ok so i was walking to megaton after escapeing vault 101 and so im not far from the door that opens when you get close to the protection robot then out of nowhere this raider spawns so i shoot her with my 10 mm pistol then out of nowherethis other raider with a assult rifle almost killed me but the protection robot saved me.why did the raider spawn there? does this happen alot?

All I've ever seen is ants.

I've also experienced this. I'm thinking those raiders are a scripted spawn but something is delaying the script from running, which is why they pop up from nowhere (the script is being run when you are right next to the spawn point).

Good news is: those raiders only spawn once, when you kill them, they're gone for good.

I had never seen anything but ants by the front gate. But, on the last play-through raiders attacked and killed Dep Weld.

From that point on, every time I left Megaton, raiders were attacking and killing Weld. He respawned (or his replacement) only to die over and over again. A quick source of experience points and scrap metal!

That is so wierd because as I said I only saw ants and earlier tonight they killed the deputy but a couple trips in and out of Megaton and he was back.(so were the ants)

2 more just poped up one had a rocket launcher i almost died poor deputy weild(protection robot outside megaton)i had to put him out of his misery with my 10 mm

I never saw anything spawn near the gate.

Depends on the playthrough. I've had:

Ants
Raiders
Two Robobrains
and the svckiest: Two Deathclaws. Bye Harith and Wolfgang!

Jeez Louise,I think I'll stick with the ants!

I have a friend who has a Deathclaw constantly spawning inside Megaton.... He had to create a new game.... It must have followed him through the gate as he was running away.

So far nothing inside just as soon as I open the gate and of course Charon gets out before me so I have to be careful not to shoot him and hope the ants don't kill Dogmeat.