Seems the workbench in the garage will be a permanent storage space, but I also suspect pretty much everything in the areas you can settle will be permanent as well.

My concern deals with raiders. Can they steal your stuff? Any worries of coming home to a destroyed settlement and bare cabinets?

"Oh...man...this is bad. All are dead, my house is burned down...but at least I've got my collection of Nuka Co....oh, no....no...NOOOOOOOO!"

I had this same thought myself when I saw the defenses being demo'ed in the trailer.

If it turns out that it can happen that way I'll probably start using multiple small stashes of stuff instead of single big piles of junk.

My best guess is it will be implemented in somewhat the same way the level-scaled random attacks on your home in the Hearthfire expansion of Skyrim and the vamp/dawnguard attacks in the Dawnguard expansion... ie. random encounters that happen at times when you are actually visiting your settlements so that you will always participate in the defense.

I doubt there will be attacks when you are not present.

i think the main problem with raider isnt if they steal ur mats, is if they kill the ppl living on your settlement since like Todd said the vendedors there have the best items on game

I doubt it. At least not by default. It'd be a simple matter for them to not spawn raiders near your shack. Failing that, they may be relying on the old locked door approach that helped in their other games.

Where it gets interesting, is if they rely on the not spawning near your shack, and then a mod adds critters. Seeing your stash of fatman used against you, would be vastly entertaining.

"I doubt there will be attacks when you are not present"

This is a good point, but I was kinda hoping for something like a message from your pipboy telling you raiders are spotted about a day's travel from your camp or something.

It looks like your settlement tracks happiness, food, water, and power; it's possible that raiders will damage those values instead of stealing any actual game items. Or perhaps all they steal is from the vendor's inventory; let your settlement's happiness plummet or raiders attack, and your vendors won't have anything but trash.

Personally I think raider attacks in 4 will work roughly like raider attacks in shelter, aka raiders will run around, attacking your settlers and as long as they are within your settlement, they will drain the settlements supply of water, food and maybe even electricity, but no items.

It was mentioned that your stuff can be stolen during the settlement building portion of E3. I haven't seen any mention of whether it can happen without us being there. I hope it does honestly. We get an alert from out settlement defense system that we are under attack and have to get back there. If we choose not to, we lose stuff. Balance wise it makes sense otherwise we could just build this Fort Knox with tons of stuff and never have to worry about losing any

Would be kinda cool if your place gets ransacked and you then can go attack them to reclaim your loot.

I've been wondering if there is only one point of ingress & egress from your settlements. You see the raiders approach the settlement via a bridge but no other direction. Are these settlements all cul de sacs or do we need to fortify the perimeter.

Liking that concept!

Except I am someone that has not returned to my home base in Fallout for months at at time. A message like that would irk me to no end. "Drop what your doing player, the game is messing with your stuff" I would immediately use a House Mod and never build a settlement again if this was the case.

That implementation would create a great deal of problems.

What if you're a few hours away when you get the call? Realistically the raid would be over by the time you get there and there's nothing you could have done to stop your stuff from being stolen.

If travel time magically doesn't matter if we use fast travel, what if we're deep in a cave system/building and it takes a while for us to get back outside? How much time passes before the game thinks you're not coming, and takes your stuff?

What if we're on a quest that's time sensitive? Would we be forced to choose to save innocent people from death or save our settlement?

What if two of your settlements are hit at the same time? There's logically nothing in the game world that would stop this from happening. Are we going to be forced to abandon one and our items there to save another?

If you're going to alter the game mechanics to eliminate certain possibilities from occurring purely for increasing gameplay enjoyment for the player (make it impossible for more than one settlement to be raided at a time) what's stopping you from going further to stop the other possibilities from occurring so players can enjoy the game more?

Basically, a simple way to avoid all of these pitfalls is to make it so that your items can't be stolen, or you can't be raided unless you're already in your settlement.

I understand the concern with fast travel and the time it takes to get somewhere. To remove the possibility of being attacked while not at the settlement is altering game mechanics in itself isn't it? Or crippling them to only fit one situation. You say "There's logically nothing in the game world that would stop this from happening" in response to two settlements being attacked at once but how logical is it that you're only attacked when present? We've seen games before that have incidents happen while the player is not there and they have to make a choice. Is that cave you're in worth leaving to protect something/someone in your settlement. Now maybe they dial back the frequency of attacks while not present but I can't imagine they just simply won't happen

It's the BoS Paladins I worry about....

I am more worried about friendlies taking my stuff. I have always been a in game beverage collector. Someone touches my stash of Icy cold nuka's theres gonna be hell to pay.

I think it was confirmed the raiders can and will steal stuff in your settlement.. thats why they are raiding it in the first place... of course raiders wont show up until your built up a bit (cus they would have to know your settlement exists first) so a shack all to yourself will be completely safe... however if you have civilians/farms/guards ect they will be like "hmmm this place looks like it has some nice [censored]... lets steal it!" so it becomes a matter of making sure it can defend itself when your not around.. i heard if your a robotics expert you can even have security robots for defense.. how awesome is that.

I think a few people here have touched on what will happen. I can see things like crops and water and what no being taken but I find it hard to believe that raiders will be able to take things like personal items and building materials, unless of course building materials are abundant. I know that if a unique assault rifle that I had stored got taken I'd be really pissed off and would dump out and promptly create a mod that removes settlement raiders from the game.

I suspect that raiders will deplete basic resources and happiness so that if they occur often enough, people will start leaving and traders will visit less frequently or stop visiting altogether.

  

or you could simply boost your defenses so they wont get to your things... whats the point of raiders if there is no risk involved?

i mean you can hire guards.. build turrets and even mortars and robot guards and traps.. whats the point of all that if they cant steal anything? why not just leave it undefended if thats the case...

Conversely, what's the point in having secure storage that isn't secure? Why store anything at all if it's only going to be taken? (Yes I do realise this is exactly what the player does to NPCs.)

With regard to the point of raiders and risk, you run the risk of losing your settlement if you have no defences. You'll have the structures maybe but no people and the extra functions that they provide.

Edit: To clarify, I'm only talking about special loot and items here. Not things that the settlement creates or generates. Just personal items, that would include bobble heads. I suspect it would also include your power armour because you could potentially end up with 50 odd suits of power armour floating around worn by raiders.

Someone arrest this man for using logic

One of my plans early on is to have a safehouse with only one accessible entrance. Behind the door would be a generator behind half a dozen laser turrets.

Perhaps Bethesda will sell you some 'Settlement Insurance' ?

Actually, probably not

I'm wondering if we even have to worry about being raided if we haven't made a "settlement". One building and no other people may make you immune to attacks?