Ok i'm only going to make a brief post, only to prove a point which is bugging me.

At any settlement if there is an attack, it wont matter how much defences you have the attackers will wreck your place anyways.

What i have noticed is that a settlements defences are NOT active unless the player is present. (INSIDE the green zone for building)

And also attackers spawn INSIDE the settlement most of the time.

I have 20 settlements all built, with the average defence on each settlement at 200-400 defence power.

50 water and 50 food average, and all settlements with an average of 20-24 settlers on it.

I fence the whole settlement in with walls all around it, and i build one choke point where i build my defences and i put some backup turrets in key locations around the settlement.

- first of all its almost impossible to notice when a settlement is under attack.. either in combat, or completely misses your eye, because you are constantly looting stuff.

There should be a sound, or a more eye catching alert message when a settlement is under attack..

And a minimum of expectation would be that your turrets actually do something with out you being present.

Because i have evidence they dont work.

- 2nd fencing the settlement with walls should give an advantage when u spend tons of time and resources on this.. but instead the attacking forces spawns INSIDE the settlement which makes it pointless building strategicly.

- 3rd i've had 400 defencepower on greygarden, and walls all around it... and never noticed a message saying attack on greygarden.

When i returned the attack was a mere 3 attackers, who spawned in the middle of my crops, i fast traveld to the settlement, and watched that the only thing defending the settlement was my settlers and their .38 worthless pipepistols.

Then i lost a few crops and they got killed by the settlers simply because they outnumberd the attackers 7-1.

All my turrets didnt do anything.. and once i approach the settlement.. ALL my defence generators has been knocked out.. all my turrets are knocked out.

And i build so redundantly its IMPOSSIBLE that 3 attackers can do this.

First of i have excessive firepower... 2ndly i build the generators for defence in a box, so they cannot be targeted.

But yet all of my defences are knocked out instantly and it makes me pissed off, because it appears that as soon as i get over a certain amount of resources attacks trigger all over the place.. so i cant stockpile on resources, instead the game kicks in a nerf break, and instantly destroyes 3 settlements in a row, in order to keep me underfoot, where i cannot gain any upper hand.

I'll post some screenshots of the base that was attacked, and you'll see its IMPOSSIBLE to breach this base, but because the game is spawning the attackers inside, and instantly knocks out my defences it makes it pointless.

So i'm looking for some answer to why it wont allow you to gather a stockpile of resources... and why does not my turrets defend my settlement when i spendt countless hours building them..

And why does it not take the attackers actual direct fireing at stuff to disable the defences.. the defences are just knocked out by a script code which says, "all defences are damaged to the point of not functioning".

I'm hoping bethesda might have a look and please make some tweaks to this.. since its very annyoing.

Summary Highlights.

- Defences offline while player NOT with in the settlement green building zone border. (however triggers online if player enters the border of the build zone)

- Defences knocked out instantly when settlement is attacked.

- Settlement under attack notification too easy to miss, i.e. needs more eye catching factors, ( sound, alert message )

- Attackers spawning INSIDE the settlement.

- Strategic building eliminated due to the above point.

- Defences destroyed with out even taking fire, simply because of "attacked" status knocks them out.

- Not able to stockpile resources efficiently, because reaching a certain amount of resources seems to trigger settlement getting attacked in several locations, where u must spend what you just gatherd on repairs nonetheless.

- Settlement defence should factor in, towards wether or not attacks will occur or not.

Thanks for reading.

Detailed pictures in the imgur album below.

you can see on the picture 4th from the top, my crosshair is close to the chockepoint.

The bottom picture shows how my generators are boxed in to avoid direct kinetic projectiles hitting them.

Album.

http://imgur.com/a/kElzU

I don't think the whole defense thing works as intended either (unless they were put in purely as cosmetics, then they work as intended). I've encountered the same problems as you and only a handful of the dozen or so times I've been attacked did the turrets actually do anything. I don't have them attached to any sort of targeting system though. I just placed them and left 'em. As things currently stand, I think the settlement side of the game is more or less just for cosmetics. I don't even bother building defenses now such is their uselessness.

Well certain settlements do need power but I'm going to guess that's not it. It's definitely a known bug that the settlement's defense and supply scores can drop to zero whilst you're away meaning it's possible for a civilisation with more firepower than the US Marines to be taken out by a handful of ghouls. The fact attackers spawn inside the setlement, (inside the *freakin' houses* in some locations) is a piece of sheer idiocy too as it invalidates, as you mention, fencing and most plausible defense tactics. I'd like the ability to reject settlements. I also want to focus on a couple rather than being expected to raise the entire [censored] wasteland myself. Seriously, when two advlts and their stupid little shack merit the same time and effort as an entire minor city you're doing something wrong. And why are the damn gunners sending a dozen heavily armed men to attack a two person shack in the first place?! Who is FUNDING that?

More, the rate at which certain settlements get attacked makes no damn sense. Surely somewhere totally removed from most routes will get fewer attacks than those settlements that are about 500m away from a [censored] raider base and its irritatingly endless respawns?

With that said my turrets have always worked.

I actually paid attention to the tutorial messages, though I wish I could access them again.

The defense thing actually lowers the probability of getting attacked in the first place. However, it says to have at least twice the defense of your food and water production. Based on what you said, it should be rare for them to be attacked (especially for the 400 defense ones).

My guess is it runs some kind of simulation.

Then the issue would just be figuring out how the sim works. Maybe putting the turrets facing the valuable items (crops, water, generators) ?

I saw your images and you think it would cover everything, but maybe turrets have some locality to them. Like was there anything untouched?

Also, you can give your settlers weapons. If you get there and they are killing people with 38s then giving them plasma guns and armor would obviously help. If you are really high level and are fighting really tough enemies but your guys are that poorly equipped...

Problem I've found giving settlers weapons is they always, always revert back to their pea shooters when out of combat. The same can be witnessed with followers. For example, I have given Piper umpteen dozen different weapons (modded pistols, rifles etc) and she always reverts back to her stock 10mm pistol. The pistol that doesn't appear in her inventory or magically appears whenever she enters combat again. It's annoying. If you re equip all your settlers before each and every fight, then you're a better and more dedicated man than I.

It's correct that without defense there are attacks. It's a precautionary building. For a more "action oriented" way is to arm your settlers and remove all static defenses.

Jeez glad I handn't done the "reequiping settlers" part yet :s

I did hear one of my turrets go off and a dead raider was there so that works, at least.

ummm clarify something here. Are you actually equiping the weapon on your settlers and companion? On the xbox you have to actually equip it before they use it. also have to give them a little ammo.

Holy sh*t you got some serious defense 馃槀
You aren't playing around.
A Deathclaw wouldn't last 30 seconds with all those turrents. Seems more like a settlement made for turrents to live in.

Again, defense may be how you deter attackers, (though frankly attacks should be proportionate, there is no [censored] percentage for twelve Gunners in attacking a small cardboard box fort populated by two men and a tyre with a face painted on it) but a known bug in the game can (and usually does) zero the defense score when you're away. My current Sanctuary Hills has a defense score of over 200 and still gets attacked regularly.

I had an alpha deathclaw come close enough, it didnt even last 5 seconds....

Yet 3 scrouny little raiders with pipe pistols took out nearly my whole settlement, because of irritating scripts that states i was not there and therefore lost the battle because it instantly nukes all turrets water and crops... and the turrets seems to not be active if i'm not with in the settlement borders.

On a sidenote

Deathclaws are overrated, they're a joke...

The Mirelurks legendary/queen is 100 times more dangerous.. and the legendary bloodsvckers are much much worse.

You did give them ammo for the weapon you told them to use right?

@OP Yes building a wall is near enough pointless to actually defend the crops, as the enemies do just spawn inside, so ring of death is my motto. All I do is build a ring of metal prefabs around the food area and put one turret on each, most turrets facing in but some out as well. Then when a settlement gets raided, I check where and change the direction the turrets face.

Learning by the experiences of others, i now have an outer settlement defense (10 heavy turrets at the entrance bridge) and an inner one (central building with 6 heavy turrets). If i miss an attack, i will simply reload. Sooner or later, Bethesda will fix this.

As much as I absolutely love this game, I do have to agree, they should at least make it so you have more knowledge of when a settlement is under attack (such as maybe turning it into a normal quest rather than a misc one), if tech limits the ability of the settlements actually being able to defend themselves.

Thanks for the input and support guys, hopefully someone from bethesda might read about this, and if we're lucky it'll poke the right dev in the ribs, and change it

Hahahah lol!

But yeah, that's messed up. Shouldn't happen like that.

I guess you can say they are overrated, but all depends on how well you are prepared for them, and perks you took as you level up.

But yeah, Mirelurks Queen so far was the only creature I had the pleasure to use my fat man on it, which ~400ish base dmg seems disappointedly weak for a nuclear weapon.

To be fair base damage for all weapons is disappointing in an unpatched Fallout game. Can't wait for the first mod to maximise gun/explosive damage and make it non-dependent on perks.

Aye, I gave them the ammo and the corresponding gun. They all seem to revert back to their pipe or 10mm guns. Someone asked further up whether I actually equip them on the npc - again that would be an aye.

Using Piper as an example again, she comes with a never ending 10mm pistol as standard. I give her tons of 10mm ammo and a heavily modded 10mm pistol, however, she always reverts back to her invisible 10mm pistol. I have to repeatedly re-equip the gun or at least i did until i got fed up doing so. Armour isn't an issue that stays on.

Remember Skyrim did this with the hunting bow and iron arrows?

When i tried this using a gun on my follower, and i gave him 10 ammo.. he then shot the 10 ammo, and then switched.. so it seems i need to keep his ammo stocked as well.

Does bethesda read all forum posts?

Will there be any statement about if anything will be done about settlements, or if this is already old news and is working as intended?

Are you giving them ammo? Companion weapons run on magic companion ammo, but anything you give them still needs bullets/fusion cells/tin cans.

I can personally verify that Beth developers have communicated with this community regarding a bug. It is extremely rare, to say the least.

I somehow doubt the "raiders spawning in the middle of settlements" and the actual defenses of a settlement doing absolutely no good if you're not present are rare, given how I'm seeing complaints by all my friends and witnessed such myself.

Apparently surrounding my settlements with concrete walls and a turret-lined entryway were wasted hours.

So. Defenses don't defend. Well, that's nice.

I think water provides electricity and maybe electricity provides clothes or something. Or you sleep on it.

Probably by next summer there will be a "Settlements Overhaul" that makes some sense out of this. And maybe cleans up the piles of leaves and sticks in all the houses.

I really would like settlements to be able to defend themselves, because if I build up a dozen settlements and *assuming* I see the attack messages (I've only seen the "defense failed" messages so far), the game basically becomes "settlement single-player tower defense."