Best Weapons for your Settlements

[Kael]

Just a small Discussion whats the best Weapons for your NPCs in the Settlement.

I tried now a little bit, with bolt-action rifles and also with automatic one.
in my opinion, the best weapons for your companions and NPCs in the settlements are automatic weapons, cause the chance for them to hit the enemy is much higher. whats your opinion?

[Gaz O'D]

Fully upgraded Combat/Assault/Laser/Plasma/Gauss rifles. If i have any spare wounding rifles i give them them as automatics. I also give them any spare two shot or plasma infused rifles.

[Morty Jhones]

Any upgraded weapon will do. I tend to scatter verious Auto Turetes around my important buildings as well such as the generator building, and water farm.

[sdack]

It seems NPCs get the same combat mechanics as the player gets. I've once ran into a Raider with a silenced weapon and hadn't seen him yet, and he dropped my health faster than any Raider I've seen ever before. That let's me believe that NPCs even get a sneak factor applied when you somehow haven't discovered them yet. Hence am I now giving my settlers not only the best weapons but also silenced ones. Though I'm still looking for a good confirmation on this...

If your settlement is somewhat well fenced off, but not with too high walls (i.e. use wire mesh fences), then your settlers will happily throw grenades at them and without killing themselves (as the attackers will most often still be outside the fence). Equipped with a single fragmentation grenade will they throw them endlessly over the fences (unlimited ammo applies to most grenade types for settlers, too).

Also giving them combat armor (with dense mod for chest) will make your settlers more resistant to damage and incoming grenades.

Range is another factor. Shotguns deal a lot of damage, but if a settler isn't in range to apply the damage then it's a waste. Better give settlers in large settlements long range weapons and even sniper rifles.

Don't mix melee fighters with ranged fighters or grenades. Any NPC who uses a melee weapon will run towards the attackers and ultimately get shoot or blown up by its own people. (This is primarily important at Graygarden due to the gardening robots there who will always rush towards attackers.)

Missile launchers work, too, but don't get the unlimited ammo supply bonus. Missiles also fly straight and have a chance of blowing everyone up who walks into the path of the settler shooting it. Grenades seem to work better all round and still leave room to equip a rifle or a pistol.

But it's not only about the weapons and armors, but strategic placement of guard posts and turrets is important, too. Attackers need to be forced to seek cover with suppressing fire, as well as not allowing them to find any cover by covering areas from multiple angles.

Last but not least, sirens and spot lights make your settlers more effective in combat.

Regarding automatic vs. single shot: use automatic for settlers as they get unlimited ammo. Use single shot for companions as they may go through your ammo supply faster than you can refill it. But whatever works, looks or sounds best or gives the best fun isn't a bad choice either.

Combat-wise are robots the best companions as they can be equipped with Gatling lasers and missile launchers on each arm, can have resistances easily beyond 300 (or 500 carry weight...) and never need to be given any ammo.

[Tim]

I used the console to spawn in multiple "The Striker" from Far Harbor on my like 100hr save file, and armed my 15 settlers with those.

We got attacked by supermutants, however we were prepared with bowling balls of death!

[Solomon Hawk]

missile turrets, gauss rifles and ballistic fiber enhanced clothing.

[Nite69]

don't you have to refill thier ammo when ya give them weapons? that be annoying on a settlement full of settlers, its why I just let them use the pipe guns they come with

[Kael]

Originally posted by =EGC= _Nite_:

don't you have to refill thier ammo when ya give them weapons? that be annoying on a settlement full of settlers, its why I just let them use the pipe guns they come with

Nope, the first Magazin is always full, you just need 1 Bullet in their inventory and they refill automatically.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by Kael:

Originally posted by =EGC= _Nite_:

don't you have to refill thier ammo when ya give them weapons? that be annoying on a settlement full of settlers, its why I just let them use the pipe guns they come with

Nope, the first Magazin is always full, you just need 1 Bullet in their inventory and they refill automatically.

ahh nice

[Nite69]

ya ussually get a warning that you are about to lose allied with a settlement if its below 10%, I've even had settlements kick me out if I refuse to help them when nearby

[Kael]

Yes they can :) i also experimenting on my 'outer settlements' with explosives and saving my main production line with a combination of Lasgun-Specialist Units and normal ballistic units. (The Lasgun guys are the Settlement Watchers, i mostly use 2 of them with full upgraded Laser-rifle and the rest of the settlement get normal Half-automatic or full automatic rifles in the same caliber.

[sdack]

Originally posted by dig 'um:

Last night i noticed an encampment down to 1% happyness so i did them up a bit. I gave then all a grenade each plus other stuff. Can they kill them selves with a nade or if they are raided do they die and not come back?
I have ony had one place raided so far and the mutants were lamers but i play on verry easy mode.

They cannot kill themselves. Only the player can kill settlers. The settlers will otherwise just sit on the ground. However, settlers can kill the player with grenades and that's the one thing you should care about the most. Hence my advice to use it together with fences. That way you know which way the grenades will fly. If the attackers manage to get right into the middle of your settlements then the grenades will come from everywhere, and attackers like to go straight for the player. So get your fences down, or up.

By the way, I have 12 settlers at Red Rocket Station - all with .44s. That's quite the Wild West show and a lot of damage. They rip through attackers very fast. But this only works well on a small settlement such as the Red Rocket station and with little obstacles.

Also, Synths are real and they do replace people. During a Synth attack on said Red Rocket Station did one settler actually die. I didn't understand why and so I reloaded just to watch how that happened, and reloaded again, because it was too strange to ignore. During the attack had one settler actually turned on the other settlers. So they all shot the one settler. His corpse then contained all the gear I had given to him, and also contained a synth component!

[torqueblue]

Depeneds on that Settlement for me. Most Southern Settlements have Heavy weapons Like miniguns, Gauss Rifles, and Auto Rifles. Northern Ones I tend to give them light weapons Like .44s, Hunting Rifles and SMGs. If I happen upon an Unlimited Ammo capacity Gun I give it to the Most Armored Settler in the Settlement.

[Ygolnac]

In Dalton Farm in Far Harbour I've lost a fully armed sentry and 2 settlers in one attack.
It was 8 anglers, one of wich legendary and several albino, plus one legendary fog crawler.

All the settlers had a full set of Heavy Combat Armor and a lever action rifle.

Now I have walled all the settlement, put a huge amount of Heavy Laser Turrets on the walls, built 2 sentries (full upgrade), captured 2 tamed Death Claws and settlers are all armed with a gauss rifle.

If this fails again I'll proceed with modifing all their clothes with ballistic weave, and mod their gauss rifle to the bone.

In my case any explosive never worked: the AoE dmg friendly kills other settlers. Despite people telling they can't harm each other, my missile turrets do a carnage of settlers, and if they can grab an explosive weapon from an enemy corpse, they kille each other.

Explosive weapons are no good to shoot between them too.

[Solomon Hawk]

Originally posted by Ygolnac:

In Dalton Farm in Far Harbour I've lost a fully armed sentry and 2 settlers in one attack.
It was 8 anglers, one of wich legendary and several albino, plus one legendary fog crawler.

All the settlers had a full set of Heavy Combat Armor and a lever action rifle.

Now I have walled all the settlement, put a huge amount of Heavy Laser Turrets on the walls, built 2 sentries (full upgrade), captured 2 tamed Death Claws and settlers are all armed with a gauss rifle.

If this fails again I'll proceed with modifing all their clothes with ballistic weave, and mod their gauss rifle to the bone.

In my case any explosive never worked: the AoE dmg friendly kills other settlers. Despite people telling they can't harm each other, my missile turrets do a carnage of settlers, and if they can grab an explosive weapon from an enemy corpse, they kille each other.

Explosive weapons are no good to shoot between them too.

I'm curious, what difficulty are you playing on and what mod are you using to capture and tame deathclaws?

[Kael]

Just a tip for Rocket-Launcher Sentrys and the 'Idea of Defending'

First:
-Get Signals who are near Watchmen who can activate them. I normally got 2, maximal 3 Watchmen who are HEAVY armored and equipped. The normal Settlers are Medium or Light equipped.
and then think about this:

Think about 3 Lines:

1 Line - Sentrys
The Sentrys will Block the Enemy for engaging INTO the Settlement and let the Settlers come quick
2 Line - The Settlers reach the Fight and engage
3 Line - Melee or Medium Range. For that i gave my units 1 Grenate or Molotov.

My highest priority is not to save my villagers, but to save my production line. Because Settlers will also come to your settlement, but the crops and other stuff can be destroyed and sometimes its bugged, so you cant repair them. And that ♥♥♥♥♥ me up the most.

Thats why i walled only the crops with fences, who also block explosive damage