So I've essentially focused entirely on Sanctuary settlement-wise, and turned it into a pretty awesome little community. I've got a four-story Minutemen HQ with turrets on the roof, and ten (occupied) power armor bays lining the bottom. I painstakingly built a perimeter wall (with building foundation) around the entire settlement, aside from a well-armed chokepoint at the bridge, and lined said walls with the occasional turret and/or spotlight.

I built a gigantic generator room, and large electricity poles all the way down the main street. I've got a couple of artillery installations. I've armed and armored all of my settlers.

...and yet Sanctuary never actually gets attacked.

I've been told that this could be because I've got a raider body somewhere that I need to drag into my settlement area so it can despawn. The only one I can find is across the bridge with a dog, but I can't get rid of it - it eventually just warps back to where it was originally.

I've also been told that this could be because my defense value is higher than my resource value (which would make sense - no one wants to attack a fortress for a single mutfruit plant), so I built two large water purifiers and scrapped a bunch of my defenses. No change.

Does Sanctuary just not get attacked often? Is there something else I should be doing? I'm enjoying the settlement-building for the most part (playing post-apocalyptic dollhouse is fun!), but it all feels kind of pointless if the defenses are just for show.

On the other hand, my crummy little farms get attacked all the time, and I just ignore those warnings. I've got everything I need in Sanctuary.

Raider cowards they can't face a real settlement and my turrets are getting rusty, damn them damn them all.

Sanctuary never gets attacked, but I'll be damned if they don't come running to me if there is even a whiff of a ghoul somewhere within a 100 mile radius.

Oh yeah, I constantly get the generated quests about raiders/ghouls at X location, but never any actual attacks on Sanctuary itself.

I've been playing for 5 days now in total(according to the save/load thingy)and I've only had sanctuary attacked once. I get the impression the higher your defence stat the less likely you are to be attacked, which kinda makes sense(to me at least).

My sanctuary does not get attacked either..however as it does make sense to me as well, that high defense would mean less attacks, I would like to see all my defenses going off at least a couple of times..I mean yea raiders might be smart enough to know not to F with that place, but what about the dumb-dumb enemies like gouls and super mutants..or even some creatures..idc I just want to see a laser light show..I got about 10 laser turrets ready for action..

I just want to see how my settlement reacts to an attack. That's the whole fun of building defenses, right?

Yeh I know what you mean, I got sanctuary set up like fort Knox, literally bristling with turrets but nobody wants to come play. The one attack I did have was pretty cool though. When I fast travelled back it was night time so there was tracer fire and missiles whizzing about all over the place.

good I don't have time to run back to sanctuary

I've had 2 attacks on sanctuary... but I can't remember what the food+water vs. defences were at the time .

Sanctuary was attacked only once in my game, by an army of Super Mutants who attacked from behind and not over the bridge where most of my defenses were located. Fortunately no one was killed, though Piper and Vault Tech Guy took liberal use of my Power Armors.

I've had one attack on Sanctuary. I only had one turret and one guard at the front gate at the time. The raiders did not get over the bridge. Now my Sanctuary is a fortress with walls, turrets, guard stations. I've even brought back better weapons and armor for every one of its residents. Most of them are in Road Leathers with Leather arms and legs. All are carrying some variant of the Combat Rifle. I've even put Molotovs and Grenades into some of their inventories. If they are getting attacked now, I'm not seeing it.

my sanctuary just got attacked today by a bunch of psycho raiders and my defence is over 100+.

it did not end well for the raiders , however i noticed that a lot of my settelers had weapons i was storing in boxes around my house and workstation what gives with that i gave them all the weapons ammo and armor they need???

They attacked me one when my defenses were still weak. It was kinda touch and go with the raiders coming from two directions. Now Sanctuary has turrents all over the place and it's been quiet. Spotlights too.

After reading previous threads and posts of players keep getting attacked, I have been avoiding the quest with talking to Preston as I don't want to trigger attacks happening. I am not sure at which point in the game the attacks are started.

So far I've bot been attacked yet, but again my defence is strong. I have a metal clad wall around the entire site, various look out points and a few turrets and spotlights. Spread around the perimeter.
My food is about 30, my water is about 60 and my defence is nearing 100.

No need to avoid talking to Preston, attacks happen either way. Just yesterday I had 6 gunners at my doorstep at Red Rocket. They thought it a good idea to split their forces up. Needless to say, it didn′t work out for them, because they got attacked by turrets both at sanctuary and red rocket. And yes, I haven′t talked to Preston either yet, not because I fear attacks, but rather to avoid the endless stream of Radiant quests.

I now have turrents every ten feet or so. I bet even a deathclaw would have a hard time at it.

To those who have built walls around your settlements, which seems to be quite a few of you which i have gathered from various comments, you're wasting your time and resources. Enemies can spawn inside settlements, like slap bang in the middle of them.

Never has any enemy spawned inside Sanctuary thus far. Nor inside Red Rocket or Starlight Drive Inn. I think in case of these three, it was resources well spent.

Why would they want to attack your power house when they can get all they need from your little outposts.

How daft would that be? A major part of the settlement is to build up it's defence. A wall is a very logical strategy to improve defence. Having enemy spawning inside the walls breaks that part of the game

My sanctuary has been attacked but that could be because I only gave them the bare bones minimum food, water and defense that Sturges asked for. I still have the same 5 settlers from the quest as I just don't care to build up the town.

I've had several ghoul-based MM quests from Sanctuary. I also had an epic battle between my companions and settlers versus the Brotherhood. I'm assuming that they were looking for Danse because I'm still on good terms with them and they didn't attack me. Two vertibirds and 6 BoS soldiers versus my crew. They didn't stand a chance.

i had once a single raider spawning inside the base...

on the other hand i had a settlement being attacked by 2 deathclaws! but i had like 12 heavy turrets that basically shreeded them

red rocket gets attacked a lot - by gunners with laser rifles...lol

I was in Sanctuary just a while ago reporting back to a settler about solving a ghoul problem when I heard the warning siren I'd place near the bridge going off. By the time I got to the bridge, the turret and guard had killed the lone raider who had been trying to rush the defenses.

Now just down the road at Red Rocket, where the only residents are my character, Dogmeat, and Codsworth, it gets attacked all the time. I'll start to do something at the workbench when I'll suddenly hear the turret and then by the time the workbench lets me leave, the whole front of the place has gone up in a flaming explosion and there are super mutants everywhere. Obviously, they recognize where I keep all the good stuff.