Settlers ranging far and wide to "defend."

[towguru]

BLUF:

 

Two days ago I started experiencing an annoying issue out of the blue. The vast majority of settlers from every single one of all my settlements (all vanilla settlements - to include Far Harbor) will "run down" enemies across the map -- literally -- at random times to include whether or not they have even been attacked. Examples: I found all of the Supervisor Handys from Greygarden slugging it out with Raiders at the Railroad check-point (post BOS and Institute destruction) just west of Ten Pines Bluff. Additionally all 25 human settlers from Jamaica Plains were swarming around the Boston Mayoral Shelter; the 43 Settlers from Starlight Drive-In took it upon themselves to chase something all the way to a non-descript area just south of the General Atomic Galleria. Only the random guard or two from each settlement stays put -- everyone else takes off.

 

Unfortunately I can never find what it is they are chasing -- although they do engage the randomly spawned enemies along their greatly extended "paths." In the latest occurrence I had just fast traveled to the Concord Red Rocket. Mid way through a conversation with a vendor the settlers started going into their spastic attack posture and shouts. I followed them all the way to Arc Jet building.

 

I killed EVERY single bug and creature within sight all around the cluster of settlers to no avail. They eventually stopped (like always) -- again a ridiculous distance from their home -- and just pointed their weapons in one general direction for hours. This is how these en-masse chases always end. When it happens wherever I am on the map, I get a red "caution" when I crouch, I cannot fast-travel away, sit down or sleep because of the "You cannot do that in combat" type message. I either have to console command my way out of the area or just run in an arbitrary direction for a while to break the "caution lock."

 

It often takes a day or two of in-game time for them to return to the respective settlements. I have not installed any new mods lately (except clothing.) The character is my original level 248 play-through (kept active from the initial release date just to see how high I can get him.) Does any one have any idea why the settlers are roaming so far from home in pursuit of nothing? This is not happening on any of my other characters. I'll assume its a script / papyrus issue but I have no idea how to qualify / quantify that for anyone except for the fact that the settlers are acting screwy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edited December 28, 2016 by towguru

[towguru]

Hopeful bump..

[TheGadget1945]

I had this at Jamaica Plain recently where all 15 settlers came over to help me rake on the super mutants at the scrapyard.

I thought it was pretty damn cool having my own little army and I wish it happened more.

[kitcat81]

Do you have any mods that improve settlers AI? This is something about their detection . It`s also posible that some mod is incompatible with the fallout official update. It happened to me a couple of times when after an official update some mods got broken and started to work incorrectly.

 

Though on my taste the glitch is quite funny...I would not mind to have a mod like this :)

Edited January 7, 2017 by kitcat81

[towguru]

@kitcat81 - No, No AI mods and the kooky behavior started out-of-the-blue quite a bit after the latest official update -- unless I missed one of course. It does indeed add a new dynamic to the game for sure but its still mostly annoying, if only because I cannot control their new found "eagerness" that finds them traipsing across the map into and out of places other folks should be protecting! Thanks

[Gilibran]

That's the first time i hear someone complain about settlers actually doing something ;-) ;-)

 

On an old save, lvl 248, alot of hours, a lot of updates, no settler AI mods, though you do use a mod to increase the number of settlers?

 

Looks to me the save might be getting to big, a corrupted script perhaps. If nothing changed as you say it's most likely something you wil not be able to fix. Dont know if there is a savegame clean tool for FO4 yet?

[towguru]

@ Gilibran - Concur regarding your statement that the save may be getting "too big" because none of my other characters have this problem. After some extensive troubleshooting and research I've decided to just live with it. It is interesting though trying to follow 25+ "Sanctuary" settlers all the way home from the vicinity of Vault 95. Oft times they stop and mingle with those of Somerville Place and then walk off en masse to somewhere else in order to have their own adventures. (Luckily I've set them all to Essential.) It takes me sleeping (or sitting) somewhere for two or three days for the settlers of any settlement to fully return.

[TheGadget1945]

@ Gilibran - Concur regarding your statement that the save may be getting "too big" because none of my other characters have this problem. After some extensive troubleshooting and research I've decided to just live with it. It is interesting though trying to follow 25+ "Sanctuary" settlers all the way home from the vicinity of Vault 95. Oft times they stop and mingle with those of Somerville Place and then walk off en masse to somewhere else in order to have their own adventures. (Luckily I've set them all to Essential.) It takes me sleeping (or sitting) somewhere for two or three days for the settlers of any settlement to fully return.

 

That sounds like a really cool video !