Settlement Defense + Minutemen = Fail

[Xanados13]

OK so one of my play-troughs I have about 15 settlements, 90% of settlers are armed with Gauss rifles and combat armor, with fully walled settlements armed with about 200-300 defense rating each.

 

I am using a mod that removes the build limit by-the-way so walls are high, and turrets are buzzing *silently thanks to mods*.

 

Now, the castle has a defense rating of 590 - 26 settlers armed with some even using power armor, castle has repaired walls and a gun turret every meter SO.

 

Now to the point, every now and then you get a 2 second message saying some settlement is under attack and a quest gets added to defend whatever, in this situation it was the castle. Now considering all that I've mention I decided the castle can handle itself, and the minutemen should be able to do their JOB.

 

So I leave the quest and eventually it comes up as failed, I return to the castle, everything is broken and on fire, apparently the minutemen cant do their job, makes me wonder why the f*#@ I resurrected the dumb faction, since apparently I have to babysit every f*#@ing siege that happens, mind you with 15+ settlements I cant immerse myself in something else or focus on a job on the opposite side of the commonwealth without a settlement burning to the ground.

 

Now to that point, is this normal? Cause like are we expected to seriously come to the defense personally for every f*#@ing attack in order to succeed? My castle now has another layer of walls above the walls with even more gun turrets, defense rating is 800+ now, now can that loose? Is there even a point in caring about defense if even there is a small chance of everything breaking, keep in mind when the castle failed it took me hours repairing EVERYTHING something I do not enjoy doing.

 

To the next topic now, a fantastic mod idea is to either have settlers repair anything broken, thus saving you time - that way you can not worry if you get attacked and fail cause at least over time the settlement will be rebuilt the same way you spent hours/days doing. And/or have the minutemen NOT be ridiculously f*#@ing s#*! at there job and have it once a defense rating is high enough settlements always win - cause in the notion of lore and in Preston Garvey's voice, "cause that's how the minutemen can make a difference".

 

Another idea, if anyone remembers the mod from Fallout 3 and New Vegas Enclave Commander, which allows you to deploy 3 squads of x5 or x8 I think it was of troops being of multiple categories anywhere via Vertibird which really was cheating BUT in Fallout 4, where you are a member of a lot of different factions, calling for some real aid is really just lore friendly - in this case I have an idea, when you start bringing the minutemen back and the castle has its armory unlocked you should be able to establish militia squadrons - so if a settlement is under attack you can use an object in your inventory (just like enclave commander) to send a squadron to any settlement on your list of settlements for the duration of the quest in your log ensuring that the quest is successful without you having to do s#*!. This idea of course would allow you to deploy a squad under your command anywhere in the field since your the f*#@en General.

 

All these ideas sound like I wanna be lazy, but I enjoy good immersion and auto repairing and commanding squadrons to me as the General of the Commonwealth minutemen is immersive as f*#@, and pretty much logical in that regard.

 

 

[minc3meat]

Although it's not really immersive, until modders can do more with the release of the Creation Kit, you can use this mod to disable attacks all together so at least your structures and resources won't be destroyed:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4180/?

 

It does make like no sense though. I have like a perimeter wall of missile turrets and still get attacked. :mellow:

[Xanados13]

Cheers for the link, might have to do until the kit arrives, and yeah I have walls of turrets as well, when I get attacked and I'm inside my settlement, every attacker dies without me doing anything, but when I am out adventuring trying to find my poor kidnapped baby and my settlement gets attacked its a major fail... :sad:

[minc3meat]

No problem! There may even be a mod that sets the settlers as essential npc's!

[TheOriginalEvilD]

I've only had the settlement attack message a few times and it was the small little nothing settlements that I ignore. I ended up taking all those people and moving them to my bigger settlements and shutting off the recruitment towers to the smaller ones. Every once in a while I'll check on the Castle and I'll see ash piles laying around but never any dead Minutemen or damage, and the ash piles are always outside the walls. I have the build limit mod also and around 45 people in that settlement, and the walls are lined with alternating laser and missile turrets.

 

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/Fallout%204/2015-12-04_00001_zpscdpg4ggg.jpg

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee275/EVIL85SSP/Fallout%204/2015-12-04_00002_zpssdxl2ywb.jpg

 

 

When the Institute attacked the Castle in the quest line, none of the Sinths made it within about 100 feet of the outside walls, and the ones who teleported inside the walls were slaughtered. I haven't bothered to arm my settlers or even give them armor, I let the turrets do all the work and so far they haven't let me down.

 

[jcdenton2012]

I think it's rather complex, whenever the tool kit finally comes out one of the first alterations to the scripts should be an immersive probability calculator. The calculator will set the raids for random (10 supermutants, or 3 deathclaws, or a synth invasion, or what have you), and your defense values will be weighed against the enemy spawn point. If the calculator thinks a 600 defense weighs against the attack, the attack will fail, and you will later arrive to your settlement to find a mound of dead raiders outside your perimeter... thus reducing this to a gun farming exercise.

 

But, if you have a defense value of 200 weighed against an attack of raiders with fatman launchers, the calculator will determine your loss.

 

The best way of making this work would be to have a long ass script which lists all potential random spawns and their combined attack values weighed against your total defense value. For example, (2 combat shotguns 45+45, plus 4 combat rifles 30x4, plus 1 rocket launcher 80, equals 290), if your defense value is 300 then the attack fails, but if your defense is 250, then 40 points of damage is inflicted to something random in your base. Could be a structure, a turret, or a person.

[frozenkex]

you guys totally didn't use tgm/mod to build, lel. My settlements have 3-5 turrets max, no more is needed. I'm level 70 on survival and never was i like "hmm maybe i could use couple more turrets. It's just i understand how the system works, a lot of people just give bethesda too much credit. They think settlers have some complicated AI, care about how comfy beds are, how loud generators are and how well you decorate - they don't care. And if you ignore settlement attack, the attackers don't destroy your defenses - there are no attackers, the attackers spawn when you arrive, they don't exist otherwise. The game destroys your defenses and resources automatically, that's how it works.

 

I don't think there's even an attack that requires 100 defense... Your numbers are skewed by umm.. cheating, to put it bluntly.

Edited December 5, 2015 by frozenkex

[Moraelin]

Well, yes, there is no doubt that that's how the game works. The problem is that it's not how most people expect it to work, it's counter-intuitive, and it trips suspension of disbelief majorly. If you're content to just play it as a game of numbers, more power to you, but to some of us games have to basically tell a story and sell a fantasy. And it has to feel like a believable and consistent world. It also helps if what it makes me do feels like it does something in that world.

 

Beth's defenses are basically exactly none of that. The game gives you the tools and even tells you to do X, but then X doesn't actually work that way. Or really as anything more than just a number to compare to the sum of the food and water production. You could build your turrets in a basement, and pretty much they'd help just as much.

 

As storytelling goes, that mechanic is an epic fail. Shaka, when the walls fell. It fails to tell a believable story of how that happened. It feels exactly like a random numbers roll game, completely disconnected from reality, and THAT is the whole problem.

 

And I don't just mean if I failed to go there. The biggest fails actually are those when I do get there to help defend.

 

E.g., ok, how did that attack start? I've had raiders spawn inside one of the houses in the frikken middle of a house in Hangman's Alley for example, completely bypassing all perimeter defenses. Did those guys paradrop there, or WTH? How did that work?

 

I was actually looking forward to the whole settlement defense thing, but not when it just trips suspension of disbelief.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

you guys totally didn't use tgm/mod to build, lel. My settlements have 3-5 turrets max, no more is needed. I'm level 70 on survival and never was i like "hmm maybe i could use couple more turrets. It's just i understand how the system works, a lot of people just give bethesda too much credit. They think settlers have some complicated AI, care about how comfy beds are, how loud generators are and how well you decorate - they don't care. And if you ignore settlement attack, the attackers don't destroy your defenses - there are no attackers, the attackers spawn when you arrive, they don't exist otherwise. The game destroys your defenses and resources automatically, that's how it works.

 

I don't think there's even an attack that requires 100 defense... Your numbers are skewed by umm.. cheating, to put it bluntly.

 

I make a lot of turrets because I like a lot of turrets. You're just jelly.

[sumoftwosins]

A few things that I have noticed.... Defense isn't just for "Help Defend" alerts.

 

1. If you defense is lower then your food and water combined, you are more likely to get attacked.

(24 food 40 water = 64 resource and only 30 def will result in more attacks)

 

2. If you fail to defend a settlement, the damage done is based on your defense value ratio.

(Few defenses and all generators, water filters, and food will need to be repaired - Lots of def and you will not need to repair as much. I think it also determines how many settlers are killed, but I haven't confirmed this)

 

3. Enemies spawn if you are in range of the settlement. If you do not go, it's all just number rolls or RNG. You only have to be nearby for the spawn to trigger. I was at Red Rocket and the attack started at Sancuary.

 

And a comment as to why do you need a lot of defenses even though you have to help defend? Well there are other world events taking place. Not sure if it was a bug, but a caravan was being chased by Synths and they fled to my settlement and a shootout took place between my settlement and the synths. So I was happy we helped out the Caravan.