Changes to the Settlement Defense Mechanics

[Slythe01]

I'm sure some of these have been mentioned in various other posts, but I wanted to compile a short list of some very simple changes I'd like to see to the way settlement attacks are handled.

 

- Whether one of your settlements is attacked should not be based on its defense rating, but rather either completely random or based on some other factor like the "attractiveness" of the settlement. Helping defend a settlement and watching your settlers and turrets in action is great fun and shouldn't become less likely the more defenses you build.

 

- When a settlement is attacked, the notification message should be made much more obvious so you can't accidentally miss it (which I have).

 

- Attackers of a settlement should never be able to spawn within the confines of the settlement building area, which negates the strategic placement of walls and other defenses. This of course wouldn't apply to creatures like radscorpions that can burrow up into your settlement.

 

- How well a settlement is able to defend itself should not be dependent on you helping in the defense. When a settlement is attacked, sometimes you're in the mood to go help, and other times you're busy and can't be bothered. If you choose not to help in a settlement's defense, then the game should just do some sort of simple calculation where it compares the "power" of the attackers with the total defense of the settlement (number of settlers plus defense rating), or something similar, with a little randomness thrown in.

 

Any and all comments on these suggestions are welcome.

[SirTwist]

I already have a great mod idea on settlement defenses. Actually, it's several mods, all tied together. To nutshell my idea, and a quick, brief, overview, let me break it down for you. And add some new ideas that pop in my head.

1) Have an Armory that you place armor and weapons in. Assign a settler to it, and they will make sure all other settlers get the armor, at least. The weapons, everyone gets at least a pistol, and trades in their crappy pipe pistols. When you upgrade a weapon, and place it in there, all other weapons get upgraded. Guards, provisioners, etc. can get upgraded laser pistols/rifles, and even plasma weapons, as well as the option to use power armor.

2) Every settlement has a ham radio, and can call on outside help, from either BoS or Minutemen, if you choose to tell them sorry I can't get there in time. Their choice as to who helps out.

3) The option to upgrade the settlement turrets based on your perks/skills level. This would be a 3 tier, maybe system. The machine gun, and heavy machine guns, since they don't need power, would be as heavily armored as can be, but at the cost of say swivel speed. (Might even beat out the missile turrets, vanilla ones.) Armoring, upgrading say the caliber, or other things like that, will depend on skills and perks.

4) This is a separate mod from my armory one. If you place guard towers, the guards are assigned on shifts, not have them stand permanent watches. Even the sharpest person out there gets dull after so long. Any setter assigned as a guard, will patrol in and around the settlement. They will stand watch on the guard posts, then rest, after making sure guard posts, patrols, etc. are set up. (This could all be done via terminal, or even a board of some sort.) There are also provision guards, and even scavenging guards. (The pprovisioning guards would take from the guard pool on a more permanent basis, the scavenging ones would only be out of action for a short time during the day.) (I have a whole mod idea set up for fixing up, cleaning up, etc. a settlement. As well as finding pre-war stuff that can help with cleaning, etc. and perhaps even get some roads worked on, etc.)

 

If I think of anything else, I may include it. But I have some new ideas in here, as well as some I already have either made a request for, or even commented on other threads.

[Athanasa]

I'm sure some of these have been mentioned in various other posts, but I wanted to compile a short list of some very simple changes I'd like to see to the way settlement attacks are handled.

 

- Whether one of your settlements is attacked should not be based on its defense rating, but rather either completely random or based on some other factor like the "attractiveness" of the settlement. Helping defend a settlement and watching your settlers and turrets in action is great fun and shouldn't become less likely the more defenses you build.

All of my yes. I'm (theoretically speaking) hopefully working on a mod that adds food storage to settlements, allowing them to feed themselves without always having to farm. Extra food storage makes you a bigger raider target. Having a water purifier makes you a bigger raid target. Having supply caravans between settlements makes you a bigger target ("Hey Facesmasher, who does that delicious looking Brahmin belong to?"). Purposefully pissing off raiders makes you a bigger target.

 

- When a settlement is attacked, the notification message should be made much more obvious so you can't accidentally miss it (which I have).

Already existing mods for that. Actually, I've had it so long that I forgot it wasn't in the vanilla game.

 

- Attackers of a settlement should never be able to spawn within the confines of the settlement building area, which negates the strategic placement of walls and other defenses. This of course wouldn't apply to creatures like radscorpions that can burrow up into your settlement.

Yup. "Hahaa, I've walled it off except for this tunnel of death to funnel all the enemies into!"

GAME: "I see you left this one area empty. Allow me to use it to teleport enemies right into your base."

 

- How well a settlement is able to defend itself should not be dependent on you helping in the defense. When a settlement is attacked, sometimes you're in the mood to go help, and other times you're busy and can't be bothered. If you choose not to help in a settlement's defense, then the game should just do some sort of simple calculation where it compares the "power" of the attackers with the total defense of the settlement (number of settlers plus defense rating), or something similar, with a little randomness thrown in.

Something like a percentage visible on the map when you mouse over Settlements? It'd maybe need to be something quite primitive, like a D&D Esque dice roll, otherwise the internal calculations for working out actual battles without you being there might have horrible impacts on performance.

Also, failing this RNG check should not have a binary result: It should not be "Everyone fine!" and "EVERYONE DEAD!". Depending on the differences, you might have multiple different results. Eh, let's pretend it's a D20 based pen-and-paper RPG. Your base has a Defense number, the raiders need to roll something to harm it.

Raider's Attack: 1d20+2

Your Base's Defense Value: 26 (result required to wipe out your base completely), 22 (wound many settlers) 14 (wound some)

Under 14: If the raider's roll comes up as UNDER 14, they do absolutely nothing to their base. Given that their mid-point of roll is 10+2 (12), it's more than a 50% chance that they won't do anything.

14 to 21: Any result between 14 and 21 has the potential to kill or wound some Settlers. It's about a 40% chance that some settlers die/are wounded.

Wipe Out Value: The value required to WIPE OUT your base is 26. The absolute most the Raiders could roll is 20+2, 22. There is no way this band of raiders raiders could wipe out your entire base.

Highest Value the Raiders Can Manage: However, 22 is the point they need to wound or kill many of your settlers. This roll IS reachable, with a 5% or 1 in 20 chance.

Natural 20s: Say you make a base completely un-killable. Like you make the base defense score 40 or something. I feel that, maybe, the Raiders managing to roll a 20 should result in SOME deaths / wounds, regardless. Just enough to keep you on your toes. Besides, you can repopulate those 2 guys that died easily.

Of course, the more defences you build, the higher your defence score. This doesn't stop Raiders raiding, it just makes them less likely to be able to harm your settlement.

 

Any and all comments on these suggestions are welcome.

 

 

I already have a great mod idea on settlement defenses. Actually, it's several mods, all tied together. To nutshell my idea, and a quick, brief, overview, let me break it down for you. And add some new ideas that pop in my head.

 

1) Have an Armory that you place armor and weapons in. Assign a settler to it, and they will make sure all other settlers get the armor, at least. The weapons, everyone gets at least a pistol, and trades in their crappy pipe pistols. When you upgrade a weapon, and place it in there, all other weapons get upgraded. Guards, provisioners, etc. can get upgraded laser pistols/rifles, and even plasma weapons, as well as the option to use power armor.

Dump all your additional loot into your Armory and have the Settlers sort it themselves.

 

2) Every settlement has a ham radio, and can call on outside help, from either BoS or Minutemen, if you choose to tell them sorry I can't get there in time. Their choice as to who helps out.

I really like this idea, especially involving the BoS. After all, they did say they wanted to win hearts and minds. What could be more badass than seeing Vertibirds strafe supermutants attacking your settlements? Plus, it adds some flavour to faction / quest choices.

 

3) The option to upgrade the settlement turrets based on your perks/skills level. This would be a 3 tier, maybe system. The machine gun, and heavy machine guns, since they don't need power, would be as heavily armored as can be, but at the cost of say swivel speed. (Might even beat out the missile turrets, vanilla ones.) Armoring, upgrading say the caliber, or other things like that, will depend on skills and perks.

I sort of like this, although I feel that the unpowered turrets should be early game defences and something you should aim to swap out as early as possible. It's another reason to push you to investing time in scavenging to be able to set up a generator for powered turrets.

 

4) This is a separate mod from my armory one. If you place guard towers, the guards are assigned on shifts, not have them stand permanent watches. Even the sharpest person out there gets dull after so long. Any setter assigned as a guard, will patrol in and around the settlement. They will stand watch on the guard posts, then rest, after making sure guard posts, patrols, etc. are set up. (This could all be done via terminal, or even a board of some sort.) There are also provision guards, and even scavenging guards. (The pprovisioning guards would take from the guard pool on a more permanent basis, the scavenging ones would only be out of action for a short time during the day.) (I have a whole mod idea set up for fixing up, cleaning up, etc. a settlement. As well as finding pre-war stuff that can help with cleaning, etc. and perhaps even get some roads worked on, etc.)

 

If I think of anything else, I may include it. But I have some new ideas in here, as well as some I already have either made a request for, or even commented on other threads.

Yoink! Driveby point grabbing. Can I mash these into my "Mod ideas I can't make" posts? Most of them are already in there. Also, because I've just woken up and am not ready to format a beautiful post, I'll just put my replies in your quote.

 

... and now, back to bed. I'll get the big post thingy edited at some point. I swears, precious! Just a little more sleep.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Athanasa

[SirTwist]

Athanasa, some of the stuff I come up with is either stuff I observe here, in game, etc. Or I think of on the fly. Personally, I want a true overhaul to the settlements, raid, etc. system. What I would like is to sit down at a terminal (this would make the terminals even more valuable in the game than it already is) and have a bird's eye view of just not the settlement, currently, but also potential growth, to make future planning viable. This terminal would also show the settlers, their jobs (if they have one,) set up guards, caravans, etc. As well as tech upgrades for things such as turrets (to a point), armor for settlers, and even weapons. By connecting the terminal to my Pip-boy, that can tell me even more. The caravans can pass along upgrades, changes, etc. as well as "junk." The caravans aren't just one person going out from one settlement to another, it's a team. (Unless it's close, like Sanctuary Hills and Red Rocket truck stop, even then there is at least one or two guards.) I was just thinking about my Armory idea, and basically that's where all "scrap" weapons would get dumped, then sent to the scavenging station to be broken up. New weapons, mods, etc. would not replace current weapons, but would upgrade them, as time passes. (An hour in game time, maybe. The minimum amount to sleep/wait.) The actual building would still take place from the workshop bench. It's just that the terminal would allow for planning, etc. The workshop is where you would actually do the work. And the terminals can also do one other thing, provide intelligence as to what enemies are around the settlement, and give a potential threat assessment. (I'm thinking of drones being brought into the game just for this reason. Sort of like miniaturized version of Mr. Handy/Gutsy that has a stealth field, better optics, etc., and work with the terminal. There can be a few more in the workshop menu you can build, and those can be sent out to do threat assessments, scavenge locations that you have cleared out, and other little things. However, they can choose not to go in somewhere, such as a super mutant stronghold, or something like that. But due to things, they can still circle the area, and provide targeting information to you.)

 

If you can't tell, nearly 3/4ths of this came just from thinking, typing, and a little daydreaming about things. And I come up with a ton more. I have absolutely no idea how much can be done, but it is really nice to dream.

[SlashSgt]

Thing that really NEEDS to be implemented is a system where proper concrete walls (like at Covenant)are added under Defense, the junk fences are updated, and each actually adds to the defense of that settlement. The next part is that, as mentioned countless times, the radiant quests such as kidnappings and raids need to take into account the defense of that settlement. No way in hell are my settlers getting ninja kidnapped from a walled in Sanctuary with 200+ defense. And raiders should be deterred highly from attacking it (unless the simple food+water is greater than the defense).