Is there any way around the problem of settlers happiness dropping rapidly for no apparent reason and my having to go visit them to bring it back up again?

Food, water. lighting, stores, defence all way over what they need, and this big drops only started recently.

I'm fed up of visiting the whiny "we can't do diddly squat for ourselves" idiots who constantly let themselves get kidnapped!

What IS their problem grrrrr

I noticed that as well. Ever since automatron settler happiness has been dropping in some areas. Depending on settlement it has been a slow decline and others has been a rapid plummet. Even my 100 happiness settlement which I never bother and hasn't been invaded in over two weeks real time has dropped ten points. I don't know if this DLC did something to the settlement system or I'm missing something but for the most part almost all my settlements has seen some negative impact (save starlight drive-in where I have five of the level four merchants).

Not just me then

The weird thing is Sanctuary, where they have everything ten fold (well that might be a slight exageration), biggest drop has been there.

On my next playthrough I will only have the bare minimum of settlements - all this running around wiping their "noses" for them is getting on my nerves lol

That's what I tried to do this time around. I discovered all settlement locations but most of them are empty. I built out six settlements to my liking and most of the settlements that had pre-assigned settlers (oberland, tenpines, Abernathy, etc.) I sold out to the BOS so I wouldn't have to worry about them.

I'm curious if access to automation affects happiness in settlements where there is none. I started a fresh play through and happiness numbers seemed normal and I started the DLC quest line at about level 17, so I'll keep an eye out for rapid changes and try to see if there is any correlation between the two.

My 100 happiness settlement that stayed that way for weeks has dropped 40 percent since automatron launched this week. If settlement happiness and this DLC are linked somehow, it might make getting benevolent leader trophy even harder.

Ummm, errrr, this is embarrassing..........

The drop in happiness in my game was related to a mod it seems.

When I got the dlc, it seems to have removed the robots I had with made Robot Home Defence (I hadn't noticed).

Made a few Nanny robots etc and happiness returned to normal.

Would have preferred to kept this information to myself rather than embarrass myself like this - but didn't want to mislead folks.

There is something seriously broken about the settlement happiness system indeed. I'm trying to maintain every settlement in the game, and currently it's just plain and simple impossible due the problems with the system. On PS4, so no mods. When taking a look at the settlement status page (pip-boy), it's all over the place. Usually none of the stats have anything to do with reality of things. Still trying, even if it's as usefull as banging my head against a wall.

Might want to http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1599946-so-im-really-about-to-censored-berate-bethesda/?p=25100952, which gives some suggestions on upping the happiness factor of settlers. Hope it helps!