To wall or not to wall

[Surliman]

Hi gang,

 

What are your opinions on building walls around your settlements? I've heard conflicting stories on attacks. That even with a high defense attacks occur, but others say not. That they spawn inside so walls are useless. Now, I've never seen an attack not come from outside the settlement area so far. But without a firm handle on it, I hate to use the resources to build said walls. They use a lot of wood, steel and/or concrete which I can use in more useful ways. Are Bethesda Hypocrites? LOL ...I mean Megaton and Diamond City and many other major areas that they create themselves are heavily fortified. But we can't do the same???

 

Just curious. On this play thru I am ready to fortify Sanctuary but not so sure it's necessary.

 

[TheGadget1945]

If you build a wall a few yards inside the build limit at Warwick Homestead the attackers will spawn outside it. I usually line the top of the wall with Gauss bubble turrets and by the time I get there the attackers are mostly dead.

[jkruse05]

Spawning within your walls seems to have less to do with where you build stuff within the settlement (i.e. where your walls are), and more to do with which settlement you are at. Some settlements have enemy spawn points placed in the middle of them, like Egret Tours Marina. Use Attackers - Get Off My Build Zone to make sure they appear outside your perimeter, whether you have a wall or not. There's also More Attackers - Get Off My Buildzone if you want the attacks to be just a little more intense.

[LucidLady]

Every settlement has a set number of specifically placed spawn points.

Those spawn points are the same for every game, and never change.

In a small settlement, like Hangman's Alley, you can easily learn where exactly the spawn points are. Only one spawn point is within the build zone. So it's common to set traps up right there.

 

Now, on some settlements you can build walls and the enemies will legit never get in.

But on others, like Oberland Station, there's a spawn point that is right splat in the middle. So, walls or not, the enemies are going to spawn right in the middle of all your s#*!.

 

So basically, learn where the spawn points are and either try building your valuables accordingly.

Or, don't learn where the spawn points are - build wherever you want, put up walls, and just hope you didn't build surrounding a spawn point. Nothing wrong with that.

 

Personally, the way I like to build is lots and lots of walls and corridors.

With turrets placed purely to shoot anything that may make it within the walls.

Oh, but one thing is sure. No matter what, you will always get attacks. Regardless of any walls you do or don't build.

Having a super high defense can help, for sure. It does deter attacks, up to a certain point. At some point, you're just going to be wasting materials by adding more defense. Walls don't count as defense, unless of course you're actually physically at the settlement during the attack. In which case, they can be very effective and fun to stand on top of and shoot over.

 

Basically what you want is just 1 defense for every water, bed, and food your settlement produces.

Also, make sure you take all the food and water out of your settlement workbench.

If you have hundreds of water in your workbench, even if your settlement produces no resources on it's own, the attackers will come for it.

[Macrophobic]

It's funny, cause fences won't really protect your settlement from attacks from outside, but surrounding mid-sized settlements with walls may help keeping the settlers inside.

 

I usually surround my settlements with long (and tall, but this depends on hight limit) buidings with turrets on 3rd/4th floor. First floor might be used for workbenches or bathrooms, second floor - some extra space for beds, third floor - generators to power the turrets. As for smaller settlements - I just turn them into buildings, to use as much living space as I can, so they always have walls. Sanctuary is so big, no matter what you do, raiders would eventually make their way inside, but walls do help, even using simple wire fence to fill the gap between pre-war houses at the east side of the settlement.

[Surliman]

jkruse05 I will check out those mods. I don't like the idea of spawns in the middle of my settlements. There is no logic in that. Might as well be playing Skryim, with magic I can understand it. But unless they come down in a whirlybird I should be able to defend my territory from attacks as any competent commander would. As for taking the food and water out of my workstation...I don't know. I don't mind attacks. Just don't want them starting inside my defenses.

Thanks for the info guys. I think I will do walls and with those mods everything should be fine. I hope. I don't want raiders trampling my gardens in Sanctuary LOL

[snapper69]

From what I've seen, if you build walls and put miniguns, rocket launchers etc on them, if something spawns inside the wall, the weapons will turn round and attack them.

 

I usually build 2 storey buildings fairly centrally and line the roof with weapons, that usually works.

[TheSpaceShuttleChallenger]

Walls don't contribute to your settlement defense stat, which is what determines how likely your settlement is to be attacked and how likely it is to successfully defend itself. So the only time walls could possibly help is if you actually show up to defend your settlement (who actually does that?) but even then, it's only partially helpful, as in most settlements, enemies will actually spawn inside your walls because Bethesda Logic. During the fight scene, walls can force enemies that spawn outside your walls to reroute into choke points where they can be dealt with more easily.

But keep in mind, any wall will accomplish this. A rickety wire fence or short hedge will be every bit as as effective as a 3m concrete wall because attacking AIs don't know how to jump or break fences.

If enemies can spawn inside your borders, then obviously walls aren't going to stop them. Personally I recommend downloading or creating mods that move those spawn points out of your settlement because, frankly, it's stupid that they were even there to begin with. If you can't do that, be aware of where the spawn points are and try to build around them. Make sure you have turrets watching over every sightline, and make sure your settlers are well-armed.

 

Some people seem to think that walls keep your settlers from wandering off. That's not true. No matter how dumb or inaccessible a place may be, settlers will find a way to stand there if they're in open sandbox mode. The best way to keep that under control is through manipulating the sandbox itself. Settlers are programmed to hang out near food vendors, so make sure you have your bars and restaurants in the central/communal area of your settlement. Other vendors are a second priority so they should be relatively central too. During sandbox mode, settlers will begin to interact with any animated furniture, including chairs, workbenches, and idle markers. Get a mod (I use Busy Settlers) that adds placeable idle options, and place them. Make sure they are abundant in places where you want your settlers to hang out and uncommon in places where you don't. If you have five chairs in your bedroom, settlers will watch you sleep. Also think about where your settlers' jobs are located, particularly if your settlers have multiple locations (ie: farmers and guards.)

 

Anyway. The reason you see a lot of settlements that are ringed in with thick, concrete walls is, well... aesthetics. People want to create the appearance of a well-fortified settlement, so they wall it off. If you're big on creating a pretty settlement, walls might also be used to isolate your pleasant slice of paradise from the wasteland beyond. Several of my settlements are fully walled for one reason or the other, some are only partially walled and some are not walled at all. Some of them don't need walls because they're located in a naturally defensible location (unless supermutants are good at swimming, I don't know.) I actually kind of like it that way because it gives me freedom to build the settlement the way I like it.

[Transient3292]

apparently all settlemwnts extended not only properly extends them all, but moves enemy spawn points outside of the settlements. Neeher the mod author seems to really know what he's doing, and this mod is essential for anyone that loves building up their settlements.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/25316/?

there's also a version for far harbor's settlements.

 

personally I find walls helpful because I mostly know where enemies are attacking from. the last time I didn't put any walls around sanctuary and had an attack, it was a s#*! show, enemies in every crevice. by walls I also mean what the previous poster mentioned, items, chain link fence, barb wire etc.

Edited November 1, 2017 by wanderer3292

[TheGadget1945]

From what I've seen, if you build walls and put miniguns, rocket launchers etc on them, if something spawns inside the wall, the weapons will turn round and attack them.

 

I usually build 2 storey buildings fairly centrally and line the roof with weapons, that usually works.

 

If you put walls round your settlements and mount turrets on top of the walls then the walls aren't simply for aesthetics. Having the turrets up high avoids the likelihood of them accidentally shooting settlers which my turrets do. If they are at ground level a shot from A-B might hit a settler and you don't want that. At places like Sunshine Tidings the walls help by keeping attackers outside till the turrets have killed them.

In my early days with the game I used to regularly lose settlers at Murkwater Construction by having the Mirelurk Queen spawn inside the walls till I found that boarding over the spawn point made it impossible for her to spawn. prior to this she reduced my 20 settlers to just 5.