I tried doing that, but then I remembered how often I lose my car keys or lock them in the car. I had Triple A on speed dial.

If the problem continues, interact with the settler. You tell them to leave the power armour.

When I have more than one set (unfortunately I had to start again after an IRL drunken rage caused me to be naked in the glowing sea, with NO backup saves) I get a settler to get inside one and assign them to a guardpost.

They only take it if the base comes under attack, not just for funsies.

An Alpha Deathclaw came wandering by The Castle. One settler raised the alarm. The rest circled in the crop area and made no attempt to disperse in a sort of 'Here's lunch, Mr Deathclaw' way. Nobody went for the armour. Yes, the turret-wall took care of the Alpha before he got close but still, alarm sounded, settlers alerted, no attempt to defend.

I at least find justification in building such solid defences at my settlements.

Fusion cores are like car keys....

Yep find a new one, now the power armor won't run out of fuel and the armor won't take damage, put him somewhere you need higher defences cause now you have basicly a defence robot with a lot of health.

I heard that you can pickpocket someone in a power armor and if you pickpocket the fusion core that they have to come out, leaving the frame for you.

No idea if it is true, as I have not done it personally.

But just a thought.

Otherwise... there are lots and lots of easy to get Power Armors. You could just look up how to get a new one.

Also, you should auto save every time you fast travel. So if it happens, just load the last save.

Lol, yea, I'd say that is pretty effective defense there. I've only seen it once myself... Sturges jumped into mine during a super mutant attack, but they had already breached the walls. I have no idea why I bother building gates if the dang things are always left open. I'm slowly learning where the enemies spawn in each settlement.

I didn't manage to activate the castle defenses... damn.

It is not a bug it is a feature. Please Bethesda, do not fix it.

Change it!

Preston stole my power armor when I parked it taking the Castle, and he also took a rocket launcher I stored in the workshop and started point blank firing into a mirelurk. I had to reload a save and start the fight all over again just to get my powerarmor back. >:/

This.

Leave the engine running?

Your fault.

I removed my PA while I was Building at Tenpines. Some critter attacked while I was there and one of the settlers jumped into the suit. When it came time for me to leave, I was expecting a hassle to get him out of the suit. However, as soon as I went to Talk to him, the first dialog was, "I need you to step out of the suit." Didn't even have to select it as a dialog option.

Its not beth's fault your to lazy to remove the FC from a PA your not using or simply ask the settler to remove the PA.

kill him

I made floating power armor stations to stop my settlers running off in my PA. Unfortunately I spotted one of the settlers actually working on a set of power armor as if they were a mechanic. Don't know how they managed to get to it without stairs but they seem to have some mad skills lol. I've since removed all fusion cores. Hope they stay put from now on

It's not lazyness,I just didn't know the settlers were able to take the powerarmor. If I had known that I would have removed all the power cores. What I find lame is that I cannot recover the frames from dead settlers and/or enemies.