So I just had an interesting and surprising experience. I was dungeoning for a quest (in Medford Hospital) and got a notice "Sanctuary Hills is Under Attack!" Since that's kind of my home base (more space so I built more than the Castle) I went running there to help. I'd hate it if ol' mama Murphy or the

were to get skewered by some raiders. I went on foot since it eats up less in-game time than fast travelling and I was out of verti-bird signal flares. I got there just in time to find the place being attacked by Gunners. I killed the first small group right at the gate since they hadn't made it into town yet, and then heard gunfire further in so I went to investigate. Every one of my little machine gun turrets were running wide open, one settler ran over and hit the switch on the alarm tower I set up, and I saw another settler go running toward the gunners in a suit of MY power armor I had left hanging on the rack. I got to deliver the final shot on like one of a group of a dozen gunners before my settlers and machine gun turrets mowed them all down, lol. I've got 18 settlers so far in Sanctuary Hills, a half a dozen or so heavy machine gun turrets and one artillery cannon. After it was all said and done, the settler in my power armor went over and hit the switch to kill the alarm and everybody went on about their business.

I just thought it was kind of cool to watch one of my settlements take care of themselves like that. I guess from now on if Sanctuary Hills falls under attack, I don't have to worry about coming back to a pile of rubble if I don't drop what I'm doing and run straight there,

If you don't make it back by the time the attack is scheduled to end, I hope you have a taste for rubble. The rule used to be that if you did not go back to help, the settlers lost. Still is, as far as I know.

I wish there was a way for the game to load in that area while the settlement is under attack. I don't consider a settlement self sufficient unless I'm not force to be there and guard it. What's the point in having all these High defense if i'm force to tp there and do nothing?

This is something I like to see improve with the Wasteland workshop. Even if its a free patch.

I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of messages pop up this week about settlements succesfully defending themselves.

So it's no longer an auto fail if you don't show up.

It's definitely no longer an auto-fail, I've had Greentop Nursery successfully defend itself.

If this is true, I may just start playing again.

One of the main reasons I had to "take a break" was because I had all of the settlements.
I ended up emptying all but three, but was still having to stop in the middle of "fun" activities just to travel to one of them and watch my defences do the work I created them to do.

This is good news indeed.

Why didn't Beth mention it in any patch notes?
Or did they, and everybody, including myself, missed it?

I consider myself corrected.

Now I have to go back in game, and wait for an attack to happen!

Thanks!

I did a little test of that after one of the patches, i think it was 1.3, showed a successful defend after non attendance.

My test at that time showed it was a roll of the dice.

Sometimes a non attendance would result in successful defence, sometimes not.

Either way there could be damage to infrastructure that usually self repairs, (if the item is self repairable).

One major difference, though, if you don't attend, there are no foes to loot.