I have read that having multiple scavenger stations in a settlement will produce more resources/junk. I am wondering if there is a cutoff to the amount of scavenger stations before they stop yielding more resources. For instance, if I have 10 active scav stations in sanctuary, will I get x10 more resources, or is there a cutoff at say, 6 stations per settlement - so having anything over 6 stations will produce the same amount of resources/junk? If there is a cutoff of X amount of scavenger station production, I would really like to know that number so I don't over do it. I currently have my scavenger stations spread out through most of my settlements, but it is a pain and too time consuming to go to each of these places for a meager amount of junk collected. It would be much more convenient to concentrate all of my scav stations in one or two settlements.

On a side note, it is nice to have at least one scav station at each settlement, because I've noticed all of them give me a decent flow of bottlecaps.

I wasn't sure what Scavenger Stations do, I had assumed they did gather junk but I didn't know. Either way it's good to know they do gather junk.

but you have to assign a settler to the scav station, otherwise they do nothing but take up space.

Wait. I thought one of the loading screens said everyone not assigned to a task automatically scavenged.

They will scavenge if not assigned but they won't use the station unless assigned to it. The station increases their scavenging haul so it's best to assign them.

Not sure if there is a limit. Official guide doesn't say so but that's no guarantee.

Honestly, they're kinda useless. Unassigned settlers will scavenge as it is if there's nothing to farm. Although the scavenger workstation increases what can be scavenged, the increase is only slight.

You're better off having them farm Corn, Tatos, and Mutfriuts instead so you can make adhesives.

That's why I'd like to know the actual effect of having 5 or 6 stations in one settlement, because I know having multiple stations will yield in more junk/bottlecaps, I just have no idea how much or what the cap is. I've collected so much duct tape/wonderglue bottles from doing missions and wandering around that I'll never have to craft adhesives. Gears always seem to be what I'm lacking the most

The only cap is however many settlers you have not doing other resource work. You have to assign the settler to a scavenger bench and its not an immediate return. Basically every in game day will yeild additional resources than what you would get without your benches.

What ive found is best is to create trade routes linking to your home base (likely sanctuary ) then go to a settlement that you dont go to or use and make as many scavenger stations as free settlers not tending crops. Just make sure you have your crops which 1 or 2 people can handle and then assign whoever is left to the benchs. Whatever they scavenge while you're out will be sent to sanctuary. Only one bench wont help much but I have about 5 settlements with 12+ settlers who almost all are working at benches. You'll find it pretty helpful with the settlements you have no other real uses for.

Is this right? And I have multiple farms and Never noticed extra veggies in the workshop.

I have, and now I know where they came from. I thought I was losing my mind for a moment.

I guess the limit is the number of setellers. You can manually assign each setller to a station. Of course that means nothing else will get done, but I gess you can import sutt form other settelments.

yes, i have scavenger stations and supply lines everywhere, and i never physically harvest anything. Yet everytime i'm in workshop mode i notice I keep having more carrots, corn, etc. to build with. The other day I noticed I had 34/1 carrots in workshop mode so I planeted about 20 of them at the castle, today I noticed I now have 84 carrots available to plant.

Interesting. I have seven of them in Sanctuary and I have settlers assigned to all seven.

Have to say, I am not noticing much in the way of "increased" yield of junk.

Could be that I'm just not giving it enough time though.

I don't either, but I noticed a huge steady flow of bottlecaps. about every full day in the commonwealth world, I get about 80-110 bottlecaps in each of my workshop storages. It's well worth it for bottlecaps alone.

Will have to check that my settlements are auto-harvesting produce! Had not noticed that

While they all have some of each; food, water, scavving etc. I basically have a few settlements set up for specific purposes.

Greentop, Abernathy & Nordhagen are farms, full of mutfruit, tato & corn.

Jamaica Plains, Red Rocket & Outpost Zimonja are scavver towns. Minimal food & water but loads of scav stations.

Sanctuary & The Castle are balanced

I am still not seeing much in the way of "excess food" going into my workshop. For several days I had a ton of excess corn and mutfruit (though not sure how much of that I had put in there myself) but ZERO tato.

I think for quite a while, the problem was that my farmers were harvesting mostly corn (which gives 0.5 food) and ignoring the Mutfruit (which gives 1). I uprooted all plants and then with all settlers assigned to a scavenger bench, I replanted everything in sets of: 6 mutfruit -> assign settler; 6 corn -> assign settler; 6 tato -> assign settler.

What I learned from this is: being able to work 6 crops seems to be just the baseline. Seems if they are happy they can work more than 6.

The UI, and management functions for the settler system really needs some love from Bethesda. It is fully functional but in a bare bones kind of way.

1. It should be possible to highlight a settler while in Workshop mode and immediately see:

A. Bed assigned? Yes/No

B. Job Assigned Yes/No

If No:

i. Idle Yes/No (means no open job slots are available)

ii. Default job title if not idle

If Yes:

iii. Job title

C. Happiness/Farming productivity (e.g., # of crops or # of food points they can work)

Each settler can harvest up to 6 points of food, note that Mutfruit is the only crop that produces 1 point, all others produce 0.5 food. So, a settler can work 6 Mutfruit, or 12 of anything else, as long as they're grouped reasonably close.

I've found it best to keep crops grouped with this in mind; my typical balanced farm is 3 rows of 6 mutfruit each, 2 rows of 6 tato, and 2 rows of 6 corn, producing a total of 30 food.

Also note that one settler can man up to 3 guardposts.

With enough scrapper benches going, I'm finding I can safey ignore most junk I come across, freeing space for more valuable items. I have 6 at several settlements, never seem to lack for anything except oil or adhesive, which I just manufacture.

Anecdotal and possibly incorrrect, but . . . I recall highlighitng a settler and seeing as many as 9 Mutfruits glowing. According to the info tips that display during loadscreens, "happier settlers are more productive" so it would seem to make sense that six food points is a baseline and it can go up from there.

Not saying I'm absolutely sure, but tentatively that is my observation. I'm honestly too busy with school work and just playing the game 'for fun' at the present time to systematically test this stuff using whatever console commands will work.

Edifying to hear that those scrapper benches can produce THAT much!

Seems I need to focus a bit more on organizing my settlements.

So what stuff is 'exchanged' along supply routes? My understanding was that, I. any excess food from a settlement on a route would provide food to other settlements on the route, and also that II. any indivisible junk that is stored in any workshop (meaning raw materials that cannot be scrapped) is available to build with at any workshop on a trade route, however III. Weapons, apparel, aid, miscellaneous are not available and IV. (just guessing not sure) junk that is not already scrapped into indivisible components is also NOT available to build with at any location other than the one where it is stored. V. Also I am fairly certain that items that have been built and stored (structures, machines, furniture, whatever) at a Workshop are only available at that workshop and not any networked workshops.

With this in mind, I have developed a couple of habits:

1. 'making the rounds' to my settlements to collect anything in each workshop and take it back to my main base at Sanctuary

2. running trade routes through GreyGarden, so a typical network would look like: Sanctuary -> Red Rocket -> GreyGarden -> Oberland / GreyGarden -> Covenant -> County Cross -> Nordhagen.

The idea of point #2 being: exchange b/w settlements depends on connection to the network via any number of intermediate connections, and does not depend on a direct connection between two settlements (e.g., a connection b/w Sanctuary and Nordhagen is not necessary to supply Nordhagen as long as some intermediary connections exist) and keeping the connections limited for most settlements reduces overhead.

Possibly happiness increases the number of harvests? May have to test this later.

Junk resources are shared between all settlements connected to a trade route, though they won't physically appear anywhere except their actual location; they will be auto scrapped for building elsewhere. Same for food or water, so you can have settlements that don't actually produce either, but get it from other locations via the supply network. You're correct about constructed items, they are not available at other locations, not sure where they rank on the auto scrapping priority.

I tend to use the "hub" approach, with each hub connected to the next, as well as 3 other settlements; makes it a bit easier to keep track of Provisioners.

Probably have spent more time building settlements and traveling between them shifting settlers, collecting caps, food and water than actually exploring at this point, but I've got a solid base of production and income.

The wikia actually has some good info now, check the "settlements" page, and be sure to scroll down below the charts.

True, but they scavenge more if you have the stations set up.

I have 4 set-up at Sanctuary (somehow I'm up to 28 settlers!) and each has a person assigned to it, but, I'm assuming that there are others scavenging as well.

I never assign anybody to anything except beds (to keep them away from mine) since, apparently everybody defends, everybody works the fields and everybody scavenges no matter what I assign them.

Back on subject: While I can't give actual numbers, it seems like, every time I add a new scavenging station and assign someone to it, my random items brought in goes up about 10 items a day. Of course it's mostly wood or rubber or steel, but, sometimes I'll get other stuff too.

Think you have to harvest them so do every time you return, this makes it smart to have the main farm at your base.

Agree.

That's not true, I haven't harvested anything for a very long time and I keep gaining more and more veggies in my inventory. They don't show up in individual workstations but when you go into build mode in a settlement and select whatever food resource you want to plant, you will notice a surplus of certain vegetables, whichever you have alot of that are being tended to by settlers. I have a lot of settlers assigned to corn and carrots and I constantly find myself having more and more of those two things in my inventory for planting.

Someone in another thread mentioned they assigned Codsworth to Scavenging, but I cannot seem to assign him to anything. Am I bugged or is that normal?