If I hack a robot out in the Common Wealth can I bring them back to my settlement and assign them as a provisioner? I did a search for hack provisioner but did not find any result. I don't have the hacking perks yet but I wonder if I could do this then it would be a good investment down the line.

On another note, is there anything I can do with hacked robots? For example will they guard my settlements etc? Will they disappear if I leave them somewhere too long?

I don't know about you but I feel a bit guilty when assigning a settler as a provisioner. I don't like doing it so I tend to make sure they are over equipped with defense.

I would imagine the hack robots and intimidate wasteland critters and people perks are all temporary effects at best. So, no, you're probably going to keep sending out humans (or ghouls) as Provisioners. As you note, you can equip them with nice armor and weapons to help. I saw a mod on Nexus that put NPC Caravan Guards into Power Armor - something like that may be possible for Provisioners.

Thanks for the reply, it would be cool though, but not a problem. I'll invest my perk points elsewhere.

I haven't tried this but I wanted to. Having an army of robots protecting my settlements would be totally cool! But I surmised it wouldn't be an option.

You can assign the Mr. Handy's at Greengarden as provisioners if you've got your heart set on robot provisioners. Is actually quite funny seeing them run around with their brahmin.

An example

If you walk a Protectron to your settlement it will, after a short time, revert to it's off state.

You can hack it again at a a later stage to bring it back into operation.

I regularly hack bots for fun but they soon die in battle as they are not protected.

As an aside I hacked the one that provides night service at the 24 hour Diamond city stall, presuming that the stall owner would buy a replacement bot.

The bot fought bravely against a group of supermutants and died.

Now there is no longer a night attendant at the Market.