After a week of play, and some initial confusion and frustration with the Settler assignment system, particularly Provisioners, this system has helped me keep track of who's doing what, so I thought I'd share. I've read of others doing similar things, hopefully Bethesda will streamline this for us. Granted, this is more likely to appeal to roleplayers, ymmv.

My character build is focused on Intelligence, Charisma and crafting in general. Starting SPECIAL stats were:

Str: 3

Perception: 4

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 6

Intelligence: 8

Agility: 2

Luck: 2

Again, ymmv; I bumped INT to 9, then CHA to 9 as well, after which I grabbed any crafting related perks, as well as both levels of Local Leader. You can easily mix in upgrades to Locksmith and Hacker as well, or even go melee with a Str boost.

Settlers:

Use clothing to distinguish their different tasks, which I divide thusly:

Farmers - Anything with Jeans, Bandanna or cap

Guards - Raider armor, Sack Hood with Straps/Tubes, rifle

Scavengers - Scavenger suit, goggles

Merchants - Surveyor suit, Trilby hat

Provisioners - Leather armor, assault mask, rifle

(Everyone has a pistol)

Each of these looks are easiy distinguishable, and the gear is easy to find. As .38 ammo seems relatively plentiful, all settler weapons are .38 compatible. Merchants are only assigned to my "hub" settlements, currently Sanctuary, The Castle, and Taffington Boathouse, and Provisioners primarily come from these 3, which are all linked, as well as from a couple of outlying settlements. Basic settlement labor assignment is 2 farmers/2 guards/1 scavenger per 5 pop, with a Provisioner as needed, adjusted to focus settlements over 10 pop on either food or scavenging.

As noted, this isn't original, many others are using similar systems, at least as far as the clothing goes, and likely the division of labor.

But, a couple of things still bothered me:

1. I wanted to be able to distinguish one settler from another, beyond their basic assigned job; this was primarily RP based, but is also useful if you have multi-crop farms, as well as just for snout counting.

2. Provisioners....it's aggravating enough that you can't tell which route a Provisioner is traveling at a glance, but that frustration is compounded by not being sure where the point of origin is; Sure, I should remember who I assigned where, maybe I should have written it down, but...I didn't. You "can" figure it out by a lot of trial and error, and liberal use of the "wait" feature, but that's just crazy, plus not my idea of fun.

So, what I do is:

1. Name all Settlers. IMO, this should have been a feature from the get-go, even if it was as simple as tagging settlers assigned to farming with "farmer", as Provisioners are treated. Since that feature isn't available, my solution is to issue each Settler within a particular community a pistol, the one absolute common item, renamed for their job, and settlement. Easily done via the Weapon crafting table.

Example: I assign a Settler to farm in County Crossing, and dress him according to my specs for a famer. I also issue him a pistol I've renamed; he is now "Farmer Bob CC". Granted, I have to check his gear to see his name, but I can tell he's a farmer at a glance by his uniform, his name primarily tells me how many farmers I have at that location. I use an alphabetic progression, and throw in some friends and such for my naming, but you could easily just assign them numbers.

2. Provisioners. Easy to identify, thanks to the honking big druffalo, but incredibly frustrating to manage. What works for me, though not ideal, is to name my Provisioner's pistols similarly to the settlers. This has helped a lot with regards to expanding, much easier to see who should be re-assigned.

Example: I assign a Settler to run the route from Sanctuary Hills to Oberland Station. Dress and gear him accordingly. His pistol is renamed "Pro Bob Sanc/OS". Now, by clicking Trade with him, I can tell where he's going, and where he's from. If he was going from Oberland Station to Sanctuary Hills, he'd be Pro Bob OS/Sanc.

3. Merchants: Named according to their stall.

Example: Chems CC(chem merchant in County Crossing)

4. Guards: Named according to their compass position. I also tend to assign idle companions and named npcs to guard duty at my hubs.

5. Scavengers: Named for famous adventurers and scalliwags, fictional and historical.

Spent a couple of hours doing the running back and forth it took to get this set up, but now that it's done, it's super easy to reassign extra settlers, ringing the bell to gather folks seems much more useful.

I hope some of y'all find this useful, and look forward to reading other ideas and opinions.

Smart work-around to use a uniquely named pistol to name NPC and note their job assignment. I never would have thought of that, but will use it now too!

Good ideas, thank you for sharing.

i just spawned 50 odd vault 111 suits and gave one to each settler that had a job so i know whos who.

that is what I do, I cloth them to fit their roles.

at least until it changed their name from Settler to Farmer, Cook, Weapons Dealer, Guard, etc...

it would be nice if it said Provisioner, Ten Pines, etc

Is there a console command to rename an NPC? I can't find it. I think I could do that in one of the prior games but nothing seems to work. I thought it was setname but that just returns an error.

There wasn't a command for that in previous games, there was eventually a mod for Skyrim (the only one I remember now),
"Jaxon's Renamer" I think but that took some time to come out (It also required the script extender if I'm not mistaken).

Very good thonking there op! I will start doing it your way.

Settlements seem to be all over the place. I assign certain people to certain crops, beds and defenses but I come back later and those things have become inexplicably unassigned even though those settlers are still there. And things that I haven't assigned anyone to have become assigned. Maybe it's just a glitch on my system but it seems from my experience that settlers can switch their jobs at will based on what's available or what's needed.

You gave each settler a pistol with the appropriate role tag on it?

A genius solution to a terrible game design.,

I truyl hope someone at Bethesda reads that and feels a tad ashamed. I will be adopting the same tactic myself tonight, so thank you for the suggestion.

Appreciate the kind words, and also hope that an upcoming patch will add a better management system.

Haven't had any issues with settlers changing assignments, though I've noticed new settlers will assign themselves to guard or farming if the infrastructure is in place. Farmers seem to be able to handle 6 points of food each, so my crops and labor are set up accordingly. (example: 3 farmers work 12 tato, 12 corn and 6 mutfruit) Each guard has their own post with a couple of turrets in support; though I've read that they can man up to 3, I haven't tested this.

The per settler limits you mention are correct according to the Prima Official guide.

- Each settler farms up to 6 food. (for management purposes it's best to assign a settler to their entire quota or they will find misc unassigned crops to tend to fill it)

- Each settler can work up to 6 defense (e.g., one settler can work up to 3 Guardposts worth 2 defense each - as with crops, they will self-assign empty defense posts so it's best to assign them their quota)

Note that Population max is Charisma + 10

Thank you for the confirmation, definitely going to change some of my defensive strategy.

Was using clothing to tell profession apart, thanks for the gun name idea, haven't gotten to making supply runs yet, will come in very handy

Yea, getting supply routes set up quickly really helps with expansion and construction.

The naming definitely helps make things more transparent, nice to run across a Provisioner on his rounds in the middle of the wasteland and know exactly where he's headed. Often run into groups of 3-4 of them traveling together, seems they tend to use certain routes in common before veering off for their destination.

I do wish you could label their Brahmin as well, have found a couple all alone in the wasteland, but have no way of knowing if they are mine or belong to some wandering merchant. Watched a Provisioner approach Sanctuary yesterday, with no Brahmin in tow, but when he got to the boundary, a Brahmin popped into place beside him. Dunno if his original had been killed, or just stuck somewhere and teleported when he arrived,

Yeah, I have one supply route I want to change (instead of Fort -> Sanctuary I want Fort - Drive-In), but I be damned if I can find the setter in question to give him an alternative route. Any ideas for chasing this guy down?

Best way I've found is to sit at one of the stations in question and use the wait command(just park a chair where you can have a clear view), and watch for him to show up. Not ideal, but better than running back and forth between the 2 settlements.

I still have one Provisioner I keep encountering in the wasteland that doesn't have a named weapon, but danged if I can figger out where he comes from. Maybe it's yer guy?

ahahahahahhaahah that would be hilarious.

I'm going to try that wait command trick; I keep forgetting about that.

Yea, just be sure to park yer chair or bed where you'll have a good view of where they should be coming from; walls are actually good for this, allowing you to channel their path. If yer just looking to swap gear, you can run out and meet them when you spot them in the distance.

A problem/peeve I have is that reassigning a Provisioner still leaves them labeled as a Provisioner, so what I do is assign them a random job(keep an empty guard post or something close by), then move them to a settlement that needs a Provisioner, fast travel there, and reassign them.

If I don't need another Provisioner, or want to get rid of a settler for whatever reason(I built a settlement of all ghouls, another of nekkid chicks armed only with switchblades, and one with companions and named npcs ), leave one settlement on the fringe with no resources other than food and water, strip the npc in question, and move them there; Outpost Zimonja is pretty much a death sentence for my folk, the Gulag.

I've spent most of today's gaming upgrading all of my Provisioners to metal armor, starting to get a better sense of their paths and travel times. Gained a couple of levels just hopping back and forth between settlements, not just crafting, selling and building, but fighting the mobs that seem to follow Provisioners; got a couple of legendary items, and a buttload of gear and stuff.

Fun stuff, but I really hope Bethesda has plans to streamline settler management.

Looking through the first few pages of the forums, it seems this is a popular subject.

Bumped for the community.