After yesterday's play session, I got quite annoyed with the frequency of the kidnapping missions.

Everytime I tried to do something, anything, there was a message about a kidnapping.

The first few times I went and defeated the kidnappers, but that got tedious by the 3rd hour of gameplay.

The next 3 hours I just paid the ransom.

After the 6th hour of this nonsense, I decided to codeblock it and just not hand the mission in to stop the next one from happening.

Can anyone explain why the game kept giving me them non-stop?

I'm theorizing it is linked to the cleared tag being removed.

That happens when enemies respawn in a particular location and to remind you of that, there is a kidnapping.

Another theory is that the kidnappers target Settlements without barricades.

Every kidnapping occurred at a Settlement that wasn't surrounded by walls.

And now I'm questioning why I bothered building guard stations and machine turrets ?at every Settlement if those defences don't prevent this from happening!

I'm always getting the exact same 2 Minutemen missions with my first character: Ghouls at Sanctuary Hills, Raiders at Abernathy Farm. When I complete them and turn them in, Preston gives me the exact same 2 again. Did them six times each in a row before giving up.

With my second character it's always Raiders at Tenpines and Ghouls at Sunshine Tidings, same thing: no matter how many times I complete them it's always the same ones Preston gives me.

Yeah every time I walk near Preston he starts "there's another settlement that needs our help" and I keep on walking. I really just wanted to get the castle quest and I can do it now so I really don't need the MM anymore.

I wonder if like some of the area's I can take the Castle without even joining the MM, or is that somehow locked unless I go through them?

It got to the stage where there are only so many raiders/kidnappings at Tenpines before you go completely mad. Eventually I just did their quest but didn't turn it in, if you turn it in you just get another (possibly at the same place grrrr).

Seriously, there should be a radiant quest checklist, and it only does one of each, and never repeats. Raiders at the mill? I just cleared that place out for you ten minutes ago ffs

Also "someone in Santuary needs your help"... walk to person three paces away.. "did the minutemen send you?" "press SARCASTIC button desperately" lol

I think these quests are supposed to be repeatable. Like the "dailies" in an mmo. If you don't want to do them anymore, just stop.

It must be random, I have only had one kiddnapping, for me it is Ghoul infestation. Seems like I have been asked to clear out at least a dozen, I am begining to think I have somehow been transported to the "Walking Dead" world.

Unfortunately, you can't get access to the work shop in a given new settlement location without doing the MM quest associated with it. I am mostly doing them so I can have multiple locations for:

Otherwise, I am beginning to ignore the "hurry they need help" stuff. I get those every time I go to castle, and Preston stuff every time I go to Sanctuary.

I am very close to abandoning both Sanctuary and Castle as main bases of operation, and developing Red Rocket where I can live a life of leisure without being constantly begged to do something. I am seriously considering not even attracting any settlers there so it will be just me and Dogmeat.

Kidnapping isn't my most frequent, but the others are just as annoying at this point.

That's not true. I had full access to the farm West of Sanctuary by just fetching something for them. I hadn't joined the MM yet and no mention of the MM was made. After I returned the item I was able to take anything on the farm and built turrets around the place. It wasn't until much later that I actually said I'd help the MM and started getting quests from them.

EDIT: I'm living at RR now. I did restart because I had got some settlers and they just kept getting in the way. So now it's just me and my lover Cait ... and that damn dog.

oooh... didn't know that. Maybe it is just the ones that are over-run and you have to clear them via a quest. I didn't recall gaining access to any workshops without some form of MM quest involved, but have done so many at this point it is a bit of a blur.

I suspect that I am ultimately going to live at Red Rocket.

I love that dog, by the way!

I have only had one so far with over 4 days worth of game time.

i got given one for County Crossing early on, picked it up at the settlement but then forgot to do it not realizing there was a timer on it and got a message saying it failed. Haven't had any more since but then I always go help defend settlements if I see the message and haven't expanded many of them (Just The Castle, Hangman's and Starlight) but have put loads of turrets up

In universe maybe it is the most reliably lucrative

If raiders merely raid, they damage their cash cow.

If raiders take over and tax protection money, someone stronger can come by and kick them out.

By kidnapping this way nobody has to get hurt, the money keeps flowing. Unless a heroic rescue in power armor arrives

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but if I don't get the quest from Preston it's still "active" (i.e if I go to that settlement the settler walks up to me and tries to give me the quest anyways), and if I don't do the quest the settlement's happiness keeps dropping until it hits 20%. Kind of annoying.

I've never been willing to test it, but I think if you don't rescue the NPC or pay the ransom, you lose a settler.

I disregarded the message once and a follow up message an hour later said the settler I didn't save had been executed.

And it's not really like a daily mission, not when it's being granted non-stop every minute of the game!

I am aware that the Fallout game is running in compressed time, but they have to make some allowances for the fact the player is playing in realtime!

Is it possible that these are related to having a low defense score compared to your food/water output? I tend to go a little...overboard...on defense at my settlements and I've only had to deal with kidnapping twice. Both times, now that I think about it, seem to have been when the settlements were growing and I was adding more food, but not upgrading the defenses. It's likely that my food/water total passed my defense score.

I hadn't thought of that possibility.

Now that you mention it, most of the targets are farms or water production facilities.

But I don't have the resources/perks to build heavy defenses at the moment.

They get one, maybe two guard posts and a pair of Heavy Machine Turrets because that's all
I can build.

I don't have Heavy Laser Turrets or Missile Turrets unlocked yet.

Is there any way to get Minuteman patrols to defend these outposts?

I've only seen a patrol group once, when a settlement was attacked, so I'm not sure if there is a way to control when and where they appear.