One of the major complaints going around is how it is that if the player character does NOT rush to help defend a settlement, it gets trashed in his absence. Him/her and ONLY him/her can avert the trashing. So I'm thinking that at the heart of the issue is how Security is handled at settlements while the Sole Survivor is off adventuring. What if unused Companions (who are stationed at stated settlements anyway) were designated Head of Security for the settlement for which they are stationed? Having a HoS would make that settlement immune to assaults while the SS is absent. After all, what all the attackers have in common is they believe that they can succeed, something they fear is not as likely if the SS is present. But if there is a HoS present, attending to the Security of the settlement as their primary function, wouldn't that be motivation to the attackers to take their assault elsewhere?

Also, a HoS would quash all of those ridiculous, "We're being bothered by ________" or "My friend has been kidnapped!" quests. It would free up the player to actually play the game, ALL of the game, rather than spending all his time being the settlement system fireman.

Problem is that its not so many of them and it will be hard to keep track of them.

On the other hand this might work in default game. Companions are immortal and followers in Skyrim would win any fight if alone in an cell. I left Lydia behind because I was facing an group of high level mages so I ran out to heal.

She came out some seconds later and all the mages was dead, the same who cut her down in two hits.

I've had a similar thought before. However, the way I've thought to handle it would be less along the lines of designating a head of security at each given settlement, and more along the lines of implementing some kind of ranking system within the Minutemen faction. You can appoint companions to command positions within the Minutemen. You could have Colonel Garvey and Colonel Piper, Captain Cait and Captain Curie, and so on. When a settlement defense task triggers, you can command one of them to take a battalion of generic Minutemen/settlers to the location to eliminate the threat. This could be used not only for the '(settlement) is under attack' tasks, but also for the raider/ghoul/super mutant problems and kidnapping at _________ radiant quests. There could be some kind of gamble involved in it. You might run the risk of losing a few of the generic Minutemen/settlers, and you might occasionally still have to go assist them if they get overwhelmed. In the event of this happening, they could contact you over radio. I think something like this would really add a lot of depth to the Minutemen faction as a whole.

Mine are all in Sanctuary, my main settlement, apart from Deacon and Danse for story reasons. Every one of the 33 settlers is kitted out in legendary gear and it has over 700 defence but hasn't been attacked yet :/

My problem is that I can not even order compainons in setlements, Danse is walking around and Preston is farming, I want them on guard duty who makes more sense.

Target practice? Anyone?

Seriously, though...maybe I don't get out nearly enough, but Cait strikes me as being my kind of barkeep - which is what I have her assigned to in one of my larger settlements.

You can assign some companions to do things, but not others. I'm not sure why this is. I can assign Piper to tasks, but not Cait.

I think there should be a more logical solution to the settlement attack problems. Why would a bunch of supermutants stay from a fight only because there is a certain person in the settlement? Who, by the lore, is not invincible and immortal. Then why don't they immediately run when the player materializes? If you want to keep the idea of avoiding attacks, It would be easier if you could just mark a settlement as "not attackable".

BTW I'm not sure wether the "no player - autodestruction" rule is right all the time. One of my settlements got attacked and I decided not to help because I was building something in another settlement as a test and thought I would reload anyway. The result after tedious work was so nice however that I kept playing . When I visited the settlement that was attacked earlier and where I got the "failed" message, all was fine there. Strange, isn't it?

If you are on PC like me, wait for settlement mods, there is already one great settlement raid mod out that uses bat files to generate giant attacks on settlements. I use it because it was so boring when my bigger settlements never got attacked. It will be also possible to label settlements as "safe" by a mod I think.

A little off-topic but don't raiders come if your food/water is higher than your defense?

If so, just build a sick amount of turrets. Don't know though.

I'm not sure. The gossip is that it lowers the chance of an attack but does not make it impossible. On the other hand, I deliberately let my biggest two settlements have more food and water than protection and they never got attacked so far.

My Red Rocket is filled with Piper, Curie, MacCready, Dogmeat, and whoever my current companion.

I always expect to be attacked. Because... well, awesome to see professionals fight together. It's like The Expendables. lol

My companions (sans XX-88, Danse, and Deacon because they are dead, and Preston because I banished him to the Castle) all live in Sanctuary with the other settlers. It hasn't been attacked yet, which I suppose is a sensible thing. A settlement with turrets surrounding it and filled with eight people who could paint fifty shades of red pain on you is not one you'd want to mess with.

I like the idea - but I think it would be nice if, instead of being attached to any given settlement, the little band of beserkers could be remotely delegated with the task of, say, 'Go to Settlement X and see that those raiders have some "FUN!"'

I think that pre-emptive/punitive raids need to be more local to the applicable settlement, much less often and with a much higher level of difficulty relative to the usual clearance of a location. Moreover, I'd like it a lot better if there was some kind of big reward other than the usual haul - maybe an extra workshop/settlement unlocked or something of similar significance, say, clearances on punitive missions resulting in the area/interior becoming permanently cleared - as in a scorched earth kind of mission.

I think kidnappings would be better off as far more rare than pre-emptive/punitive raids on a random but unannounced 6-48 hour timer before the captive gets converted into "organ donations" and make it a forensic mystery with all radiants disabled for the duration so the player can actually focus on figuring things out - before the raiders get so bored they start noticing how shiny those carving knives really are...

I think that these measures, however, will really only be effective in making the radiant quest experience a positive one if the player can choose between attending a settlement defence in person or delegating the attendence to a Squad or Section of Minutemen or to a collection of former followers...

I had a "Failed to defend" from a glitchy synth followup attack. The TOTAL net damage was ONE turret damaged. But that was nonetheless some damage done.

When a "failed to defend" occurs, ALL crops, turrets, generators, water purifiers, and water pumps are eligible to be damaged. However, just which ones and how many seems to be a totally random outcome. [See this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1580450-failed-to-defend-damage-theory/ ] Given so many target possibilities, it is fairly easy to miss some item(s) that may have been damaged.