Scavenging Parties

[HoleyGrail]

I have been trying to think of an immersive way to improve scavenging for materials to build settlements in Survival Mode, and this is what I have come up with.

 

A mod that allows the ability to draft settlers from an owned settlement into a scavenging party. There would need to be two dialogue options: 1) "I need you to join my scavenging party." option to enlist a settler into the party, and 2) "Head for home." option to send the settler back to the settlement where they live.

 

To tie it into the game and keep immersion intact, the option to join a scavenging party should only be available to settlers that are assigned to a scavenging station. Any player can add one scavenger to a party, and each rank in the Local Leader perk adds the ability to increase the party size by one (with the max party size being 3 - excluding the player and vanilla companion.)

 

Then, as you scout around, you can add junk items to the scav party members inventories (which is already possible), then use the dialogue option to get them to "Head for home." when their inventory is full. When you issue that command, they leave the party and head for their assigned settlement. They then deposit their junk items into the settlement's workshop and go back to their regular duties tied to the scav station.

 

To balance the risk/reward there should be the possibility of random encounters while in a scavenging party, which scale to the party size. Scav party members should also be mortal.

 

Does anyone out there think this might be a possibly good idea, and have the ability to do it?

[HoleyGrail]

Gratuitous bump... haven't lost hope someone can implement a mod like this.

[Loxly]

You have several options currently:

 

General of the Army, once you have Local Leader 2, allows you to recruit Settlers to travel with you. You can also "craft" [ie: spend caps and other supplies] members of factions you are aligned with that will travel with you too. I believe you can have more than one travel with you. Though I may have a mod that increases companion numbers. However, I don't remember if you can send them back to your settlements or not.

 

Personal Pack Brahmin is a mod when you can, again, "craft" up to 4 Pack Brahman to travel with you. The more you increase their carrying capacity, the slower they move. They can be sent to any settlement to drop off stuff and return to you. Also, they can be made mortal, so you might loose what you sent with them.

 

Robot Home Defence allows you to craft robots to serve as defense on your settlements, but you can also bring more than one of them with you. IIRC, these Robots are mortal and you can send them back to a settlement like any other companion.

 

Automatron - Unlimited Custom Robot Followers allows you to bring more of the robots you make with the Automatron Robot Construction Station, but you need Robot Home Defence for it to work. This mod basically gives the Automatron Robots the same functionality as the Robot Home Defence ones.

 

Craftable Collection Beacons allows you to place a beacon out in a container anywhere in the Commonwealth and send it's contents to the Workshop of a settlement you control. You have to have at least one settler somewhere and Local Leader 1. You also need to clear out the area of baddies and then wait 24 in-game hours for the stuff to show up. The idea being, one of your Provisioners swings by to get the stuff for you.

 

Better Settlers and Don't Call Me Settler both can be used to give regular settlers mortality.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Loxly

[HoleyGrail]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had heard of most of those but they just didn't quite fir the bill. The only one I hadn't heard of is Personal Pack Brahmin which is probably closest to what I am after and I will give it a shot.

 

In my original suggestion, I just liked the idea of making scavenging stations and settlers assigned to them more viable from an immersion standpoint, I would feel more invested in making sure a human settler didn't get taken out by raiders as opposed to a brahmin... when I can just whip up another one. The loss of the materials on the beast does add some risk/reward aspect to it, though. I'll give that one a shot, and thanks again for the suggestions/links.

[Hecateus]

Perhaps like the Flaregun, but whatever instead summons scavengers. In either case it would be nice if they could have a conversation option to occupy a spot. Minutemen will guard a [CLEARED] area, and prevent reoccupation by mobs. The scavengers will add to scrap collected at the nearest settlement.