I had to shake my head in amazement. I was visiting a settlement with 26 settlers when one of the perimeter turrets started pvssyring away. The next thing I know, there was a human wave assault charging out the front gate -- to kill a bloatfly that had wandered to close to the wall. Then having disposed of the bloatfly, they were now in range of a solitary Raider that was camped nearby. Charge! That firefight lasted awhile as it was a Veteran Raider, but the outcome was inevitable at 26-to-1 odds. But now the settlers were near a pack of Vicious Mongrels; Charge! Being a pack of dogs, the battle raged over a wide area... right into some marshy territory owned by some Mirelurks. Charge! By the time that ended, the settlers were practically in the next County, and sadly, one of them had died in all the skirmishing. The question is: who killed the settler? Friend or foe? Hard to say with all the shooting that was going on.

This post if the proof to what I've been saying for a while: the map often feels way too small and crowded. The prime example is Boston, where it's barely possible to get around a group of baddies without running into another one.

In theory, generic Settlers are protected (i.e. can be only killed by you). Although I've heard conflicting info but haven't investigated the issue by myself, let's just accept this for now. My bet is collateral damage from explosives.

Have you had any Settlers equipped with Grenades or Molotov cocktails? Or is there any change they found it somewhere? What about Missile Turrets? If these are out of the question, I'd still stick to the friendly fire scenario.

Weeellllll, I was trying to squeeze some supporting fire while dealing with the mutts, in the woods, in the dark, during a melee. I seem to recall some idiot charging into my line of fire. So I suppose it might have been me. Meh. Just "Natural Selection in action" I guess.

The only time I had a dead settler was when she was found out to be a synth infiltrator and shot by other settlers. A synth settler should have synth components in his or her inventory. If this was true in your case, then it was no friendly fire. The other settlers shot him or her intentionally.

I haven't found this to be the case. I've had settlers, both named and unnamed, get killed during settlement attacks. Jake Finch is one of the named NPCs that got killed in a settlement attack. I can't recall any other named NPCs that have been killed in attacks, but I think there was one other one. I've had generic settlers die during attacks at least 3-4 times though.

I have settlers die because I insist that my defense folks always have a molotav and a frag grenade in inventory. Last playthrough I had 6 assigned to Sanctuary. Always had to remember to stay well back from them during an attack, but, needless to say, not even Supers stood a chance once those folks started tossing explosives!

I learned that if you give a settler their own weapon and one unit of relevant ammo that they will never run out of ammunition. As a goof, I gave one of my settlers a Fat Man and one mini nuke. Now if I visit Somerville place and ghouls or super mutants show up, the resulting carnage is epic.

On TOPIC: I have had incidents where settlers will become aggressive towards Curie but not me. When this occurs, I have to send her home and bring a different companion.

I shot a settler when he was running into my line of fire. Curious incident, really, since, for some reason, a pack of legendary supermutant masters decided to attack one of my outlying settlements. Nothing to loot there. Just a shack with some beds and a water pump. Well, the guy was down. The beacon will provide a replacement, since, on another curious note, this unimportant and unattractive piece of land seem to attract them most.