What determines settlement growth?

[Slythe01]

Does anyone know the exact mechanic the game uses to determine when and at what rate new settlers join a settlement?

 

I've played through about half the game a couple times now, on my third go now, and the last two times immediately after building a beacon in Sanctuary I get one or two settlers and then it stops. I've tried advancing the game a few days, and scrapping and rebuilding the beacon, still no new settlers.

[Slythe01]

bump

 

Sorry just very curious about this

[Darkangel13]

Charisma. it is 10 + (1 x CH) also for the settlers to arrive you need enough food and water. SO if you CH is 4 then you can expect 14 people. Make sure you have at least 18 water 18 food and 36+ defenses. Using CH enhancing Items or drugs will increase the settler limit.

[TheGreenLion]

One trick you can use (after knowing the above info), is to make a Recruitment Beacon at an unpopulated Settlement. It seemed (to me) that the game forces a Settler to it faster than a populated one. Send them to the one you want them to be at and you should get another Settler or two fairly soon.

 

I used Sunshine Co-op as the 'dummy' Settlement to draw them in, since you have to make a beacon there anyway. The rest is a waiting game, but that *should* speed it up a little.

[hairlessorphan]

The way the script works: the first time you build a beacon, you will immediately get 1-3 settlers. It's a special one-shot trigger.

 

After that, there's a daily chance for each Settlement based on Settlement happiness. You get a bonus to your recruitment chance if you have less than five settlers at the Settlement.

 

There are also two limiters on recruitment. One is the well-known Charisma + 10 population cap. The other is a hard-coded number of five unemployed settlers. If you have five unassigned settlers, you get no more recruits. So give them jobs.

 

Exact formula, in English:

 

for each Settlement: if you have a beacon there, your unemployed Settlers there is less than five, and your total population there is less than max (CHA + 10), then

your base chance of getting a Settler = 10% + (happiness / 2)%

if you have less than five Settlers, you get an extra 10% chance for each Settler less than five (i.e. 4 settlers = +10%, 3 settlers = +20%, etc...)

Edited January 9, 2016 by hairlessorphan

[TheGreenLion]

Wow, thanks for that bit of info! :thumbsup:

 

Didn't know there was a penalty for having Settlers blobbing around, always left some unemployed to wander so it felt more lively during 'work' hours.