Does anyone know what the max settlement happiness is? Most of my settlement get to 80, sometimes to 81, then drop back down into the high 70's. Sanctuary, Abernathy Farm, and Sunshine Hills usually sit at 80 unless they are attacked or there is a kidnapping. Does it ever go higher than 80/81? I've got all the basics covered like beds (with roofs), food, water, defenses. I'm wondering if I should spend more time with the aesthetics, like chairs/tables (I know that's not exactly an "aesthetic"), decorations, radios, ect. It's just that building resources are so rare (maybe not "rare", but they run out quickly), that I try to build up all the basics in all the settlements before I start on chairs/tables/aesthetics. I have created stores in my larger settlements, as supposedly that helps. Just wondering how high I can expect the happiness to go.

Max is 100. There is a bug or something with the game mechanics since it cannot be so difficulty. Adding "things" did not help anything. By doing some quests should counts alot, but no.

Cheers,

-Klevs

Why does happiness go down when a settlement is in a steady state - i.e. no change in population, beds, food, raids, etc? Are you supposed to execute a settler occasionally, in order to make the rest cheer up?

Be HAPPY, or ELSE!

Yeah, that should work. Wouldn't surprise me if executing a settler in one settlement, didn't make settlers in other settlements happier..... "Just be glad it wasn't one of us......."

I get the same OP. Sanctuary Hills has an Emporium for all 5 store types. Everything is over what's required and nearly everyone is working. Defence is 200 something. But happiness max's out at 84 and it can drop down to low 70's. Have now given up on caring too much about settlement happiness.

Mine has stopped at 95. Only 1 resident (the Vault 81 Trader), no food, one Water Purifier (40 water), 2 beds and that's it.

I did not care much for the MM quest set until I discovered the real character of the various main factions. I have come to hate BoS, The Institute and The Railroad. Nazis, cyrpto Nazis and stupid Hippies. As a 69 year old hippie I can speak to the stupid.

This really l;eaves the poor old MM as the only hope for humanity. So I have changed my ways. Now I have responsibilities and cannot just wander looking for trouble. I have to work.;(

There is a mod that allows you to change the happiness bonuses for Clinics from 30 to 3000. The happiness is bugged if you need to use weird annoying tricks like staffing 16 Clinics to get Benevolent Leader.

This. I gave up on settlement happiness. As long as there is enough food/water/defenses etc so that nothing is in red in the workshop menu, then that's good enough for me and the settlers can just deal with it.

Happiness should be more complicated than just food, water, and defenses. Health and entertainment are important considerations as well. So having a Water Purifier should give more happiness compared to dirty water from a Water Pump due to purified water having a better health value.

I agree. At first I did all sorts of "extra" things to try and make my settlers happy. However, since nothing I did seemed to get happiness above 81 or so, I gave up trying.

settlers are ungrateful [censored]...happiness should be 100 after I give them enough beds, food, shelter, and water..where would they be without me?

Happiness seems to be bugged and tied to the player presence. I build more and more resources, shops and commodities and it stioll goes down. Yet when I make an appearance it goes up again. I've never been able to raise it above 84 so far.

Peace and happiness to you PenGun (I'm 61 and feel young again), I have to agree with your assessment of the factions. BoS is why too military for my taste, at least the Minutemen try to help others. To the rest of you, thanks for responding, it seems I haven't wasted my time trying to increase my settlements happiness above the 80/81 mark.

Stuck in Concorde, shooting at an endless supply of Raiders.

Ha...my next playthrough they just might be doing that..

There are a few things that definitely affect the overall happiness of a settlement.

1. Enough resources, such as food, water, beds and defense.

2. Helping to defend the settlement when it is attacked.

3. Helping release a settler who has been kidnapped.

4. Certain merchants, all of the ones you can create except for weapons and armor.

5. Adding a dog to the settlement.

Same problem. All my settlements are decked out too. Tons of furnishings, every type of shop, lots of beds, dogs at most of them, I do the defense missions the second they pop up.

The ONLY thing I can think of is that maybe you have to assign beds manually for each settler? Sometimes ill ask one how things are going, they will complain about the bed situation, but ill have 5 more beds than people at the settlement. I think I've seen settlers sleep in different beds too rather than the same one every night.

If that's the case there is no way I'm ever getting 100 happiness. Assigning beds individually to over 150 people across the settlements would be ridiculous.

I think settlements are still a work in progress.

Adding a dog to a settlement increases happiness?

I have found in here and in game that if they cannot get into a bed, they won't use, but it will still show in bed count total. silly..

anyone try removing Marcy Long from Sanctuary? she is a Debbie-Downer! maybe that town could get happier without her!

I also believe it's "wip" - work in progress. They who play on PC can easy mod, but they on console needs help from Bethesda. I have made a default savegame and from there I have tested everything I can do/available in several days in 2 settlements. One large and one small. No luck. 86 and then down again and again. Settlers who complains about "feet/back hurts" and "dirty fingers/nails" I send away, no change. Adding and removing "stuffs" doesn't work. Maybe friendship with certain factions do counts, that I cannot test unless finishing MQ or make certain faction(s) very unhappy, but then spoil the game. I have now decided, amongs others, I don't bother anymore as long as game editor yet not available. If there are mods or not, I will wait.

Cheers,

-Klevs

Yes. But the dog is acquired by meeting a merchant who will sell it to you. Make sure you have a doghouse available at the settlement you would like the dog to reside at. You can buy multiple dogs from the same merchant by meeting him again after a short while.

I gave up trying to maximize happiness as well after building everything I could and only getting it to the mid 80's.

I once went homicidal on my settlers at the Castle. I did the quest to defend it and during the battle I injured one of my settlers by throwing a nade at a whole group of enemies as the settler was running towards them to perform a melee attack. Once the battle ended all the settlers turned red and started attacking me. All the Minutemen were still allies at the Castle just the settlers turned against me. I reloaded a previous save and did the battle again. This time a settler was injured by one of the mines I had placed outside the Castle and they all started attacking me again after the battle was over. I just sat there for a moment while there 38 ammo plinked off my PA. I then said to myself you ungrateful M'F'ers and pulled out my minigun and started mowing them down. My once 20 strong settlement was reduced to 6, only the Minutemen who were stationed there remained.

Regarding the bed situation, it seems to get complicated if a settlement has named settlers that existed before they joined you, especially if they have pre-existing beds. Those beds are sometimes immovable (but sometimes aren't), and cannot be assigned to (though can be slept by) anyone other than the original settlers. After the settlement joined you, sometimes those pre-existing beds appear unassigned (red icon). And here's the kicker: if you try to manually assign those beds, you can only assign each pre-existing bed to ONE particular pre-existing settler. Since pre-existing settlers may share the same name (like the several "Workers" in The Slog) or may even look alike, it makes it tough to find out which beds they should be assigned to. But then again, every settler, pre-existing or not, can sleep in a bed not assigned to him or her anyway. That makes you wonder why there is a "bed situation". But I do notice that settlers sometimes can't get into their beds: they may be standing close to a bed, or even standing ON a bed. As pointed out, that is caused by beds not being placed properly.