Yes - I even thought of building boxes near guard stations, where better weapon and a bit of ammo go to be taken in case of attack. But I do not think this works really well - better to equip them myself. The trade menu is new - Beth built it for a reason.

Also I think, that settlers are best served with good but 'normal' weapons. I think, a bonus from Legendary weapons and even some of the mods do not help, when a NPC uses the weapon. Generally I see them often use weapons in hip fire mode, so I give them weapons good for both, hip fire and exact shooting. I also think, that better sights do not help. But since I gave them normal combat rifles, combat shotguns and laser muskets they are quite deadly, especially when 5 of them are shooting at the same enemy.

Trashcan Carla stole my only suit ( at the time ) of power armor..

So I followed her as she left the settlement & mini nuked the back of her head...

destroyed a lot of the armor, but was soo satisfying

IMO there is not enough theft in this game. We steal and loot from everyone and everywhere.

So I found a spot, where no settlers or anything really goes, put my important stuff in there and booby trapped it to high hell with all sorts of mines. Found a corpse about 20 yards away from it the other day. Was pretty funny. That's what you get for trying to steal!!! But I wish I could set up a mini nuke mine lol. That would be fun!

Well good thing you haven't been near a children of atom base cause that is the mines they defend themselves with.

hasnt bee nthe case in my game, i have built footlockers for each weapon type for storage

these are built by me not preexisting

i occasionally find guns in my settlers inventory that have come from these lockers and that they dont even have ammo for shrug

once caught Juan with 4x combat rifles in his inventory from my container and no ammo for them, he is armed with a fully modded combat shotgun and has ammo for that

I decided to solve the problem by storing all of my extra nice stuff at the home plate. I don't wanna keep my go to stuff in the workbench because I store so much junk in it that I would have to dig to find what I am after. I left a box of the "tier 2" stuff for my settlers to pillage if the need arises.

Alright alright I got it already,

But I really enjoyed creating a laberytthine maze 10 stories off the ground that only Mario could traverse to get to the Power Armors and my Stash of Weapons...

Until I discovered that settlers could just you know spawn up there.

Build a house on top of Red Rocket, then I build a steel Quonset hut, I and put my benches and PA fixer up there. Then put a fast travel mat up there and remove the stairs.

Safe at home!

It was a safe that I built

I think once you arrive at a settlement and the cell loads the settlers spawn in different locations. They could spawn on top of the house, or even in a locked room.

Just a theory though, but it can explain why they can get to otherwise impossible to reach places.

I haven't got anything stolen from me yet, but I keep all my stuff in the workshop bench. If I find a thief I will personally cripple all his limbs. Or enclose it in a tight space with no exit, take away his weapon and spawn some deathclaws inside with him.