Not sure if possible, but from what I know of the situation, with Cell not being active unless player is present.

Would mod to 'watch attack' be possible.

Instant travel to town: (Ideally with clipping off, and no ability to interact).

Player is now 'in cell' so settler/turrets work.

When no hostile present (or perhaps an 'end' option), player instant travels back to original location and action continue.

While not 'perfect' to me, as would still break the 'i'm invading enemy lair X', it would be far less immersive breaking, then actually runnning back to town (and then being able to sell, etc) All before the attack took place.

Getting a video feed, from the settlement with what was happened, would allow it to be the active cell... Yet immersively you are not 'leaving' where you are.

As scripting would likely be needed, assume this may need to be post GECK, but what would folks think of this as an option.

Personally I would LOVE to be able to see how my layout,settlers did, but not actually 'travel' back for a fight. (and lord help me, they need to be more noticable).

I've been asking about the same thing. Will be interesting to see what folks say. Check out those last couple posts in that current thread by me; sounds like it might be a lot of work.

I suspect it is possible, via scripting..... however, not sure if we even HAVE scripting capability yet..... (I don't do papyrus, so, don't really pay attention.)

The way I see it is:

1. Game decides some settlement is going to be attacked.

2. Quest notification pops up.

3. Background script notes this, pops up a message box: Do you want to watch? (or some such)

4. If player clicks "Yes", player is 'ghosted', and moved to the appropriate cell.

5. Once all attackers are dead, or, quest completes, or, player pokes some hotkey to exit watching.... player is put back where he was.

Of course, time is going to pass during this interval..... and if the player is in a tenuous situation when the choice comes up...... Not sure how to handle that..... Granted, there IS some 'slop' in the time allowed for the player to show up..... I suspect that something like this is going to require having the GECK though, to see what all is actually happening......

I think if I try to make this, which I intend to when GECK comes out, I will use a scripted process that will take place "behind the scenes" and without any "viewing" option (at least at first).

Basically just abstract defense and attack forces into a couple of variables and then let it play through a couple "turns" of combat. Just getting that sorted out to an ideal that adequately represents the game will be a fun mental puzzle and algorithmic undertaking.

It is my hope that using the navmeshes and some geometric calculations it should be possible to account for the benefit of walls even.

A little copypasta of mine. Not sure if this is feasable within the realm of modding (was a DLC suggestion) but oh well...

I'll just grab this from the bob the settlement builders thread...

A DLC That (part of it) expands how settlement defense works.

Instead of "Get your Ass to the settlement and defend it or else!" Settlements may auto-defend themselves.

Success or Failure:

There are two parts to the new attack system: Percent and Cap. When the timer for intervention ends and the attack begins, a random percent is rolled. If it is above the cap, the attackers succeed. If it is equal to or below, the attackers will fail.

The cap is determined by a number of factors:

• Happiness (translated into morale) of settlement
• Defense Rating vs production rating of settlement
• Presence of Manned Artillery (change: Unless directly fired upon, artillery crew will not abandon their post) in the settlement
• Settlement is in range of outside artillery.
• Total Damage Per Second and Armor Rating of all the settlers (minus the artillery crews. This now factors into Defense Rating so it's not just a game of spamming turrets everywhere. I mean seriously, if you equip EVERYONE with a minigun and MKV rail road armor Ballistic Weaved @ MK 5, it should reflect this in the defense rating in some way. )
• Alliances and progress into the main questline (Minutemen have their castle, someone won the final battle, etc.)

Consequences

The consequences of success and failure would also be different. If the settlement succeeds in defending themselves (either with or without your help), the settlers will then go around to the bodies, take their stuff, and put it into the workbench for you to sort out later (or to use for themselves.) On top of this, if settlers defend themselves a random number of times (or you complete minutemen quests for them a certain number of times), they may become emboldened.

If the settlement fails to defend itself, the consequences are more dire. One of two things will happen:

1. Pillage: What happens in vanilla but with some variation. Everything is destroyed. Everyone is killed (for good this time. Not just respawning two seconds later) or captured, and they steal everything from your workbench. You are then given a mission to retreive them and rescue what settlers you have left. If you do not succeed this mission in time it is gone forever.
2. Takeover: Basically, the town is taken over by Raiders or Gunners (does not happen with supermutants or synths). The icon will turn red, the settlers will be enslaved, the turrets will be hostile to you, and you'll have to take it back. If you are the head of a faction, you can enlist their help to take it back with you, but you will have to do this yourself.

Emboldenment:

After a certain number of repelling a certain number of attacks in a row (or completing a certain number of minutemen quests for them in a row) and if the right conditions are met (morale and population are high enough), they may become emboldened. This means they're mad as hell, and they're not going to take this anymore: they're going to get together and bring the fight to the enemy.

When this happens, you'll get a quest called "We the People"/"Tea Party" which will tell you that the settlement is preparing for a counterattack against (place): If you go to the settlement in question, you will have two options: to either dissuade them, or to encourage them. If dissuaded, they will stand down. If encouraged, they will pick a random nearby target that's currently under the control of raiders, super mutants, feral ghouls, etc. and launch their own counter attack (always matching the identity of the last faction that attacked it. If BOS attacked them last, they will go after a BOS target. If it was raiders, they'll go after a raider base. If it was feral ghouls, they'll go after a place full of them.) You can either join this attack (manual) or let them do it themselves. If not dissuaded, they will attack it on their own eventually.

This is pretty much like a defense but on the other side. If you join your settlers, they will seek out and eliminate all opposition in the area in question, even going inside and eliminating them. If you let them attack on their own, it will again be based on a cap and percentage (albeit based only on the settler's numbers, artillery proximity, and armor/weapon ratings.) If the settlers succeed, the base will be cleared and their loot will be added to the workbench.

As before, they will loot and use any weapons they come across, and will also pick up other things they find to take back to the settlement. The battle will end when either all opposition is killed or less than 1/4th of the total settlers remain. If the latter, the attack will fail and they will retreat. Either way, they will place all loot into the workbench.

After a successful counterattack, it will be a very long time before any further attacks or minuteman random missions on the settlement in question take place.

Auto-Equip

If allowed to do so, settlers may equip themselves with guns, ammo, or even ammo pieces from the workbench, swapping out what they have for something superior in DPS. They will check when they get up, go to bed, or after an attack. You can disable this behavior by talking to one of the settlers. They will also not take unique weapons such as the cryolator or the big jim (but they will take randomly generated legendaries). They will also not take explosive weapons such as missile launchers or fat mans.

MISC UNASSORTED IDEAS:

• New Turret Types.
  • Plasma Scattergun turret: Exactly like the shotgun turret but with a plasma scattergun.
  • Minigun Turret: Self-powered turret with a minigun. Requires Gun Nut 4.
  • Gauss Turret: Very powerful, but very slow firing.
  • Javlen Missile Turret: Variation of the missile turret. Missiles Fire Upward, then land back down on enemies. This means these turrets can be safely put inside walls or in the center of buildings.
• Robots well, there's already a mod that does this. But I'll just add one more:
  • Eyebot: Wanders around your settlement. When engaged in combat, it sets off an alarm, alerting all turrets and settlers.
• Better Faction Rewards for settlements
  • Siding with the institute will allow you to build a Teleporter. This acts like the Guild Guide in Morrowind, letting you teleport to any settlement that has one built plus the institute. It also allows the same teleportation fast travel advantage as you get with the institute. Finally, settlements connected via teleporter are trade routed, making it an alternative to provisioners. Also allows for Institute tileset. Also you can build synths as settlers. Like the Robots of Graygarden they count towards the pop, but don't require bedding, food, or water.
  • Siding with the Minutemen will allow you to build an upgraded Artillery piece. Completing Our Powers Combined and Defend the Castle (2) gives you a binoculars to call in artillary instead of the clunky grenades. Finally, for taking the castle you get the Armory/Tavern. This structure will generate/attract minutemen that will not count towards your population, but act as guards and come running when you use flares.
  • Siding with the Railroad allows.... okay not quite sure what kind of reward the Railroad would give you. Possibly the ability to create a safehouse?
  • Siding with the BOS allows for the creation of the Recruitment post. This will generate BOS Guards for your settlements that you can take with you on missions. Also, you get the Vertibird landing pad, which a day after it's built will generate a vertibird that will defend the settlement if attacked and allow you to use the vertibird transport without having to call one in. Like the teleporter this will automatically trade route it to any settlement that is BOS controlled, allowing an alternative to provisioners.

That sounds hella more ambitious than what I had in mind, at least to start with!

Right now the player is faced with two choices:

1. Ignore the attack, in which case your settlement 'auto-loses' and there is some damage (but no fatalities that I've seen).

2. Respond, in which case the settlement will prove to be completely capable of handling the threat without any intervention by the player!

Just changing option 1 to:

1. Ignore the attack, in which case your settlement _might be_ capable of handling the threat without any intervention by the player.

Would be a great improvement and a good foundation on which to build.

If there is one lesson I've picked up from a couple semesters of training in programming it is: keep it simple, at least to start. Test it, make sure it works with a 'range of values' plugged in. Expand if feasible/desirable/necessary.

A lot of what bob suggests sounds like a great idea, but if it were me, I'd start with just the core of those functions, and then have a planned sequence of implementation for adding the additional features over time.

As far as the algorithm for determining the outcome of an autonomous settlement defense, my inclination would be to start with as simple a structure as possible and make sure it works in various contexts and then expand on it.

Perhaps there could be additional sub-categories in the 'Defense' category. Turrets would have their own category, mobile defenses such as robots will be one, things like spotlights / cameras would have another and the last one would be for special defense such as artillery and whatever else.

The cameras could be viewed and controlled remotely though your pipboy, if the cameras are connected to a terminal with a signal transmitter / receiver and you're in range. When you're using a camera with pan / tilt you can issue commands to robots or companions in a specific base.