I'm no stranger to the Fallout games but this latest edition has many new features that arn't clear to me. I've never had a settlement attack and I don't know what needs to be done or how certin things work in the game.

I'm on the last part of the Sanctuary quest and I know I can just build one turret and that will be it. But I wanted to do somthing more interesting. I built a sort of gatehouse at the end of the bridge, 2 towers with a brige connecting them with 2 guardposts ontop and a searchlight. I was pleased with it until I thought there should acutally be a gate in it.

Does building a wall actally keep out enemys?

Do you need to build a gate fpr caravans?

Do they always attack from the same drection?

Do I have to build a wall all along the green perimeter?

Does the wire fence keep enemys out too?

Do turrets and guardposts work as well if you put them high up?

If you do that, can people shoot down at the enemys as they try to break down the wall?

In Sanctuary, do I need to build a wall all along the river bed? After all, a river less then knee deep is hardly an obstical is it?

Who do I complain to at Bethesda for making those "Junk wall" peices which have the only decent gate but are the only walls that do not snap toghether?

Is the sren used by settelers to alert everyone to an attack?

Arn't guards on duty all the time anyway?

Is it safe to leave your power armor at a base? Do you have to put it behind a door or somthing?

How many settlers can you have in one place?

I noticed a "Size" bar along the top in construction mode. does that Mean they give you a limit on how many things you can build?

Is it a good idea to equip guards with better wepons? Do they run out of ammo if they use a gun they didn't come with?

Can you make things at crafting staions or can you only modify what you already have?

Do things like the jukebox help to rase happiness?

Is it possible to build a generator outside a building and have it power things inside the building? And visa versa?

Do attacks only happen while you are at the sttlement?

Can you run it like a farm? Collecting the food and warter it produces and selling it at your stores for profit?

Does everything of value (warter, power, food) need to be under cover or behind a fence?

Thank you.

It will keep out random enemies but some scripted attacks may have hostiles spawn within the wall depending on where you build it, also yes they seem to spawn in the same place although they can spawn in two separate groups depending on the faction and magnitude of the attack, typically I find the default fast travel spot is a good place to point your turrets until you have witnessed an attack to figure out where they are coming from.

Walls around the perimeter are a personal call, same with the river, I've left that side primarily open but it's well turreted, the main body of attackers at sanctuary tend to spawn behind the row of houses that your character used to live in, but you occasionally get wandering groups of raiders etc.

Any obstacle will keep raiders out if they cant fit past it, you could line the perimeter with benches and as longs as there wasn't huge gaps they would do the same job as a fence.

Turrets have a set range at which they will fire so if you put them uber high you'd probably find that they wouldn't be able to fire until the hostiles were under their gun depression.

enemies wont try to break your walls they will just try to find a path around.

The siren is used to alert all settlers of an attack and iirc they will gather around the siren when it's sounded.

Guards are only on duty if assigned to a defensive structure.

Never leave a fusion core in your power armour or it will get "borrowed" by any npc that happens to be near it during combat, sometimes even if they aren't in combat

yes there is a maximum size to settlements although there is a way round it by dropping items your carrying within the settlement entering build mode and scrapping or storing those items(depending if you want them back or just want the resources) it counts as you reducing the size of your settlement.

Personal call on arming and armouring your settlers, they can't be killed by attackers (they can be killed by you so watch ff) and once you have turrets set up properly chances are attacks wont last long enough for the settlers to make a difference. I'd be more tempted to armour and re arm my provisioners as they have to wander the world. As for ammo if you give them say a laser pistol and 1 fusion cell that fusion cell will be infinite, doesn't work with heavy/explosive weapons iirc.

You can craft explosives and chems but can only modify armour and weapons, no ammo crafting.

juke box not sure, all stores except weapons armour and general trader raise happiness I think not 100% on that

you can build generators where you like as long as you wire them in, power will pass a limited distance through exterior walls i.e. if you had a light on the inside of the wall and a connector on the outside of the wall in roughly the same spot on the oustside the light would work, not sure how far the power reaches though.

Attacks happen at random and will happen if your present or not, if you don't return to a settlement that is under attack no matter how good your defences are it will fail to defend itself (not the end of the world as everything that gets destroyed will fix itself overtime or you can go round fixing it depending on how much it rustles your jimmies) some of the synth attacks are bugged and you will always fail them (proper pain in the gluteus that one)

I use purified water as currency these days and have 6 settlements so far churning out the stuff (lots of industrial water purifiers) you collect the water from the workbench, it gets moved there automatically as do foods that are harvested I think.

for the last one no as long as you return to settlements that are under attack you can usually thwart them before they damage anything also I've had inaccessible generators destroyed in an attack I didn't get back to as I was knee deep in feral ghouls and having so much fun turning them into paste with an extended ripper I never noticed the notification.

Check your misc quests frequently as that's where you get the "help defend settlement x" notification if you miss the onscreen dialogue box which is really easy to miss.

And finally concrete foundation block (under the wood floors tab) have really liberal clipping parameters, you can get them into places you can't get other floors etc, I didn't discover this until I'd built most of my settlements up so I'm going round redoing the blighters now

No, they can spawn inside

No

Yes, or from one of a few distinct place for each settlement

No

Yes, unless they spawn inside them. And they can easily shoot over/through them

Higher is much better for field of fire and immunity to being bashed with melee

Yes, AND enemies cannot break down walls. At least not yet.

I don't. But then attacks on Sanctuary don't come from that direction.

No comment

Supposedly, but has never really worked properly for me.

Yes, but siren is supposed to bring everyone else running to defend

Yes, as long as you remove the fusion core. If you don't do that, it can be borrowed by a settler or stolen by an attacker. If that happens, it's hard to get back.

Charisma based. I don't remember the formula off the top of my head. You should be able to google it or someone else will know.

Definitely equip settlers with better weapons and armor. Give them just ONE ammo piece for their weapon and they're set.

You can "make" things at the cooking and crafting stations, but armor, weapons and power armor can only be modified.

Yes, but many people experience a bug with electronic stuff currently. Use at your own risk.

Yes, easily. Just wire it up.

Yes

Yes

No

Also, the answer you did not ask for but all your questions impact: No matter how high your defenses, how good your walls, settlements will still fail to defend themselves unless you come help them. Even if you wall everything in completely with no gates so you have to tear down a wall in build mode to get inside, they will still get beat down unless you show up to hold their hands.

Will be worth while looking on youtube for settlement building tips, again I discovered I could do things I didn't know about until I had spent many many hours on my settlements already

It is generally believed that the max number of settlers is your charisma plus 10. You can wear charisma-boosting apparel and/or take charisma-boosting chems to increase it even more. But many of us have seen and/or experienced exceptions. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1565226-62-settlers/, while some have high charisma but never seem to reach max settlers. The highest charisma I've had is 11, and one of my settlements has 21 settlers, the most I've ever got anywhere. So at least this is true for me.

Does building a wall actally keep out enemys?

Yes and no. Some settlements have enemy spawn site outside of the settlement, but some have spawn points within the settlement. I enclose all my settlements for aesthetic reasons, but that takes a lot of resources.

Do you need to build a gate fpr caravans?

No. However, you must not complete wall up the settlement. If there is no opening, then traders like Trashcan Carla cannot go into your settlement to trade.

Do they always attack from the same drection?

That depends on the settlement. Large settlements can have multiple spawn points.

Do I have to build a wall all along the green perimeter?

No. Building walls is not a requirement and you do not have to build the wall to encompass the entire available settlement area. You can just enclose a small area if you decide to do so.

Does the wire fence keep enemys out too?

Yes, the wire fence should be able to keep out enemies because they generally do not jump over obstacles to the best of my knowledge.

Do turrets and guardposts work as well if you put them high up?

Yes, turrets have long range so the higher you put them the sooner they can shoot at enemies within their range. I have read that heavy machinegun turrets have the longest range. They are also relatively cheap to build and are available early in the game.

If you do that, can people shoot down at the enemys as they try to break down the wall?

Walls are not destructible. If there are settlers standing on a wall during an attack, then it is possible they will shoot at enemies from the wall. However, I have witnessed several instances where settlers simply rush out of the settlement to engage enemies that spawns outside the perimeter wall. This definitely happens a lot at Tenpines Bluff where several enemies spawns outside the wall and settlers simply rush out to attack them, thus negating the purpose of the turrets I set up to attack enemies that passes though the main gate.

In Sanctuary, do I need to build a wall all along the river bed? After all, a river less then knee deep is hardly an obstical is it?

Not absolutely necessary, but it is something I plan on doing. Sanctuary is a pretty big settlement so it will take a lot of resources (and I mean a lot) to completely enclose the entire settlement. Judging by the size of Sanctuary, I need to devote more resources than I have used to enclose Abernathy Farm, Starlight Drive, Tenpines Bluff and Outpost Zimonja combined.

Tenpines and Zimonja are relatively small settlement areas, but they still need a lot of resources if you want to fully flesh out those settlements. To give you an idea, my character has basically advanced from level 20 to 60 while I was primarily exploring and scavenging armor, weapons and junk for the purpose of building up my settlements. I keep good armor and weapons, the rest are sold for caps (or scraqed for components), and those caps are used to buy cement and wood. No need to buy steel since that comes from scraping armor and weapons. The junk is broken down into their components, but I do sell cigars and cigarettes. I did spend a little bit of time simply grinding XP, but that probably only accounts for 6 of the 40 levels. Building gives you a bit of XP as well.

Tenpines and Zimonja are complete. Abernathy Farm is 80% complete, and Starlight Drive is 40% complete. Even at level 60 I still need to buy / scrounge a lot of resources. The amount of resources necessary per settlement depends on how much attention you want to give to it.

Who do I complain to at Bethesda for making those "Junk wall" peices which have the only decent gate but are the only walls that do not snap toghether?

Just deal with it, or don’t bother using them.

Is the sren used by settelers to alert everyone to an attack?

Yes.

Arn't guards on duty all the time anyway?

They sleep and patrol as well.

Is it safe to leave your power armor at a base? Do you have to put it behind a door or somthing?

Remove the fusion core so that settlers and raiders cannot climb into them and use ‘em. When they use power armor, they do not drain the fusion core; only you do. When a settler uses your armor it might be a while before he/she gets out of it. I heard if you go to sleep chances are when you wake up the settler will be out of it.

If a raider uses your power armor, you have effectively lost it. It no longer belongs to you. So… remove the fusion core when not wearing the power armor.

How many settlers can you have in one place?

At least 31.

The max number of settlers you can have is 10 + charisma. It can be temporarily modified by chems and wearing clothes that increase your charisma.

The max for any attribute is 10, but that can be permanently be boosted to 11. You must increase your attribute to 10 by leveling up and using your perk points. It can then be boosted to 11 if you find and pick up the bobblehead for that specific attribute. If you already picked up the bobblehead before having 10, then you are stuck at 10 max.

There is a wandering weapon trader that you cannot recruit until you have a settlement with at least 30 settlers. He turns a level 3 weapon shop to a level 4 weapon shop and he would be the 31^st settler in that specific settlement.

I noticed a "Size" bar along the top in construction mode. does that Mean they give you a limit on how many things you can build?

Yes, the bigger the settlement the higher the limit.

There is a trick to decrease the bar. Drop weapons on the ground then go into “build mode” to store the weapons in the workbench. Do this enough times and you will see the bar shrink. This trick allows you to place more items in the settlement.

This was probably done limit the performance impact (and possible crashes) from having too many items in one place. More of a concern for consoles since PC gamers can simply upgrade the CPU in their desktops, but CPUs are mostly soldered into the motherboard in laptops.

Is it a good idea to equip guards with better wepons? Do they run out of ammo if they use a gun they didn't come with?

Yes.

Settlers generally have pretty crappy weapons. I give them better weapons from enemies that I kill. I do not bother crafting weapons for them. The exception was when I found some pretty powerful combat rifles that only had short barrels which I wanted to give to guards, I replaced the short barrel with a long barrel.

Settlers only need to have 1 round of the correct ammo to have infinite ammo. There are exceptions though like Fatman. On that note, never give explosives to settlers, (or companions) they will not care if you or other “innocents” are in the way.

Note: All companions have a default weapon which as infinite ammo. If you want to give your companion a specific weapon (even if it uses the same ammo type as his/her default weapon), then you need to provide the ammo for it. Once they run out of ammo they switch back to their default weapon. I believe this only applies when the companion is traveling with you, but I could be wrong.

Can you make things at crafting staions or can you only modify what you already have?

You can only modify what you already have.

Do things like the jukebox help to rase happiness?

Probably…

No one truly knows what dictates happiness other than Bethesda. Well… beyond having enough food, water, and beds for all settlers. It is a fact that if you aware away from a specific settlement for too long then their happiness can decrease a little bit.

Happiness is like voodoo, you don’t really know what affects it with absolute certainty.

Is it possible to build a generator outside a building and have it power things inside the building? And visa versa?

Yep.

Do attacks only happen while you are at the sttlement?

Most attacks actually occur when you are away from settlements… at least for me. You need to pay attention to those little messages that pops up on the upper left of the screen and only lasts for about 2 seconds. If you missed the “settlement under attack” message… well… too bad. Bend over and take it like a man, ‘cuz Bethesda decided that’s how these important alerts should appear. If you are playing on a PC, then there already is mod that fixes this. The alert remains on the screen until you click to acknowledge it. If you are playing on a console, then check your Pip-Boy for miscellaneous quests because that is where these attack quests appear.

Ignoring it for too long means instant failure and the settlement will suffer damage and maybe even death. How much in-game time do you have before the “quest” fails? Unknown.

Can you run it like a farm? Collecting the food and warter it produces and selling it at your stores for profit?

Yes. Every day or two if there is excess crops or water, then they will appear in the workbench. The problem is once the game automatically puts excess crop / water it will stop doing so until you remove what is there. For example, let’s say the settlement produces an excess of 10 mutfruits every day. That gets placed in the workbench. After 7 days you should have 70 mutfruits in the workbench, but when you check it there are only 10 mutfruits.

Why? Well, you lazy SOB, you didn’t bother to visit your settlement and remove the mutfruit (I build a container right next to the workbench to transfer crops and water). What’s that!?!?! You expect crops and water to automatically accumulate!?!?!?! Now that is just crazy talk!!!! Don’t you dare tell me you expect your lights at home to turn on with a mere flick of a switch!!!

The actual amount of “excess” is not a cut and dry calculation. For example, at Starlight Drive, I started out with 4 water pump each producing 3 waters each for a total of 12 water and no settlers. There would generally be around 6 – 9 purified water when I visit that settlement. Sometime later installed two industrial water purifiers that can produce 40 water each; a total of 92 water production. Every time I check the workbench there is only 55 – 70 purified water there.

Note: Defense should be at least equal to the sum of food and water production. No matter how high your defenses are though eventually the settlement will be attacked; it is just less likely to happen.

Does everything of value (warter, power, food) need to be under cover or behind a fence?

Technically, yes…

Even when you are present for a raider attack, raiders can damage / destroy turrets and generators. When they are destroyed, they can be repaired for less than what it costs to build new ones.

I do not think raiders will bother to steal food and water in the middle of an attack, but if you have weapons and ammo lying around for the weapons they will take ‘em and use ‘em against you. That should not be a surprise since I mentioned above that raiders can steal your power armor if you leave the fusion core in it.

You own settlers can also help themselves to weapons and ammo you have lying around.

This is just based on my experience, rather than what I have read so:

No. Some of my settlements have no walls and little shelter, they seem to work fine.

Ugh, thought they would have gone about this smarter this time. I tend to create characters that go for full completion (all unique weapons and collectibles, maxing all skills, etc). So lame when you're shafted like this if you don't read up in advance. They finally allow the bobbleheads to give you an extra point, but only if you max it first. It still svcks even if you know about it. "Oh, better not pick up that bobblehead yet. I haven't maxed out the stat yet"

You might want to double-check with others on here, but I think TVs and Jukeboxes are currently bugged so that it causes your settlements to lose happiness while you are away from the settlement. I have avoided building them until I hear that's fixed.

Its two types of attacks, one is the settlement under attack quest, this will do damage and can kill setlers if you don't travel to the settlement and help them.

The other is the random event who can happen but only with you present, yes the two can happen at the same time, had an bear hit me at arrival then the raiders who was the quest attack, it might also have multiple waves.

At the castle I built concrete floors and raised them up to make a wall. Left an opening down the center with lasers and turrets for whoever comes on through.

99% true, but there IS an exception.

Some settlers are, in fact, escaped synths. Don't worry, they don't pose a threat to your settlements or anything, but if the settlement is attacked by Institute troops, the attackers will consider them priority targets and CAN kill them.

This IS just my own theory, but I arrived at it through observations, and evidence. It's also true to in-game lore.

The evidence: Firstly, in over 200 hours of gaming, I've only had fatalities after a synth attack. No other mob seems capable of killing settlers, only knocking them on their keesters.

Secondly, the dead settlers ALWAYS have a "synth component" junk item on them, without fail.

I just put 2 and 2 together: escaped synth figures your settlement would be a good place to hide and be a human. Institute send a squad to track 'em down. Result: shootout, dead settler-synth.