I went to Sanctuary to drop off some junk last night after doing another round of scavenging.

Right before I was going to save one of the settlers approached me with a radiant kidnapping quest. I am kinda of in the middle of a couple things at the moment though. Does anyone know how much time to complete the quest before it fails?

No idea, but they stay logged for a pretty long time. If it isn't about an important settlement, I even ignore them, just as I do with the pending attacks. Go, fend for yourself like the big guys you are. Sometimes, depending on the caps situation, I simply pay the ransom because at some time I got tired of being sent to the same installation over and over to kill the same bunch of generic low level enemies. At some time, I even got two in a row. The enemies didn't even have time to respawn, just the victim sitting on the floor. All by themselves.

I think it is about 1 day ingame hours. It is best to take care of them asap.

Just pay the ransom. Easy XP.

This is my 1st kidnapping so I figured I would do it. But I am currently in middle of managing my settlements (need to turn off some beacons and transfer some settlers) so I need to do some fast traveling.... I guess I can put it on hold and check out what all the hubbub is about...

so I started paying off those ransoms, but then noticed the kidnappings happened again, but always at the same place I had the settlers pay.

think they scripted that to occur like the kidnappers were now just using that poor family as a steady cap flow?

yea...I thought you were in the middle of something important, like questing or exploring...go save that settler!!

seriously though, for me it fails after a few fast travels if I ignore it...If I decide to save him/her, I can usually wrap up what I'm doing and be ok...I have a feeling they'll patch in some sort of timer next to the miscellaneous missions that are timed..I mean why not, right?

You have 2 in-game days (according to the Pip-Boy clock) to complete the kidnapping quest. You can verify this by sitting and waiting after receiving the quest. 48 Pip-Boy hours later, it will fail. That is equivalent to 2 1/2 hours real time. Note that fast-traveling uses up time on the Pip-Boy clock as well. Fast-traveling between two furthest points on the map takes about 12 Pip-Boy hours, so take that into account.

Just to be complete, those "Help Defend the settlement" quests are even more urgent: they need to be completed in 15 in-game hours. That's barely enough time to make one fast-travel if you happen to be far away. But other quests like "Raider trouble in...", "Ghoul problem in...", etc., give you a 15-day window. Again, I've verified all this by sitting and waiting.

Steady XP flow for you.

I had the same thing happen at The Slog. But it eventually stopped.

Thanks for the info.

I find that most of the time when my settlements get attacked is when I am at the settlement minding my own business. That happened three times over the weekend. Once at Oberland Station while I was building the settlement and twice at Outpost Zimonja; raiders and ghouls; while dropping things off / managing the settlers.

Also, these quests usually have 2 stages: first, talk to the settler about the quest, then actually do the quest. EACH of the stages gives you the same time frame in which to complete it. I.e. You have 2 days to talk to the settler about the kidnapping, and another 2 days to rescue the victim; or, 15 days to talk to the settler about ghouls problem or raiders trouble, and another 15 days to do it. But of course, you don't want to cut it too close and wait till the last minute to do either. Because the clock ticks constantly in these quests. You don't complete the quest unless you kill the boss enemy before the time is up, even if the boss is a few feet away from you.

Only the "Help Defend..." quests are the most urgent because of the 15-hour window; you can barely fast-travel once if you're far way. And I've even seen *two* of these quests active *simultaneously*. Adding to the pressure is that the "Help Defend..." quests are buried in the miscellaneous quests. Kidnapping quests have their own quest titles and give you a bit more time. The other quests that give you a 15-day window, you can sort of take your time a little. Also, the quests with a 15-day window will also give you a warning message 1 day before the deadline.

I have seen several posts about time to FT from one end of the map to the other and I have a question:
I have seen small variations in my multitude of FT from Sanctuary to Spectacle. averages 13.25 hours.
is this affected by any variable? Encumbrance, strength, endurance, etc..

just so I have a better understanding of how long I have to complete a "defend" quest depending on where I am located.

I didn't actually get the quest until after the settler approached me to tell me about it. I just happened to check my Pip-Boy before fast traveling to Sanctuary just to see if I missed any Help Defend quest (I check on a consistent basis). I didn't see anything about going to Sanctuary to speak to someone about a kidnapping. Unless of course the quest did not trigger until I was in Sanctuary.

Also, the two attacks at Outpost Zimonja where definitely not in my quest log. I assume they were triggered when I fast traveled there.

What sort of variations have you seen? I've seen differences of maybe 1 minute, but that could be due to the Pip-Boy not showing the seconds on the clock. Also, 1 second in real time equals 20 Pip-Boy seconds. So if you check the clock a second late, you add to the variation. Even being half a second late adds 10 seconds.

oh as much as 15 minutes on pip-boy. I assumed it was due to what I was carrying or something.

That's right; sometimes the settler gives you the quest directly, in which case you only get one stage, i.e. one 2-day or 15-day window. But if Preston gives you the quest and asks you to talk to the settler, you get 2 stages. One 2- or 15-day window to talk to the settler, and another window to do the quest.

Sometimes those "Help Defend..." quests are bugged. You may not get the initial "Help Defend" message, or you may not get the "You Fail to Defend..." message if you pass the deadline. Or you may get neither, and, thus, are kept completely in the dark, until one day you visit your settlement only to see everything ruined and you wonder WTH has happened. This has happened to a lot of us.

I got a quest from a settler to go save a kidnapped brother. keep in mind Preston is still waiting for me to come back and tell him the coast is clear... heh so not a minuteman quest. thing is the location I got the quest and the location the kidnapped brother was, were on opposite sides of the map. And to make it worse, a place I had not been to yet. So I walked the whole way there. And I went mostly directly there.

failed the quest before I got to the place. Must have only had a day to do it.