Settlement Defences

[stebo104]

Anyone got some advice on how to setup defenses of settlements, namely the smaller ones or ones would rarely go to. Settlements I normally use are Sanctuary, that drive-in movie theater (can't think of name) and The Castle. Most the others I just put basic stuff down and load up area with turrets, yet keep getting pawned by raiding parties, I thought about using walls and such but I don't know. I just started in Nuka World and haven't been to Far Harbor yet, so I don't know about any of the settlements in those 2 zones yet. So would someone mind giving me some pointers. I do have a few settlement mods: Homemaker, Settlement Supplies Expanded, Robot Home Defense. I do have Snap'n Build but I got to fig out why it's causing me to CTD when I have it turned on.

[Stargazer09]

My guess is that these are instances where you've decided not to personally defend the settlement, or took too long to respond to the attacK?

 

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, how the game determines whether the raid is successful when you are not present to help defend it is a roll of the die, i.e. abstracted. Basically it uses the defense rating of that settlement vs what-I-don't-know to determine success or failure. Therefore what counts in such instances is the total defense rating, not however many turrets you've built. Of course turrets contribute to that statistic, but so do guard posts, MM artillery and so on. This also means that walls make absolutely no difference in this scenario as they don't have any defense stat.

 

Now when you are there to help defend it, then turrets play more of an impact as the raid is actually played out. Placement of turrets is important as they contribute direct firepower to help defeat the attackers. Placement and the type of turrets then become important. You want to place them to cover killing zones with fields of fire, and if possible elevated (I place mine on rooftops and elevated platforms made from scaffolding). Every settlement has spawn points for the raiders which as it implies are where the attackers spawn when you are there when the attack happens. You want to be covering those. So you want turrets scattered all over the settlement to help defend. In this case walls do make sense as you can channel the attackers into your kill zones and it makes the battle much easier. Unfortunately some spawn points are *inside* the settlement i.e. inside the green wall that demarcates the buildable area so you need to figure out where the spawn points are for each settlement and layout your defenses accordingly.

 

Another trick I use is to arm your settlers with decent weapons and armor, I use the items I loot off dead bodies. Plus your efforts, defeating attacks is usually a breeze. The only difficulty I can remember in defending a settlement is one such attack when I fast traveled to help defend a settlement and spawned in the midst of a group of Super Mutants all of which naturally aggro'd on me.

 

Which brings me to my next point. When you get the notification and decide to fast travel to help defend the settlement under attack, apparently the game takes travel time into account so when you spawn after fast traveling you may well find raiders or whoever well inside your settlement instead of at the spawn points. So this negates the usefulness of walls to a large extent.

 

So to sum how I play it:

1. arm my settlers with the best weapons and armor I can loot

2. place turrets not only at the perimeter but also within the settlement

3. build guard posts and artillery if space and settlement population allow.

4. I try to get defense rating above 100 (over time). Every time I pop by a settlement I improve it including defenses.

 

You may find this video instructive:

So far I've not had any experience that contradicts what the maker of the video is saying about settlement attacks.

 

You may also want to grab this mod which amongst other things, will be able to mark out the spawn points for attacks: Settler Management Software

 

Recently I went Croup Manor to defend it against raiders. As I was nearby I decided to hoof it there. By the time I made to the settlement proper the attack was over and all the raiders dead, I didn;t even fire a shot.

 

Hope this helps.

[snapper69]

I use walls around my settlements with VERY well defended access points and a variety of turrets up high plus a mod that stops attackers spawning inside the settlement. Well armed defenders top it off. I seem to recall that when you get the notification, if you open the pipboy and find the defend mission, you can untick it and delay it, but I could be wrong, it's several weeks since a played, thanks to a Windows crash that resulted in a reinstall of Windows 10, Fallout 4 and NMM. Whilst my mods were on a separate drive and still there after the reinstall, NMM won't see them and I can't be arsed at the moment to reinstall them.

[Vormina]

If you wall in your entire settlement the mobs will just spawn through at random points, if you leave large gaps they will enter through those allowing you to make kill zones. Like Stargazer said, you also want turrets scattered inside too. Once you identify where spawn points are inside certain settlements you can easily make kill zones there too. Keeping your turrets elevated keeps them out of reach of melee attacks.

 

I like to use the Advanced Bubble Turret Set mounted on the underside of Homemakers elevated platforms because they use passive power like lights do, don't need direct power lines.

 

I also use Snap & Builds industrial set to make elevated walk ways along the perimeter and place guard mats along them and arm the guards with high powered sniper rifles. Each guard will use 3 guard posts and if you have like 4 guards and 12 guard posts they will "patrol" between them all.

 

There are a few settlements where the spawn points are tied to the fast travel mat ( LOL don't know what Bethesda was thinking), I forget which ones, Egret Tours Marina is one I think, I always place my mat in the middle of a group of turrets, works great.

 

At Outpost Zimonja one of the spawn points is right on the workbench, I build a wall around it with several turrets pointed at the door. ;)

 

The Slog needs a lot of defense as the Forged almost always aggro on any kind of ruckus, especially with provisioners. The walls I build there look like a side view of The Flying Dutchman. lol

 

All my settlements have expanded borders so my defense is usually 500-1000+, I just show up, listen to the fireworks show, then run n loot. The body piles are almost always in the same places so that's where I concentrate my turrets.

[Moraelin]

Alternately, since the maximum attack power is 150, and without mods to change that, you'll ALWAYS win an attack if your defense number plus number of settlers is greater than 150. That is, if you don't show up at all.

 

Some stuff will get damaged, but it'll get slowly repaired by the settlers. Your workshop resources won't get plundered though, and nobody dies.

 

Since you mention that these aren't exactly settlements you visit lots, well, this might be a way to visit them even less. If that's your thing.

 

Vormina is right about the whole walls and chokepoints, though. Remember that not only your companions teleport if they can't pathfind to a location, but NPCs can do that too. If they don't have a way into the settlement from the normal spawn point, they'll spawn right inside it.

 

BUT, and this is a big but: That applies ONLY IF you plan to show up to defend. If the attack happens in your absence, it doesn't matter at all where the defenses are, whether you have walls at all, etc. You could have all turrets inside a locked barn, and the attack in your absence is calculated just the same.

[Moraelin]

Speaking of which, if you can't be arsed and just want your settlements to survive, you can just download the advanced turrets, or whatever it's called. Those provide large amounts of protection, so it doesn't take many to get over 150. And if placed strategically, they can still own when you're there.

 

Another good idea is to take the robot home defense mod and build some robots. The heavier combat ones can fight really well, and unlike a turret, they're mobile. You don't have to place one at every spawn point. They'll just move to where they're needed, when a fight starts. And as a bonus, the utility robots can provide a bit of happiness for your settlers too.

 

While we're at mods, also for the case you wish to actually show up and fight, and plan your defenses for that, I'd suggest you grab the Settlement Management Software mod. It shows you where the enemies will spawn, so you can plan your defenses accordingly.

 

Bear in mind, though, that

 

A) they can move a bit towards the centre, so don't take those points as gospel, and

 

B) those are only for defense quests. If an enemy patrol happens to walk by when you're there, or a group of nearby supermutants aggro on your supplier and follows him to the settlement, or such, well, those don't spawn at the attack positions.

 

You'll get to learn where those usually come from, though, the hard way. Plus, some can be kinda foreseen. Like, you can know that a supply route from finch, depending on where it's going, can aggro the Forged or the mutants at the sat array.

[cossayos]

Settlement defences only make sense if the attackers don't spawn smack in the middle. I've made good experiences with the Settlements attack beyond mod. Walling settlements in and giving them strategic defences at your entrances actually makes sense when using that mod. In the game's vanilla state and the areas the mod doesn't cover as of yet, only the defence score really matters. The higher, the unlikely an attack.

[Moraelin]

By the way, if you go robot home defense, be warned that sometimes they chill out outside the buildable area. Well, if they had to chase off someone attacking the provisioner or such. So you may not be able to scrap them. IF you ever want to scrap them, that is.