Four-oor Vertibirds, three festering ghouls, two-ooh softshell 'lurks, and Fallout 4 with Seas'n Pass DLC!

LOL! Too bad it's after Christmas, I'd record this and post it.

You know that you can fast travel (almost) instantly from whatever place you're in to the settlement that's under attack ? And even take all the time you want to finish off that 20 ghouls you're fighting.

Spoiler: if you have traveled in and out of the Institute at least once you can use their teleporter to reach the settlement on time: you first go to ground level to be able to travel, then teleport to the Institute, then teleport to the settlement.

You may even arrive there too early sometimes, so you must actually wait for the enemies to come. Happened to me a couple of times.

Oh and if you're on pc there is a cool mod that alerts you of an settlement attack though a pop-up. You can never miss it.

True. Unless it's a Synth infiltrator that's dead before you even arrive and the game not acknowledging the fact. Unless you don't get the message at all, and I'm using the mod you're talking about. Probably because of another glitch with fast travelling and the game throwing in a random attack while you're fast travelling.

Yes that's my experience. You get the call when something takes damage.

Additionally, I have noticed sometimes that the provisioner is also in the picture.

So I surmise that you can also get a call out if the provisioner comes under attack when they are close to the settlement.

Personally I like to get the call out and observe how the defences cope with attacks.

You build stuff that attracts attention from foes. It's part of the game.

Sometimes I fast travel straight in and observe or get involved.

Other times I fast travel to a nearby location and run to the settlement that needs assistance.

Short video of fast travel arrival here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxV17qP5nwQ

Video of same call out but doing the last bit of travel on foot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=509wQAENNHc

Oh yes, you build about ten misslle turrets, an additional cordon of laser turrets and have all your settlers fully equipped in combat armor and heavy weaponry. That certainly gets the attention of the suicide squad from Monty pythons Brian. Everyone else, well that's very much up for debate. But obviously not in this game.

The real treat is, when this setup gets utterly destroyed if you're not there. Along with water purifiers and everything else you set up for that village.

Yes. You can also destroy it yourself as I have found.

It's when a settlement gets to the maximum build level.

You've got all that collected loot of weapons and armour in settlement storage.

You return from a sortie loaded up with even more loot which tips the settlement over the edge.

You observe in real time all your crops die with water pumps, generators and turrets all going up in smoke before your eyes.

You know then it's time to do some pruning and dispose of some stuff, leaving a buffer.

I dont think its got anything to do with defences. On one run through I splurged on Sanctuary after doing nothing with it for ages, I gave it a ton of food water and power, as soon as I got the power to 40 it was attacked by three separate groups of raiders at the same time, had not been attacked at all before that.

I believe a significant percentage of players are quite invested in settlement building. Which is kind of scary because the settlement system is soooo borked that it means A LOT of players are going to be disillusioned about how good the game isn't... at least in that major portion of the game they were interested and in which they have invested A LOT of time to develop. If a patch that fixes the majority of these bugs and glitches doesn't appear SOON, I think A LOT of players will walk away from the game saying, "I'm not playing this game until this gets fixed! Then I might give it another try." Or not, if some other hot latest-and-greatest hasn't hit the gaming world during their hiatus. And the longer Bethesda takes issuing an appropriate patch, the greater the likelihood that those players on hiatus will be gone for good.

Tonight I was hit with the straw that broke the camel's back. I got a "Help defend Sanctuary Hills message and I fast traveled clear across the map in response. Arrived at the tail end of my 16 settlers beating the snot out of @10 synths and 1 infiltrator. No settlers were lost and I only had enough time to to take down two of the synths personally. That was followed a round of Thank Yous from the settlers, to which I replied "I was glad to help" to one of them. Then I spent a couple hours cleaning up the aftermath, looting bodies and repairing 3 out of 10 heavy machinegun turrets. Placed an additional 4 turrets in the area of the settlement that saw the most action, just in case there was another attack.

Then I prepared to head off adventuring... only to discover that the Help Us message was still on the Data section of the Pip Boy. So I lingered around for another day to be present for any follow-up attack. Nothing. Fast traveled to Red Rocket and ran back, thinking my absence might trigger the attack. Nothing. I sacked out for 8 hours; still no attack. Spent another day equipping settlers with better weapons and armor. Still no attack, but the message remained. Spent a third day picking crops and crafting everything I could. Made a sweep around the entire perimeter of the settlement and found no one and nothing hiding in the vegetation. It seemed that I could spend a year hanging around Sanctuary Hills and that message would not disappear, nor would an attack materialize.

So I decided to run into Boston Commons for a few hours to do what I had been planning for there. But when I returned to Sanctuary Hills, I discovered the synths had returned and destroyed ALL the crops and disabled ALL 14 turrets. Despite the fact that the settlers were better equipped and better defended.

I feel cheated, and I am certain that others that have experienced similar circumstances feel likewise. I can actually understand the rationale that "When you get the message, you MUST respond quickly... or else suffer the consequences. But here I am, a player that DID respond -- and I got screwed anyway.

I can appreciate a challenge. But cheating isn't a challenge; it's just cheating. And no one appreciates being cheated.

No, they didn't return. As I said previously, Synth attacks are entirely broken. There's always one infiltratior, as you noticed. That one is disposed of before you even arrive and so the game doesn't take note of you being there for the attack. Hence, you lose, since, for the game, there's still an attacker left. The dead one it didn't take note of.

You may not want to hear it, but there is an explanation...

You show up and there are two level 10 raiders who attack, but you didn't see the three hundred legendary level 50s who called off the attack when they saw you coming... The two remaining just didn't get the message.

At least that's how I see it when it happens to me, because if I don't show up the settlers and defenses don't win and almost everything of value is destroyed. The way it works is that a major problem if don't show up is reduced to a minor annoyance when I do. REally, isn't it nice to know that one's mere presence deters 95% or more of attacking forces? That means that the enemy is more afraid of you personally than all of those turrets, heavily armed settlers, and attack hamsters patrolling your settlement. It's flattering, really...

That's called polishing the proverbial. Truth is, it's glitched, bugged or whatever. I don't think, it's too much to ask to at least fix the Synth desaster, since that obviously doesn't work as intended.

I'm not sure what synth disaster you mean. I've not played to the end of any quest lines at all because I have a serious case of restartitus, you see...

Anyway, I don't have a clue what you're talking about other than the fact that for some reason I'm supposed to want to protect synths when every time I see one, he's trying to kill me, eh?

Read above. We're talking about Synth infiltrators attacking settlements. Which is entirely broken, since there's no way to win this.

Oh, I see... I've never had that happen (or any synth attack at a settlement for that matter). In fact, I rarely get those messages and attacks usually happen when I fast travel to a settlement for one reason or another. One could suppose that this is an attack that is presumed fait accompli... always meant to succeed regardless of player action in order to spur along anti-synth sentiment and

(possible spoiler)

You guys do realize that there are battles that we are meant to lose, eh? How does one know what damage was done by a synth infiltrator before he was killed? Did he plant nerve agent in the crops and food stores or bombs beneath the turrets, hand grenades in the toilets? In reality, suppose for a moment that some undetectable sabotage had indeed been done by the infiltrator, how would you defend against it without knowing what it is? The agent may be dead, that doesn't mean his plan is, eh?

...and who is to say that a secondary attack is not waiting in the wings for the effects of the sabotage to happen? I guess what I'm saying is, if you are not meant to win this battle, how can you know it is broken?

I've had the dead Snyth infiltrator three times now, 1st one, Synth dead outside my settlement, no damage and no other attackers, so after I left and returned crops destroyed, power and defences destroyed in front of my eyes, no attackers and no way to avoid a mission fail. 2nd one, Snyth dead and Settlement attacked by Synths who teleported into swimming pool, again automatic fail despite killing all the attacking Snyths. 3rd one. Synth dead and again no attackers, so automatic fail...on the plus side the turrets and power self repaired....Snyth Infiltrators it seems tend to be dead long before you reach the settlement which apparently means that not only did I have to abandon a mission half way through, but I cannot do anything once I get there anyway.

I do think that some of the negative reviews from people could be influenced by the buggy nature of the settlements, I'm hoping that those problems will be fixed since it the only big negative for me from Fallout 4, since my other problems with the game will probably be solved through DLCs and Mods anyway.

You know, if it was me creating the scenario and I was using a synth infiltrator, what would happen is you'd get the message about an attack, and when you arrive at the settlement there would be a feint attack. Settler weapons would be largely sabotaged and largely ineffective or explode when fired, and when your turrets opened fire they would all explode at once. Like the multiple explosions at the

It'd likely be lethal to the player (say 75% probability of player demise), just like the event in the spoiler tags.

My experience with Snyth infiltrators makes even less sense if you consider that the Snyths wont attack me at this point since I'm an ally....but they are attacking my settlements for no apparent reason.

First, perhaps the settlements represent some threat to the synth creators, and they aren't actually attacking you per se. Then too, aren't there two sides to the synth factions? I mean, how could you be friendly with both? Just as important I suppose, how would you tell them apart?

Infitrators are settlers and turrets and/or settlers dispose of them in milliseconds. The root of the problem lies in the game not recognizing the fact, since you probably just materialized when it happened. Or, if you physically leg it there, the whole show is over before you can enter the perimeter. The game assumes, you were not there and since this is punished by the autolose feature, it destroys everything in your settlement.

That's the definition of broken. The autolose function is a nuisance, but I fear it works as intended.

Infitrators are settlers and turrets and/or settlers dispose of them in milliseconds... once they are discovered to be infiltrators. Prior to that, they are free to do as they please for as long as their cover holds, eh? I'm not convinced it is broken or not working exactly as intended.

I wonder why we would fear synth doppelgangers if they could do no damage before they were found out? Honestly though, it would be nice if Beth would simply tell us whether it's broken or not, eh?

EDIT: As kind of an afterthought, I have to wonder... if synths were made to attack and just be wiped out like any raider or supermutant, what would make them different? I mean, why have synth attacks at all if they are just going to run in and get shot?

No,m Synth infiltrator attacks are not "entirely broken" not at all. I know this because I have successfully defended both Sanctuary and Tenpines from such an attack in two different playthrus. Stop exaggerating.

Do some people experience some sort of bug? Sure, I guess. However, that does not change the fact that there are millions of players for this game and relatively few are talking about this attack being broken.

There are ways to have any attack screw up, FYI. For example, if an enemy spawns or otherwise winds up inside some area of terrain due to the specific way that you have built up a settlement, this can certainly mess up an attack and cause it to fail to complete properly. Such an enemy cannot be reached nor can it reach anyone else, not through normal means, at least, and it may not even be in an area where it is noticed by NPCs or noticeable by you if you search. Is that a bug? Yes, more or less... I say "more or less" because it is ultimately caused by certain specific ways that players choose to build settlements and sometimes certain choices can mess up AI, which is excellent at navigating a completely open area for player building but certainly is not and cannot be perfect.

Even having a lot of stuff destroyed is certainly not the end of the world. Crops repair automatically, or at least I have seen them come back without me doing anything, and they are free to fix, anyway. Other stuff is replaceable and/or repairable.

In reality, a world such as Fallout 4 would certainly have settlements not only attacked but sometimes destroyed. You can choose to role play that this has occurred. It's one alternative to exaggerating claims of something being "entirely broken" when it is clearly not since it works fine many times.

I wouldn't personally make a blanket statement, since two people doing exactly the same thing can have widely different experiences with the game....it seems bugged in my case but all the the attacks seem to be bugged for me on my present playthrough, for example my most recent attack was on the lighthouse so I fast travelled to a nearby location, straight into a group of super mutants which gave me a successful defence which is good, but its probably the first time in the last six or so attacks I've actually had any attackers turn up, my previous attack that anyone turned up to before was a single legendary raider (and the time before that is was a combined Raider and Molerat attack which was a little weird).

I think the way attacks are handled without your presence is a poor one, since the settlements are often the more well defended places in the Commonwealth and really it detracts from the game, especially as the Minutemen seem to pressurise the player into running large numbers of settlements......my next playthrough I'll be turning Preston down and I will be limiting my number of settlements and bases to see if it gives me a better experience. If I was interested in giving my Fallout experience a rating, I'd be giving them a few for the addition of settlements, but removing a couple for sloppy way its been handled at times. Still all in all, its not enough to ruin the game for me, anymore than little things in other games ruined them either, I've never played a perfect game....I'm not sure I would want to, since everything would be a disappointment after that.

What is it with you and constantly missing the point by a lightyear?

If an infiltrator attacks from within a settlement, you get village xxx is attacked as with any other attack by any other given group. Arriving there, a dead settler with a Synth component lies on the floor. Disposed of, probably by the real settlers and defenses.

The game however doesn't register the quest to be finished in these cases and punishes you accordingly.

Now clear?

Just because it seems so apropos to this conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v77SF4TFUoM

We are told we are going to play a game, say, Chess. Here are the rules and how the game is played. You start to play. Then, just as you start to feel that you are making headway and and see that you are gaining an advantage, the other player says, "Oh, I forgot to mention that on this turn, your side using your color of pieces, has its Queen and both Rooks removed from the board." How would you feel about that? To learn too late that you will be unavoidably disadvantaged? Cheated is how I feel about it. And I am sure that most people that have experienced this event feel the same way. To be generous, it may be that many think that the event wasn't deliberate on the part of the devs, but rather it results because of a glitch the devs didn't catch prior to game release. Either way, everyone affected by this event feel it's wrong to make the player lose while having NOTHING he can do to prevent the loss. Either way, as I said, this is pretty much a deal-breaker for me. IF I choose to play the game anymore, it will be in a manner where I do NOT bother with settlement building at all. Which will be problematic because the player really, really needs settlement resources -- and LOTS of them -- to mod and repair Power Armor and to mod weapons and other kinds of armor.

Well, one of us is missing the point, on that I agree.

This brings us to the nitty-gritty of our issue. When I look at all of the effort the devs put into making synths a unique enemy, it seems unrealistic to just assume that they would let a synth attack simply play out like any other foe. why bother having synths attack if a deathclaw and a queen mirelurk enacting a mating ritual will do the same thing?

The question here is WHY does the game not register the quest as finished? Is it really simply because a variable is not updated accidentally in the script, or is it because the quest is really not finished until the damage has been done? If it's just a matter of updating the variable, that would require a 2 second fix in a patch, and it'll never happen again. So why hasn't it been addressed since it would take practically no effort or any meaningful resources to fix?

Logic tells me that synths would be natural saboteurs, so why would Bethesda not use them in that fashion? What is the point of having an infiltrating look-alike robot that is incapable of inflicting meaningful damage against a defended settlement? I assure you that if I were the dev, synths would most definitely accomplish much sabotage before being discovered, and the player receiving that little message. It would definitely NOT be a scripting error.

Now it's your turn... what is so hard to understand about that? Why must it be a scripting error? I really am from MIssouri, so show me?

I've always enjoyed that episode of Star Trek, hokey as it may be... However, there is a distinct difference to what you are saying about FO4's synth attacks, and the game of Fizbin.

If I sit down to play chess, I know the rules, and the rules won't be changed during play. So let me ask you when you heard from Bethesda that the game won't try to kill your character at every opportunity? When did Bethesda say that just because you respond to a notification that a settlement is attacked, it won't be destroyed anyway by various means already in play? Is there a rule that says explicitly that a settlement can't be destroyed by synth sabotage?

You know, I understand there is a manual for FO4 somewhere, but I've never seen it, and I'd bet a large number of players have never seen it either. Where are these rules laid out? I tend to think that the "rules" are whatever Bethesda determines them to be, and they might not be entirely uniform from event to event if the acting characters have different abilities. Hell, I was shocked when the first radscorpion popped up under my feet through solid rock. I kinda thought rock would be safe, but apparently Beth doesn't see it that way. I could have claimed Beth broke the rules I suppose, but again, what rules?

People talk about realism, well in RL settlements, towns, and people are wiped out without notice by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, illnesses, war, and heaven knows how many other causes. RL is actually much less violent for most of us than FO4, so why should a settlement be "safe" in the game that wouldn't be safe in RL?

I'm an old guy, and I can recall when sappers would sneak up close to wall (synth-like since the seemed part of the general darkness) and planted explosive charges that would take out defensive positions. I never heard anybody claim that it was unfair or against the rules of RL, though plenty of people certainly didn't like it much...

So, to shorten all of that a bit, just where did Bethesda say that your settlements wouldn't be destroyed in game play action?