What is the deal with settlements where you go back there and every single item somehow is broken and needs repair (including the crops!)? I put plenty of defenses around the perimeter, 160+ defense in turrets all around generally and some have more. Settlers are assigned jobs and all that. But I go back and every single turret, every single generator, every single water pump, every single crop, and every single anything else that can be broken needs repair. The settlers are all hanging around doing their thing as if nothing happened. This has occurred several times now and what terrible grind to have to go and repair dozens of items!

But I'm not certain what this is supposed to be in-game? Was the settlement was raided? Maybe an EMP bomb attack? And despite significant defenses? Is this intended to be "fun" and "challenging"? What a drag!

Weird. I've not had that happen yet.

I've got maybe 20 settlements now. I'd say this has happened at least 6 or 7 times now.

I would almost have to think that raids happened, and you didn't get notified since the notification system is quirky.

iv never been attacked dont know why

Yeah I noticed that the data in the pipboy is usually completely wrong. It will say something like I have 0 or 33 settlers, I go there and it is 19 settlers as I would expect.

How do you even repair stuff? I saw the message pop up after I took back a certain fort but everything i had built was brand new and there had been no attacks yet the repair message kept popping up.

The all things broken bug, for me, has always been because of a 'failed' settlement attack i did not fail

E.g. Killed all attackers, but attack still considered ongoing despite no enemy left alive. Because all attackers are dead, when i leave settlement and 'fail' the mission, no settlers die like normal failed defend missions. But every resource object is broken to zero state (defenses, crops, generators, etc)

Am a huge settlement playstyle - and never, not once have i had this all broken bug happen unless the above happens. So on one hamd, the bug is random whenever i happen to get a cursed defend mission i cant win because it never ticks off as complete when last enemy dies (something like 1 out of 10 attacks is this bugged version)

But on other hand, at least it is 100% consistent. I've not had random returns to settlements to find all broken state except opwith above scenario.

highlight it in workshop mode and there should be an option (E) to repair it. I might require resources. When I do it it show resources needed but they are all 0 requirements, so not sure what that means.

Part of the reason why I'm ignoring settlements until I get bored with quests and finish main story. Last thing i have time for is babysitting hundreds of idiotic settlers.

My crops in Sanctuary keep disappearing. I searched the perimeter and found one raider under the bridge so hopefully that fixes this annoyance.

That sheds some light!

It could definitely be that I am not paying attention to alerts as I've only noticed one pop up. Do you have to be listening to the Minute man radio all the time? That would not be fun. Where do you see your current settlement defense requests/quests (settlement actively being attacked)? Are they in the pipboy?

But still I don't get what is the point of installing all these defenses if every thing can be trashed anyway if you aren't there? That would lead me to believe the defenses serve almost no purpose except settler happiness and convenience when you are actually at the settlement, they can kill the random mosquito so you don't have to run out in the swamp and do it. Is that all they do? They don't defend a settlement when you are not there?

That's what I thought but I ran around looking at everything and nothing had the repair prompt highlighted. I only built a generator and some beds and planted some crops although I didn't think to look at the crops. Didn't even know they could be damaged. I will hve to check those out.

have one settlement and noone attacks it? the sanctuary one.

This one is more supposition than my previous 100% consistent issue - but my educated guess from observation is that defenses do help when attacked and you are not there, but are significantly lower impact.

Essentially, a settlement attack is resolved either manually - as in you are present, even if you sit and do nothing while your trruets annhilate attackers - or auto resolved if you do not go.

The one consistent report players as well as I have seen via my own experience is that when attacks are auto resolved 'off screen' - your defenses svck and significant dmg / casualties sometimes up to usually occurs (rate of severity is inconsistent in reports)

My own observation is that heavily defended settlements, while still suffering some dmg and some casualties, seem to have bit better random dice roll or whatever when auto resolved. But this could just be luck so my caveat it is theory only.

The irony is that if i miss or i ignore a settlement attack, the auto resolve makes my defenses svck and therefore i take at least some loght dmg and casualties up to severe, but never 100% all broken.

If i go and fight 9/10 i am ok, wipe the attackers, mission says success and all is well. But as my original reply above, about 1/10 i wipe all attackers but mission gets stuck without completion message and therefore when i leave settlement - all settlers still live, but all items become paper weights.

That makes sense. Is there a way to see current attacks in progress? I mean when I did catch the one attack in progress there was a quick message box popup for a second and that was it! I was lucky to have seen it. Is that all you get in terms of notification if you are not listening to Freedom Radio?

Yes and no.

Yes - for mission type attacks, it triggers a very easy to miss popup message but it does show under quests-misc section as a defend xxx mission.
Problem though is if you missed the very brief popup message, how often are you scanning your pipboy quests tab? So while you can see if any settlements are under attack, it is either a chore you need to constantly check, or you will likely miss it unless random luck has you look at quests tab for another reason and you happen to see the new misc entry.

No- not all attacks on settlements are defend mission attacks, meaning associated with a mission and the bad consequences of failing the mission. Some attacks just happen while you are there in or near your settlement.

These are NOT random encounter cells that got lured into your settlement like for example in sanctuary there is a random spawn point just to the right of the bridge near the water (pov looking direction towards red rocket) for small pods of low tier creatures, usually 1-2 bloat insects right outside your borders. Guards or turrets will an annihilate these suicide bugs but you'll hear the attack siren if you have one, etc.

So that is a normal random spawn that got pulled into your settlement. Another bigger one is the random encounter cell that usually loads raiders just outside red rocket and sanctuary road. But an actual settlement attack is triggered just like a defend mission - one or multiple pods of strong attackers, like super mutants will spawn inside your borders - but there is no mission associated with it and thus no failure consequence other than they will shoot up some crops amd settlers if you dont deal with them fast enough.

These attacks fortunately never occur,off screen. Far as i can tell, it is a random settlement attack triggered only when you are in, near, or just travelled to your settlement. I get them usually when I'm admiring my craft handiwork or just arrived via fast travel. It is not very frequent, but not super rare either

Would like a patch soon to hopefully add an audio cue toggle when settlement defend mission attacks occur (toggle so players can leave off if they prefer) as well as better UI for attack alerts and scanning.

By "quirky" I am assuming you mean "broken", and "useless".

Another important point I noticed in my playthrough - not all the enemies 'attack', as it were.

If I kill all hostiles, and yet don't get credit, I then trawl around the settlement borders (extra attention on the side dead enemies moved through) - in such a situation, there has ALWAYS been at least ONE guy just standing out doing nothing, or slowly wandering in the settlement's general direction. Dispatch the ones dragging their feet, and credit pops up right away.

It's possible you're dispatching everyone actively attacking, yet allowing the layabouts to get away and try for when you're gone.

Same here. I do try to keep my defence level above my food and water level though... I had heard that if you let it drop below either you get raided.... so... I never got raided lol. Let's just say that if they came to my settlements they would probably die of lead poisoning rather than radiation.

I have quite a few settlements and I've only had one attack "quest" notification. Some othertimes I've fast travelled into the settlement and the attack triggered then so the quest haven't had time to pop up. So everything has been fine until yesterday when I got a "help defend *settlement*" quest. But it just bugged out. I travelled there and killed the attackers, talked to a settler about the attack, but still the quest wasn't completed and I suspect if I would have kept playing the quest would have been failed and objects would have been destroyed, to simulate there was an attack when I wasn't there even though I was there and wiped them out. Really annoying bug, but since I've read about it before I reloaded a save before the quest pop up and travelled directly there to kill the attackers before the quest appeared.

So doesn't seem like it matters if you haven't seen and ignored the defend quests since they're bugged and can't be completed anyway. Hopefully this is just a rare occurance though and the quest doesn't bug out everytime.

I wonder if my lack of attacks is a bug itself?

How many settlements do you have? How far are you into the minutemen quests?

Minor spoiler of the minutemen questline -->

How long didn't u have attacks yet? I've had some very late once i had a couple settlements already.

I think there is some time the player can spent in the game without attacks starting.

It also depends if there is something build at a settlement without enough security... why should raiders bother getting that 1 good which is shared by 2 peeps u don't even care about?

If Sanctuary has decent defenses, i don't think u're gonna get attacked so soon.

Just checked my save file... 4 days, 20 hours and 6 minutes lol... I REALLY need to get a hobby.

So yeah, I really wonder if it is a bug that I am not getting attacked.