The Proper Care & Feeding of Settlers

[Kool Kevin]

That is good to know- I've grown mutfruit as the main way to feed my settlers (as well as for the adhesive) I thought it was better as it took less effort on the settler working it (silly thought on my part) I guess it pays to pay attention... I remember reading about this when I first started playing - It seemed so clear then.

Could someone please direct me to the place in the VDSG (vault dwellers survival guide) I have been looking for almost 2 hours and can't even fond the glossary - I guess I am going to just walk away for a few and come back to it - its just too close to the forest type of problem.

As always - - Thank You for your help and patients (hope that's how you spell the right patients!)

[raubrey]

Are you looking for the recipe? You produce it at a the cooking station (Vegtable Starch) and it will tell you the ingred.

But it's 3X Tato, Mutfruit and Corn. and 1 purified water. (correction)

If you need it from the Vault Dwellers Survival Guide -- sorry I don't have that.

[Kool Kevin]

Originally posted by raubrey:

Are you looking for the recipe? You produce it at a the cooking station (Vegtable Starch) and it will tell you the ingred.

But it's 3X Tato, Mutfruit and Corn. and 1 purified water. (correction)

If you need it from the Vault Dwellers Survival Guide -- sorry I don't have that.

No - what I am looking for is the general rules to follow (or at least understand - so I can plant the right crops, arm & armor them, etc.)

Ie. one rule that I came across a long time ago - was that you can't have more then X bottles of liquid - including dirty water and liquor - stored in your work shop (local I'm guessing) ( I farm tons of water.) or you lose production points. I keep very good stats on all my settlements - VIA a spreadsheet - nerdy, I know- and I sometimes find only - say 65 units - when they should be puting out 350 units.
I am trying to find out why -

But for this discussion I am trying to find out why - I have say 10 farming - should = 60 units of food - minus the 10 they may need should = 50 units net - minus the other 10 people in town = 40 total.
I open the WS and I have 5 or 8 - What the heck, why did this happen? I go and make sure there is no crop damage etc and ---- I cannot find out why. My happiness levels hang around 85 -90%.

So I am missing something. (or the game mechanics are messed up) That is what I am looking for. Am I not doing it right?

I just fired up my other PC and am going to read the in game Help Files as some one suggested - Heck I forgot all about them.
If you know something off the top of you head - let me know. But I don't mind finding my own answers - if I am smart enough to know where to look.

Thanks for your help.
..>>Kevin

[Hobo Misanthropus]

The only way to Feed Settlers is to Feed them to the Deathclaws.

[Kool Kevin]

I know that not everyone likes them.
But I need them.
So no feeding to the Deathclaws - or anything else for that matter (Geez - sound like my Grandma!)

I think I'll wait around for others opinion on this - But thanks for the kind thoughts..>>Kevin

[Doombringer]

Production turns off if you are over the limits.
(food, water, scrap, fertilizer... caps limited to 50/day, but production never turns off)
Food production (excess after feeding settlers) is modified by happiness & brahmins.
Water production (excess after feeding settlers) is 75% of listed value.
We have the source code for all of this...

Source code: workshopscript.psc

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Production turns off if you are over the limits.
(food, water, scrap, fertilizer... caps limited to 50/day, but production never turns off)
Food production (excess after feeding settlers) is modified by happiness & brahmins.
Water production (excess after feeding settlers) is 75% of listed value.
We have the source code for all of this...
Source code: workshopscript.psc

Interesting!
Is the 50/day cap per item, or 50 in total of all those types?
I read the cap is a cap of what is inventory, rather than a production cap as such? Production turns off if the cap is exceeded in current inventory - is that correct?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Production turns off if you are over the limits.
(food, water, scrap, fertilizer... caps limited to 50/day, but production never turns off)
Food production (excess after feeding settlers) is modified by happiness & brahmins.
Water production (excess after feeding settlers) is 75% of listed value.
We have the source code for all of this...

Source code: workshopscript.psc

What he said.

In addition settlers will consume tatos before consuming any other food first.

So if you plant all that mutfruit then you most likely are always going to be short tatos for starches.

Also keep in mind what appears in your workshop for crops produced can vary. You cna actually end up with more crops than you planted. For example if you plant 12 corn, 12 tatos and 6 mutrfruit in a settlement then you can produce more than 6 mutfruit in a day.

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Is the 50/day cap per item, or 50 in total of all those types?

The 50/day cap is for caps only. Food is limited to whether you produce or not then you get the full production.

The food limit is 10 items + 1 per settler. If your workshop if over that limit it will not produce for that day. If you empty your workshop daily (ie stuff it in a container) then you get the full production which will bypass the limit. For example if I have 20 settlers and a food production of 60 my limit will be 30 food items. However when my settlement produces it will still do the 60 on the days it produces.

High happiness and a couple brahmin are very good for maxing food production.

[The Inept European]

Here is my (sarcastic) take on the care and feeding of settlers.

- Don't have any settler farmers. Use them as supply line provisioners only (when you get that perk).
- Build your new settlements with zero settlers, one bed, an ocean of water pumps and enough gun turrets to defend it adequately.
- Have only enough farmer settlers to support the provisioners only. I guess save your starting settlers to use as provisioners later, and feed them meanwhile.
- When you are able to build Stores, then get some more settlers to run those, and a little more farming capacity to feed the Store operators.
- Don't bother with settler scavengers. You will be able to buy more junk than they bring in with the money you save from not supporting them.
-Don't arm or armour the settlers you do (unfortunately) have to have.
-Don't show up to defend them. Unless they are armed and armoured up to the standard of your current level of enemies, you make them more likely to lose by showing up. Until you show up, they are each equal to an enemy in the attack resolution. Once you show up, they become dweebs and you need to do all the work - unless you have wasted a fortune in caps by arming them. It's way more economic just to ensure the defence score is good and otherwise let them fend for themselves.
- Remember that even if you build maximum defences in every settlement, the chance of the settlers losing the attack increases with every additional settler. "Every extra Settler is a liability" - make that your motto.

Those are the basics, as I see it. As a slight refinement to the above, consider
- building an Adhesive plot - plant equal amounts of Mutfruit, Corn, and Tato. Supply lines will allow you to craft the Adhesive in any settlement, regardless of where the crops grow
- on Survival (only) build Razorgrain plots to use for your own personal food
- on Survival (only) consider Razorgrain or Corn as cash crops as an alternative to Purified Water, since the value per weight carried of Corn and Razorgrain is greater than Purified Water, and schlepping stuff to market in Survival is a total PITA.
- (still only relevant to Survival) You could consider Mutfruit as it has the best value per weight, but it's the least efficient cash crop. Depends. If your problem is transportation rather than production, then yes you may as well produce Mutfruit as a cash crop

[The Inept European]

But, OP, if you really must have Settlers, as I said in that other thread you need to -

- Plant enough Tatos to feed the settlers, since they will eat those first
-Then plant the stuff you want them to grow for you, whatever that is
- Plant in spaced rows and straight lines to make all aspects of management easier
- Plant in multiples of one Settler's productive capacity (6 Mutfruit / 12 anything else)
- Periodically sack all the farmers and the reassign them, this resets them to more efficient farming
- Keep them happy I guess, for bonus food points
- Clear the workshop out every day and put all AID products in an adjacent container
- Learn what times each settlement will produce, bearing in mind it shifts whenever you go into workshop mode there

You really will find it easier to have one big farm at one settlement, otherwise you will be forever running around them (even with fast travel). Even though a big settlement is less efficient to defend, it's easier to defend one settlement inefficienlty than ten settlements efficiently, even if you have a strict sense of never attending the fights in person.

And for your sanity, have at least one settlement where there are no settlers constantly going on about their fingernails and how farming is the honestest honest work that ever there honestly was. A place where you can get some peace and quiet.

[Bored Peon]

You know you can have a settlement without any farmers and it still produces food as long as you have brahmin.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1306866253

It actually also comes up with weird misc aid items, lol.

[Doombringer]

The bonus food from brahmin (50% of production or +5/brahmin, whichever is lower) generates random crop items (WorkshopProduceFood leveled list: corn, tato, melon, gourd, carrot, mutfruit, razorgrain, tarberry - corn/tato/mutfruit/razorgrain 2x as likely, 25% of getting nothing each pick)
Surplus food from settlers is generated from WorkshopRatingFoodType actor values (which are based on the crops in that settlement), crops which don't have a food type actor value generate random food the same way brahmin do.
The producefood function is in workshopparentscript.psc



int brahminMaxFoodBoost = math.min(updateData.brahminPopulation*maxProductionPerBrahmin, updateData.foodProduction) as int
int brahminFoodProduction = math.Ceiling(brahminMaxFoodBoost * brahminProductionBoost)

Shouldn't be able to get any food from brahmin if food production is 0.
(The min on the first line would take the 0 food rating, resulting in the 2nd line also being 0)
(maxProductionPerBrahmin is 10, brahminProductionBoost is 0.5)

[The Inept European]

Since the game treats a Brahmin as a Settler in some ways, maybe the Brahmin is incrementing the Settler count, which in turn allows some food production?

[Kool Kevin]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

You know you can have a settlement without any farmers and it still produces food as long as you have brahmin.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1306866253

It actually also comes up with weird misc aid items, lol.

But can you get brahmin without settlers?
Thanks - ..>>Kevin

[Kool Kevin]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

But, OP, if you really must have Settlers, as I said in that other thread you need to -

- Plant enough Tatos to feed the settlers, since they will eat those first
-Then plant the stuff you want them to grow for you, whatever that is
- Plant in spaced rows and straight lines to make all aspects of management easier
- Plant in multiples of one Settler's productive capacity (6 Mutfruit / 12 anything else)
- Periodically sack all the farmers and the reassign them, this resets them to more efficient farming
- Keep them happy I guess, for bonus food points
- Clear the workshop out every day and put all AID products in an adjacent container
- Learn what times each settlement will produce, bearing in mind it shifts whenever you go into workshop mode there

You really will find it easier to have one big farm at one settlement, otherwise you will be forever running around them (even with fast travel). Even though a big settlement is less efficient to defend, it's easier to defend one settlement inefficienlty than ten settlements efficiently, even if you have a strict sense of never attending the fights in person.

And for your sanity, have at least one settlement where there are no settlers constantly going on about their fingernails and how farming is the honestest honest work that ever there honestly was. A place where you can get some peace and quiet.

I really like your thoughts on this... Any idea on the time cycle after you visit - is it a constant time interval?
Love the idea of on big farm with big defence. Now that I have the farm management consul - job removel / reassignment should be easy enough.
Thanks again, Wonderful ideas..>>Kevin

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Kool Kevin:

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

You know you can have a settlement without any farmers and it still produces food as long as you have brahmin.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1306866253

It actually also comes up with weird misc aid items, lol.

But can you get brahmin without settlers?
Thanks - ..>>Kevin

Yep. The large cages from the Wasteland Workshop DLC.