What's the deal with supply lines to Spectacle Island?

[danconnors]

I set one up. It showed up on the map. After I got to the island and started to build things the supplies suddenly ran out and the supply line had disappeared from the map. No big deal; I'll go to Sanctuary and start another one. I get to Sanctuary and pick some luckless lummox--the first one who wanted to accuse me of being a synth spy I believe.. But the game won't let me send him to Spectacle Island, and, sure enough, when I look on the map the supply line is back on the map.

In the first place setting up a supply line is ENTIRELY too easy, especially in survival mode. You should have to DRIVE your every line through enemy infested territory with a minimum of 5 or 6 heavily armed, heavily armored men. When you get it going it should require a minimum 3 or 4 heavily outfitted men to keep it going. And raiders should be far more eager to attack a caravan than a heavily defended settlement.

You should get a message from the game: "Raiders are about to attack your caravan from Sanctuary to Starlight Drive In." If you do nothing the attack automatically succeeds, and you lose 50 to 100 units of steel, water, and various plants (the most common payload of the caravans). If you respond you can be killed, and so can your guards. Tough, yes; but the current system is entirely too easy. It might encourage breaking pieces like cameras, microscopes, what have you, down into their individual components, so you can carry more REALLY necessary stuff on your back while hoofing it to that next settlement.

[DouglasGrave]

As I recall, a supply line can become temporarily disabled if the provisioner is knocked down in battle (usually), restoring itself once they recover.

The supply lines have been left somewhat abstract, but there's not much alternative to that when the conflicts only actually happen when you're close enough for them to be in the active simulation area around the player. There's no easy way to remotely account for the capabilities of your provisioner otherwise, when they could be anything from a naked, unarmed settler that goes down from a shot or two up to a heavily-armoured deathbot that can tear through squad after squad of attackers and hardly even slows down.

I agree that raiders should generally be more willing to attack caravans, but having that happen when you're not around would get messy, so currently you just see them when you happen to be around and can get involved.

I think the idea of a radiant quest to respond to rumours of an attack being planned on your supply lines could be interesting in its own right, though it could also end up as another source of endless annoyance, since raiders respawn and you can never really keep the way clear.

[danconnors]

Agreed; there should be a limit to the number of caravan attacks. Otherwise it would get extremely boring. When I kill off all the raiders in an area it takes them quite a while to respawn. This is in survival mode; I don't know if it applies to others. But if a caravan destroys an attack in a certain area that should mean that particular "line" should be pretty secure for maybe a week or two.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by danconnors:

Agreed; there should be a limit to the number of caravan attacks. Otherwise it would get extremely boring. When I kill off all the raiders in an area it takes them quite a while to respawn. This is in survival mode; I don't know if it applies to others. But if a caravan destroys an attack in a certain area that should mean that particular "line" should be pretty secure for maybe a week or two.

Technically speaking, I think it could get very fiddly trying to work out which particular areas count as being along the path of a given route when there are literally hundreds of possible connections you can make between settlements (so you can't easily just make a list and assign different areas to particular paths).

You could probably fudge that by pairing lists associated with the settlements for provisioner's source and destination, but to actually have an attack happen out on the road, you've then got the problem of where to spawn everything, since the game normally handles that with preset spawn points.

[danconnors]

I now own 5 settlements, but I only have 2 supply lines. I only give a damn about 3 of my settlements, and these are connected. I don't know if that's typical or not, but I have absolutely no interest in Abernathy's farm or Ten Pines. I built each three or four turrets, and if that's not enough to keep them secure--tough break. I can't see why raiders would bother to take casualties for either of these places. They literally have nothing worth stealing. Of course one of my routes goes all the way from Sanctuary to Spectacle Island, and damned if I've figured out how the brahman get across the ocean.

Speaking of Spectacle Island, for the benefit of those playing survival mode who want to get a suit of power armor to the island, it's a long walk under water. This last time I found a pipe line heading back to the mainland. I didn't follow it back to its source, but it must be on the mainland somewhere near that fort Garvey wants you to take over for the Minutemen.

[The Inept European]

Yes the supply lines should be harder to create and maintain. And yes the reason for your supply line going down temporarily is likely the provisioner getting knocked down.

To be honest none of it makes sense. Given how hostile the Wasteland is, neither Settlers nor Provisioners should survive. They should all be dead long before you arrive. Or behind 20' steel fences at least. Both Settlements and supply lines imply a Wasteland that's bordering on harmless.

More realistic would be a large caravan once a month, armed to the tits, everyone grouping together for mutual defence. And then that would attract Raiders like a magnet.

I also don't see how it's possible to conduct trade with DC, and how DC would be viable without trade. Ditto Bunker Hill. Merchants would have a 50% chance of surviving each trip alive, and a 75% chance of keeping their goods. If they were tough enough to survive the trip with negligible risk, they wouldn't need to trade for a living, they could just conquer the settlements and extort all their money and goods.

[The Inept European]

Then on the other hand a Settler or Provisioner with a 38 pipe pistol, wearing a T shirt, can take down bad guys and monsters that would shred you. Your NPCs are unkillable aimbots. I mean you can play the game just by giving them miniguns and sitting in your comfortable chair to watch the show.

IDK.

[danconnors]

As I said earlier I now make a habit of breaking things down before I haul them somewhere.. A microscope massing 5 pounds breaks down into a fraction of a pound of things you actually want to move from point A to point B. Since I no longer allow myself to take the lone wanderer perk (and feel guilty about taking the pack mule perk) I am always on the verge of being overloaded. One of the first perks I get is the survival perk that enables me to get two steaks off a rad reindeer, for a temporary 25 pound boost to carry weight. I then slaughter all the 2 headed deer in the area and carry three of their steaks with me always (just in case).

I don't usually get the ability to create supply lines until around level 30, because I start with a low charisma, and augment it with items--so I can afford to buy stuff. I have also discovered that the water economy is not the best. Adhesives are much lighter than water and more valuable pound for pound. So after I use all the adhesive I need I start selling the rest. Ditto for corn and mutfruit, but not tatoes. Tatoes weigh 5 times as much as corn and mutfruit, but are just as cheap. So supply lines aren't very important to me until I get to Spectacle Island.

That's where I build my end of the game fortress/resort. With an indoor swimming pool on the first floor, and large lasers and missile launchers lining the third floor, and the top floor reserved for my favorite squeeze and me. with a high dive allowing about a 40 foot dive. It takes around 1,000 units of concrete and most of a thousand units of steel. and a bunch of other stuff. When I hit around level 40 and get my science perk peaked, I get that enormously nice to have hundred kilowatt fusion reactor. It's not cheap or easy to get it going, but it's very satisfying to trash all those old, noisy generators--which apparently run on corn alcohol.

[Simple Man]

If it helps, robots don't usually suffer from anything.

The only time i played with more than one settlement, i made a sentry bot the supply runner. In a normal game that will then bug out (shocker!) and reverts your bot to something like a protectron if i remember correctly. I had to install a mod to fix it, and never had any other issues. Playing on survival as well.

You'll sometimes be lurking in the night and see explosions, turns out to be the sentry bot killing whoever gets in his way and then moving on with his trusty pack brahmin. I was playing with the Institute, everything was to be made in a superior, flawless fashion. The Sentry was all white and serviced regularly, never allowed to become self aware. Goodbye Shaun, sniff.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by 30 year old boomer:

If it helps, robots don't usually suffer from anything.

The only time i played with more than one settlement, i made a sentry bot the supply runner. In a normal game that will then bug out (shocker!) and reverts your bot to something like a protectron if i remember correctly. I had to install a mod to fix it, and never had any other issues. Playing on survival as well.

You'll sometimes be lurking in the night and see explosions, turns out to be the sentry bot killing whoever gets in his way and then moving on with his trusty pack brahmin. I was playing with the Institute, everything was to be made in a superior, flawless fashion. The Sentry was all white and serviced regularly, never allowed to become self aware. Goodbye Shaun, sniff.

I did make more modest, but shiny white flying bots for my main game with the Institute; theytorch everything they meet to death, usually so quickly it's just the sound of a flamethrower in the distance (Carnage helms can do that). I went for a design that was small, efficient, and easy to build.

But I've more notably heard provisioner bots fighting in the game where I dedicated myself to building a robot army. Over six hundred olive-green assaultrons with miniguns for arms assigned as provisioners to every possible settlement connection. They roam the wasteland, regularly unloading dakka on whatever they meet (dramatic battles being why they have miniguns), and it's rare for me to go anywhere in that game without seeing one in battle.

[The Inept European]

Very cool.

[The Inept European]

Corn alcohol! Thanks Dan, you finally explained the internal combustion engine generators. They make zero sense otherwise.

[DouglasGrave]

I think it's also been suggested before that they could also be one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator