Equipping settlers?

[SirGalahad]

Nublet question:

 

Any reason to give settlers weapons or armor? If they are invulnerable, there's no reason to equip them, I suppose, but perhaps I'm wrong and there is every reason to do so? Is it a matter of aesthetics or role-playing?

 

Thank you!

[Moksha8088]

They might be better able to defend the settlements. In my last game, I gathered up a bunch of bikinis from Fusion City Rising, gave them ballistic weave, and then distributed them to the women at various settlements. This was an act of civic-mindedness just to add some extra protection to the female settlers.

 

Provisioners do make use of better guns in combating those attacking them on their routes.

[Perraine]

Settlers, not so much, as they come with "adequate" weapons, but you can give them upgrades if you are doing a solo or max difficulty playthrough, and need some help defending settlements.

 

Provisioners should always be given the best weapons you can spare, as they are also invulnerable (the human ones at least, robot provisioners can die/be destroyed) And they are an excellent source of free XP, as you'll garner XP if you are in the same cell as one of your provisioners when they kill something.

[SirGalahad]

Provisioners are companions or wandering traders :confused:

[Crosstieger]

I found it rather useless to equip settlers and followers with better weapons. It feels like they only make use of higher damager per shot and not of reduced spread or increased fire rate. Robots and turrets seem to be the most effective defence and I only equip settlers for immersion.

 

Are provisioners not flagged as immortal? At least they are immortal in my game (could be mods...)

[Perraine]

Are provisioners not flagged as immortal? At least they are immortal in my game (could be mods...)

 

Like "settlers", that are part of one of your settlements (not the free roaming ones) they are set as "protected", which means they can only be killed by the player character (or player character "friendly fire" such as splash damage from grenades or mini nukes).

[jkruse05]

I found it rather useless to equip settlers and followers with better weapons. It feels like they only make use of higher damager per shot and not of reduced spread or increased fire rate. Robots and turrets seem to be the most effective defence and I only equip settlers for immersion.

 

Are provisioners not flagged as immortal? At least they are immortal in my game (could be mods...)

Settlers will benefit from rate of fire in that a semi-auto is better than a bolt action or a lever action, but the actual rate of fire stat on those semi-autos doesn't seem to make a difference. Best thing is to give them something that spits a lot of rounds with decent damage. Something like maxed out handmade rifles or plasma guns. I've done a few experiments running assaults against the Castle with my settlers there equipped with different load-outs. Volume of fire generally does better than just pure damage in their hands, unless that damage can be delivered at a decent pace.

 

For example, I gave them all maxed out Makeshift Anti-materiel Rifles (I wanted to see how they'd do with 'muskets'). The extremely low rate of fire, and lack of consistent accuracy meant that, if their enemies had been able to actually enter the Castle, they would have been overrun. However, when they DID score a hit, it was an almost guaranteed kill. Having everyone with AKs (handmade rifles in this case) set to the best automatic receiver fared better, but required a LOT of fire to bring down each enemy. The best results were when using the M1 Garand mod. Semi-auto fire meant they could keep up a decent volume and still be reasonably lethal. You could probably accomplish similar results with Combat, Handmade, Assault, or Plasma rifles in the base game.

 

Armor does make a difference as well, though not to an extreme. My settlers took more hits when wearing combat armor than in leather. I keep my settlers equipped because I like to sit back and watch them defend what I've built, but really, a single player is more effective than a town of settlers.