Anyone had one or more of their supply line provisioners attacked and killed yet?

Have seen mine on the longer runs fire their weapons and chase after flying insects. Debatable behavior running off their safer road path but made me wonder if:

A) when not on screen - e.g. Me in the general area to trigger mob spawns - do supply line provs trigger random encounters? If so, do they fight and die off screen?

B- anyone had one of their provisioners killed and had to re-establish new supply line?

So far just been keeping npc with starter weapon and clothes, but now wondering if I ought to at least gear up my provisioners who are wandering around out there.

Dunno mate, but C'mon gear them up, dont be so tight

Im not sure, but I still didnt see any of my caravans die.

Another question, I have supply lines between Santuary and all my other setlements. Theres any need to build between the other setlements themselves? Like, a suply between Red Rocket and Starlight?

FAICT - single supply line to each is all you need. Long as a settlement is hooked into your 'grid' via any one connectimg line, all are cinnected.

But like you, I use sanctuary as my 'main' base and connect all settlements to it - i store the vast majority of supplies there. It could be all my secondary settlements are drawing only from the main pool of supplies from Sanctuary - and not from the smaller pool at the other locations.

If you use a main base with almost all supplies stocked there, then i suppose whether secondary locs can access each other's supply without direct link is a moot issue.

Its not the equipment budget, obviously have tons of lower grade raider gear can use. Or smith it to even better level and use. Tons of that extra gear.

It's the labor - as it is I already have to micromanage the hell out of my settlers and assignments, with the bad UI and lack of assignments dedicated screen, etc. anything I can skip if not needed is what I'll take until a better mod or bethesda upgrade for managing settlers is available.

understood

can they die?

i thought they would be marked 'essential'

A lot of unique named npcs cant die as they are marked essential. But far as i can tell, you cant send any of them on supply assignment - game greys that out and tells you that npc cant be assigned to supply mission.

So the only npcs i've found thus far i can assign supply runs are generic 'settler' npcs that get renamed to provisioner. When attacked as 'settler' they can positively die as i had one killed by moles before i could rescue her - what i am unlcear on is if provsioners are marked same as settlers, or essential, or if attacks even happen off screen for supply lines

Clearly, off screen base attacks happen, so wondering of that same mechanic happens for supply line. More important, fpr longer supply lines, they move across some sketchy territory and your char will lften encounter your own supply line npc moving from A to B, and your presence within the default cell location will cause other cells to load, including random encounters

I had my prov going to one settlement far north chase after a couple flying insects that had him run into more insects. Not sure what would have happened if i hadnt run after the idiot to save his bacon