How many folks actually wire up their turrets and other defenses up to a terminal?

I know you can modify the turret targeting parameters, disable turrets, etc., as well as modify what the spotlights do.


But when the rubber meets the road, what advantages do these options really provide?


And do tesla traps rigged up to power switches end up being tactically advantageous anywhere other than settlements with VERY predictable directions of attack?

Ive never linked my turrets.

Personally I have my turrets making their own minds up where and when to shoot, also I like to have the turrets covering each other, like in a triangulation, so that no single turret can be easily taken-out.

Tesla traps.... that's way beyond my expertese !

Yes! I have a sky base going at Starlight, all of my turrets, spotlights, traps, etc are wired together, no matter where they are in my base. It all passes through a terminal next to my crafting station. And yes, I use laser tripwires and traps at natural chokepoints, but they are rarely if never triggered. Just there in case. The terminal is VERY important for tripwires... otherwise non-hostiles set them off. And that is very, very bad.

Edit: In case you haven't heard, missile turrets are rarely desirable - they can very easily kill your settlers with friendly fire (because of the blast radius)

You know I had 3 missile turrets set up fairly close to each other on high ground...

I thought these turrets would be invincible.. until I saw a legendary gunner taking them down all together with single grenade thrown... lol

This game always surprises me when I least expect something new.

I've since started walling missile turrets so they only face outside and away from crops, booths, and settlers. My missile turrets weren't killing settlers very often (I think that happened when one of my attacks accidentally clipped a settler, in addition to all of the other damage they were taking), but I wanted to cut down on having to rebuild booths, crops, and scavenging stations.


I make a two-concrete tower, place two adjacent walls together, then a roof, then I get a metal prefab corner piece and put it on top facing the other way. Stick laser turrets facing in, and missile turrets facing out, wire them up, then move the whole shebang over to a critical vantage point.

Yeah, I set my Heavy Laser Turrets in a square around my water purifiers/trading post facing out. They cover a HUGE area! I watched them take down some gunners yesterday, those poor bastards were waaaaaaaay outside the boundaries of my settlement. I laughed pretty hard, all my settlers started running around scared and there were lasers flying everywhere, but no enemies. It was great.

My Red Rock has a perimeter, on the roof, of 14 Heavy Machine Guns. The top of the small house and a platform sport 8 Lasers, above that is another platform with 4 Heavy Lasers. A couple of Shotgun Turrets at my two choke points.

I like it because I can be working away and the Machine Guns go off, I ignore it. Then the Lasers get into the act and I listen a little closer and if the Heavy's go off I'll start to put my work away. The Shotguns going off means there is immediate threats at my door, and it's time to drop everything, and at least watch.

I found the terminals rather useless. I tried to use them to get the spotlights shining again, but they don't work that way.

And why would I ever want my turrets to target myself, or turn them off? To save power? Why it's not like I'm paying the bills.? Seems pointless.


Traps, I tried to use these but provisioners kept setting them off. Abandoned that idea.


I've had much success just walling off the settlement and leaving one entrance, heavily guarded by turrets. Works like a charm, every time.

Folks have wired traps up to those switch posts and waited until enemies were attacking to turn them on.


As for walling off a settlement, I've had invaders spawn inside the walls of my walled settlements too often: I'm only doing it for settlements that tend to get a lot of ambient aggro, like Finch Farm and County Crossing.

Yeah but why bother with traps, and turning it on/off when turrets do a much better job, and you don't gotta mess with them. Seems like 1 more thing I got to worry about.


As far as spawns inside settlements, the only, and I mean only place I ever seen them spawn is Sommerville in the brahmin pen. No where else have I seen this.

I remember raids spawning within the limits of Sanctuary, Somerville (which was mentioned), Hangman's Alley, County Crossing, Nordhagen Beach, Zimonja. I may have forgotten others.

Perhaps it's the way i walled them, or the way others have.

Sanctuary, the back yards on the northern side are outside of the walls. I do often see enemies back there.


Sommerville we covered.


Hangman's, I didn't unlock any doors. I see them in the open sided alley, which is outside the walls. I built a turret tower in the corner there, and enemies spawn in that little nook.


Country crossing, ya know what you're right. There is a guy who spawns in the fields, which are inside the walls.


Nordhagen, never been attacked here. Couldn't say.


Zimonja, made a tower here with a very small footprint, basically the size of the fenced in area. What I do see here is the Raiders I took it from still respawn when I travel in. Not quite the same as an attack.


Oberland, same as CC, I get one guy in the field.


It's the same with any business, location, location, location.


In an effort not to totally derail the thread. I do like to use terminals for decorating, like the barracks, police station, and power plant.

Decoration is a legit use. Plus: video games (if you don't mind them being warpy around the edges, if I recall correctly?).

Mostly I am wondering what I'm missing, tactically, other than knowing they are all networked in a way that sort of emulates how turrets are found elsewhere in the ruins of the Commonwealth.

I'd love to spend a lot more time worrying about defenses, but with enemies spawning inside my settlements, I just don't bother. I build turrets, etc., but I generally keep it pretty simple. If that gets patched, then I'll spend a lot more time with this kind of thing.

A missle turret or two covering the spawn points can shut down an attack before it can start. I have a three story fort at Starlight, with missile turrets on the roof covering two of the major spawn points attacks are usually shut down in seconds.

I liked when the Gunners attacked the Castle in my female toon's game, they led the attack with a Assaultron charging the entrance (I have repaired the walls so there is only one way in), no doubt to attack the generators in the courtyard powering the missile turrets slaughtering the gunners outside the walls. Unfortunately for the Assaultron, there were two shotgun turrets and 4 MG turrets covering that door...it didn't make it in.

I stopped using missile turrets entirely due to the reasons mentioned earlier.

As far as the first question, no, I haven't networked turrets as I didn't see the need. When tactically placed to fully cover each zone of the settlement, there is no need to network.

For the second question, I've never used a power switch for a Tesla trap though it was hooked-up to a terminal with a weight scale trip. Didn't make any sense to wire a power switch into place when the intent was to have it primed 24/7.