be as long as *two weeks* in-game for other types of timed quests. I got a "Raiders Trouble at Sanctuary Hills" quest at Pip-Boy time 10.14.2288 9:51pm (https://www.dropbox.com/s/hzg0cg7ec6ab24o/2015-12-29_00014.jpg?raw=1). The first objective was to talk to a settler in Sanctuary Hills to find out where the raiders were. I didn't even do that, and just sat and waited like before. After a long wait, the quest finally failed at 10.29.2288 11:55am (https://www.dropbox.com/s/yg2r4qro4od6pf7/2015-12-29_00013.jpg?raw=1). The time limit was actually 15 days, to be exact. 15 days in-game translates into 18 hours real time. That is a little surprising to me, because 18 hours is long enough to FINISH an average game, lol.

I don't know if this 15-day time limit is constant or not. From my past experience, the time limit could sometimes feel a lot shorter (I could be wrong here). Or is FO4 so immersive that it really makes time fly?

I've got more findings. When you see the warning message saying you are running out of time to complete a quest (https://www.dropbox.com/s/brne95sktbjkxth/2015-12-29_00016.jpg?raw=1), you have only 24 hours in-game, or 72 minutes real time, to complete the mission, or it will fail (https://www.dropbox.com/s/3oork09146a97j4/2015-12-29_00017.jpg?raw=1).

Also, if a quest has two stages (e.g., first, talk to a settler to get the location, then clear out that location), each stage gets a 15-day time limit. You can wait till the 23rd hour of the 14th day to talk to the settler in the first stage, and you will get another 15-day window in the 2nd stage to clear out the location. That essentially gives you a 30-day window (36 hours real time) to complete the quest.

So, to summarize all my findings:

(1) A settlement defense quest (e.g. "Help defend The Castle", "Help defend Abernathy Farm", etc.) has a 15-hour window (45 min real time) for completion.

(2) A quest that needs you to ask a settler for the location in which to clear out enemies (e.g. "Ghouls problem at Tenpines Bluff", "Raiders trouble at Greentop Nursery", etc.) gives you a 15-day window (18 hours real time) for each stage of the quest.

(3) A warning saying "You are running out of time to complete your objective for (the settlement in question)" indicates that you have a 24-hour window left (72 min real time) to complete the quest.