Maybe a modder will let us actually use them...modders make everything actually work after all!

It's why i don't bother with defenses. If I have to do all the work anyways I might as well save my material on weapon and armor upgrades. I find hard to believe I arm everyone, give them armor, defenses but no one can can take out a 4 or 5 level 14 raiders.

I actually get a few laughs watching as some of my settlements defend, as they are strong enough in defense to take down brotherhood Vertibirds, not to mention power armored raiders.

The laugh is simply they needed me here?

200 hours in to the game and the settlement I had built-up a couple of hours earlier - and had a mission quest to complete - was being attacked by five super mutants. Eliminated the SMs in roughly five minutes but not before they killed the settler whom I was to report to. So now I've got an incomplete quest in my list that unless the settler re-spawns or another takes her place I won't be able to finish the quest.

I really hope Bethesda addresses this issue especially for those who do not use fast travel; such as myself.

Luke searched his feelings and launched your enemies at your settlement.

In response to the OP, I've been wondering this myself. The setup reminds me of some of the worst aspects of Spore; that is having timed missions that require me to stop whatever I'm doing and head over to do some minor and or pointless task with little to no reward. What's the point of building defensive positions and turrets if, ultimately you (and you alone) must defend each and every settlement personally. If this system is not changed I most certainly wont be engaging in this particular mechanic for my next playthrough of FO4. It's just not fun, or interesting, or worthwhile. And seriously, whose idea was it to use "settler" as the name for, you know, everybody? I realize it must have been easier to implement but that doesn't mean it was the right choice. I suppose I should be greatful they don't all look the same too!

I got a thoughtful explination on why Bethesda does this.

AI for the game does not continue to fully exist in larger distances. It's usually estimated and faked. With some predictions about what things are like at this given time and with this given situation.

The system is not 100% perfect, as it can only solve interactions between units on a minimal level. Trying to fully compute the battle outcomes would be incredibly taxing on the CPU. And just leaving it up to chance could just be utterly unfair in multiple occasions.

The best solution would just be to take the lesser evil. And that is force the player to stop what he is doing to save his settlements, or face the impact.

It's performantly cheaper to force the player to go to the settlement for the few seconds it takes for the battle to end, or say you loose if you don't show up.

And expensive to load enough chunks that it takes to impact the area, then completely simulate the entire battle's outcome. That's mesh data, navmesh data, information on all effected units, hit-boxes, animations... spinning up your slow mechanical hard drive... while you are trying to enjoy the game in an unrelated area.

Things tend to have limits. So... I'm annoyed that my base with 200 def and 17 residents failed to protect themselves (with the miniguns they were all given). But I also understand the problem of limitations in what you can and can't do fairly.

I think this is my main issue with it. I can't count the number of times I've shown up to defend a settlement, only to have it auto-complete seconds after getting there because as I'm running up to it, my defenses actually kick in and destroy the raid before I can even see what is going on. Why do I have to physically be there for this to happen? Tch...

As to the lack of notification mentioned throughout the thread:

My better half plays with fast travel. His settlements are often destroyed without notice.

I don't fast travel. I've yet to have a settlement get destroyed, nor miss a notice.

I've read elsewhere that settlement attacks can happen during the time it takes to fast travel, and you won't get the pop-up because of it. From experience, this seems true and will hopefully be fixed somehow. There are a lot of things that need to be fixed about settlements... >.> The system has promise, and I've sunk quite a few hours building up settlements and giving myself a nice Tony Stark style Silo of Power Armour in one town, but it has a long way to go.

It's painful - I put my first 20 hours into building an impenetrable fortress - then raiders just showed up in the streets.

Spent several more hours ripping down walls and totally rebuilding my base with the game mechanics in mind (as opposed to 'normal' defensive tactics).

Good news is now that my entire settlememt is 2-4 stories up and bristling with turrets, I don't give a rats where the raiders spawn. As long as I'm there, of course - as per the thread, apparently automated turrets need my presence to operate.

Thank you for this. I love your optimism, but Bethesda needs to fix this. You can't have all this time and resource spent on gates and walls then have intermittent spawning inside the compound. That's just cruel. And you definitely can't have such a weak notification for attacks on your settlement and you DEFINATELY cannot have turrets not working when your not there. I'm reading this over and over that this is the case. What Bethesda should learn from this (the positive spin) is that they really got it right (as far as interest) in settlements and no they need to read these posts and make it right. We have been very clear in our requests and the modders are saying it can happen. Just don't forget Ps4 please:)

Heavy machine guns are an effective non generator defense too, if you have the parts needed to build many along the perimeter.
They can even take down a vertibird with enough of them.

Here's your answer, it's a quote from this similar thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1562454-sanctuary-hills-problem/

''

By default, the game only loads areas that surround the player. The entire map is never active, just the cells around the player. So, yes, it's true.''

So in conclusion, you can have 10.000 missile and laser turrets, they don't function at all unless you are near them. You need to be in their area for them to actually shoot at enemies.

Best defense guide I've read so far. Good job.

For you.....I appreciate your difference in style , but .I LOVE settlements and as one of the first concepts introduced in the game, I plan on hoping Bethesda does some serious fixes to this gigantic system .

Wrong. Settlements are role play... yep, what the entire game is intended to be.

This presents immense problems for those of us who do not fast travel.

Brahmin go toward their food trough. That's what it's for. You can lead them by the nose, quite literally.

I meant they should be a food source, not that they can't walk to the trough. I think they may go towards fertilizer though.

heh had a deathclaw come into a settlement and died just as fast. 8 settlers blew it apart. I didnt fire a shot. also no other defenses. I only have defenses on santuary and rarely get attacked. I have a feeling defenses really don't matter much.

Yeah I'm just loving what they've done to it, personally. Thought a couple of turrets would do, then I had 3 legendary raiders co-ordinating an entire party of different strengths. On survival difficulty it was like the OK Corral.

Just outfit your settlers and place your turrets right and there's nothing to worry about.

As much of a pain as the system is, I have to say... I've yet to run into an issue getting to -any- settlement from anywhere on the map without Fast Travel.

I don't see the point in punishing a player, that has invested in the time and effort to defend the settlement so completely that it can defend itself, for not being there... That was the point in putting in all those defences.

Then rather... don't calculate anything... wait til the player arrives back there.

If the attack is over in 5 seconds and cut down by defences, with the player barely having time to see it, so be it.. all worked as intended. If the player has to fight tooth and nail to survive and save the settlement? Possibly loosing settlers and stuff, so be it... working as intended.

That is fair, little computing power wasted in background, less frustrations and the player gets to see his or her handywork.

I wish that instead of having to be there to save the day, the result would be determined by an Attack Force Rating that requires you to have a Higher Defense, something like twice the Attack Force Rating, or anything good that doesn't require you to go all the way across the map (Awful for when you don't use fast travel) to defend a settlement from 5 raiders.

this reminds me of the god awful auto-battle from mount and blade, you can have the single most well trained army in the world but the auto battle will have a whole bunch of recruits wipe you out. actually, this is way worse, there is no calculation at all, the game just decides your impregnable fortress filled with vicious defenses just up and dies because you arn't there to watch. also, the spawning inside thing is complete bull [censored], i set up an amazing impregnable fortress and they just warp inside and ruin amazing battles.

side note: i also would love it if the attacks (when fixed, no more damned spawning in the center of stuff) could include much larger groups (maybe if you have a lot of loot and defenses), i have the castle set up for the greatest battle ever and i'd really love it if i could see it happen

So yeah its been some weeks and needless to say this feature ruined the game for me. I simply could not play anymore after this.