Spontaneous Settler Deaths?

[RadBeaver]

So, anyone who's played a Bethesda game on this engine knows more or less that any number of weird ♥♥♥♥ could happen.

But this time, and it's not the first, I'm really starting to wonder what's up. Basically, every now n then—maybe like 4 times now out of ~500hrs of gameplay—I'll turn around in a settlement, or walk into a settlement area, and a handful of settlers are all just dead in a pile. Like, 2, 3, 4, or 5 settlers, just dead, all together in a little cluster.

At first I was thinking it could be my landmines, somehow? But I never hear them go off or anything, and usually if something of yours kills a settler, they all turn on you.

Has anyone else seen this?

[Aries]

It could be a loading error causing them to spawn together in the larger settlements. That makes sense to me since it is after a long period of time, allowing NPC growth, and usually only small numbers clustered together.

[RadBeaver]

Here's an example of the phenomenon as I witnessed it the other day. I had *just* seen a couple of them walking around, perfectly normally, moments earlier:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1395680731

[=EGC= kansasterry]

I had some in the vault that did this I figure it was the settlers spawning before the ground or structures they were standing on were loaded causing them to fall to their deaths.

Though in combat they seem to be set to protected meaning the player has to kill them for them to actually be dead.

I have also seen some npcs in the distance just shoot up into orbit for no apparent reason I assume they died when they landed but never bothered to search for them. something similar may be happening to the settlers.

[hawkeye]

They might have dropped from the sky (spawning?) , which would kill them.

They can also die from radiation if they venture into water.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by =EGC= kansasterry:

I had some in the vault that did this I figure it was the settlers spawning before the ground or structures they were standing on were loaded causing them to fall to their deaths.

I have also seen some npcs in the distance just shoot up into orbit for no apparent reason I assume they died when they landed but never bothered to search for them. something similar may be happening to the settlers.

Close but no banana. The settlers are landing on top of each other after falling during a spawn, which then the collision engine throws them up in the air after they collide.

I see it all the time with my brahmin. At least with the brahmin I could manage to have it happen less often by keeping my herds down to four brahmin and have a trough for each one.

Originally posted by Lord GaGa:

Has anyone else seen this?

As I said above I never seen it happen with settlers but it seems like the same thing that happens to my brahmin if my herds get too big.

Are you running any sort of mod that makes settlers killable, like removes their essential or protected flags?

They should be immune to the falling damage. If you ever have a lot of provisoners and ride a vertibird you can literally watch brahmin run across rooftops like reindeer and base jump off the tops without dying.

I blame Bugthesda for not having customized elevation coordinates for the spawns. If there was you would not see falling npcs or npcs stuck in the ground. They got lazy and jsut figured drop them from this standard height as they spawn. Think about it, only certain settlements have settlers that spawn in the ground, the ones on the higher elevations (ie closer to the game ceiling.)

[RadBeaver]

I don't think they're getting ejected in the air from spawns.

As I said, I had *just* seen them walking around normally, independent of one another, less than a minute before this happened. I'd already been in the cell for quite a cell so they all should've been spawned already.

I was in the middle open area of the castle grounds, and had *just* seen the one settler in blue and the one settler in the pink hard hat. I assigned Pink Hard Hat to go and start working a mutfruit plot, and waited a few seconds to see them go to it, but they never showed.

When I went looking, I found...that. No explosions or gunfire, or anything.

[[LYF]Levi o Lusitano]

Well i guess the Entries in F3 terminals in Vault 87 now make more sense lmao. "Sudden death Sindrome". But ye when i still played F4 I saw the same thing happening in one of the settlements everyone just died for no reason,but only happened once.

[DouglasGrave]

Do you have any of the Vault 88 settlement objects constructed for which you chose dangerous options during the experiments? They shouldn't normally cause quite so many deaths, but they can kill settlers despite the protected status they normally enjoy, and maybe the game tried to handle a lot of them at once (I don't know offhand if each dangerous item runs its own death chance).

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Do you have any of the Vault 88 settlement objects constructed for which you chose dangerous options during the experiments? They shouldn't normally cause quite so many deaths, but they can kill settlers despite the protected status they normally enjoy, and maybe the game tried to handle a lot of them at once (I don't know offhand if each dangerous item runs its own death chance).

Yes, each device (power cycle and eye machine) has like a 2% chance of causing death on the medium option. I think the harder option is 5% per day?

If ya dont think 2% can occur much wiht the RNG system, keep in mind that is also the same minimum chance of a settlement being raided, lol.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Do you have any of the Vault 88 settlement objects constructed for which you chose dangerous options during the experiments? They shouldn't normally cause quite so many deaths, but they can kill settlers despite the protected status they normally enjoy, and maybe the game tried to handle a lot of them at once (I don't know offhand if each dangerous item runs its own death chance).

Yes, each device (power cycle and eye machine) has like a 2% chance of causing death on the medium option. I think the harder option is 5% per day?

If ya dont think 2% can occur much wiht the RNG system, keep in mind that is also the same minimum chance of a settlement being raided, lol.

It can happen, it's just not very likely, especially if you're talking about up to five occurences at once, as the OP mentioned.

Building a lot of them does increase the chances since you're taking so many shots at it, but all the items with dangerous settings need a settler assigned to them, so there's a practical limit on how many you're likely to build.

[Bored Peon]

You forget unless people looked it up in the wiki they probably have no clue the power cycle and eye machine can kill settlers.

[=EGC= kansasterry]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by =EGC= kansasterry:

I had some in the vault that did this I figure it was the settlers spawning before the ground or structures they were standing on were loaded causing them to fall to their deaths.

I have also seen some npcs in the distance just shoot up into orbit for no apparent reason I assume they died when they landed but never bothered to search for them. something similar may be happening to the settlers.

Close but no banana. The settlers are landing on top of each other after falling during a spawn, which then the collision engine throws them up in the air after they collide.

I see it all the time with my brahmin. At least with the brahmin I could manage to have it happen less often by keeping my herds down to four brahmin and have a trough for each one.

Probabbly right in this case and possibly the vault My observation was based on the settlement from the vault DLC where I had built a multilevel atrium and the corpse was found on the floor under a high in the air walkway so it appeared as if they fell from the catwalk as I entered.

I know that collision engine does all sorts of strange stuff perhaps the most common is the vehicle suddenly flying down the street when an npc runs into one. Usually crushing the player if they do not move in time and as I stated I have seen what appears to be npcs in the distance launching into the air as I enter a cell It could easilly be they fell and bounced.

One thing people do need to understand fast travel is not the only cause of a cell change/load just walking a certain distance away can trigger one many settlments are made up of multiple cells.

Just type "help jamaicaplain 4 cell" in the console without the quotes you will see a list off results such as jamaicaplainex07 showing multiple cells make up the area of jamaica plains.

I have actually had the warwicks in the field gone to the nearby ship for a while came back and found them stuck in the floor inside the building because I was far enough away long enough that it moved them to the spawn point again.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by =EGC= kansasterry:

One thing people do need to understand fast travel is not the only cause of a cell change/load just walking a certain distance away can trigger one many settlments are made up of multiple cells.

Right. Fast travel is the main cause seen because the time passes awkwardly. I think this is because the coding is written wrong, it places the player in the destination cell then advances the timeline. Then since the player is in that cell nothing leaves it until the player is actually active. You get the same effect when you sleep at a settlement.

Here is a good example of that. I learned to NOT sleep at Mechanist's Lair when I use it as a provisoner hub for a dozen caravans. This is because when you sleep in it none of the caravans leave until you wake up. Then you get a huge jam at the door trying to leave the cell.

Running around manually allows for a smoother passage of time which basically prevents things liek provisoner jams or all your settlers being dropped at the 0,0 as you enter.

Originally posted by =EGC= kansasterry:

Just type "help jamaicaplain 4 cell" in the console without the quotes you will see a list off results such as jamaicaplainex07 showing multiple cells make up the area of jamaica plains.

That is another cell hell area I avoid building in like the Sanctuary triangle of errors. Way too many partial cell loads of the settlement corrupting the data.

Originally posted by =EGC= kansasterry:

I have actually had the warwicks in the field gone to the nearby ship for a while came back and found them stuck in the floor inside the building because I was far enough away long enough that it moved them to the spawn point again.

In some games I have had them drown in the water tanks.

Overall though I can not wait for another generation or two of the settlement system. Skyrim had a very crude and primitive system, Fallout 4 saw vast improvement over that, the next generation should be far more acceptable and less buggy.

[jonnan.west]

This reminds me of an error with Sim Settlements real early on - it wasn't Settlers per se but the 'Visitors' Sim Sttelements had would spawn and die - is there any chance you're using an old version of that?

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Subliminal Messaging kill rate is much higher than 2%, it's like 10%. Get rid of them.

Normally, settlers can't actually die to enviromental factors, including falls. Some mods do change this.