Enemies and loot respawning after clearing an area?

[HunterFromAbove]

So I'm doing some Cleansing The Commonwealth missions assigned by Knight Rhys and I've noticed that after I cleared a location of all enemies and took the loot, the enemies and the loot will respawn after awhile when I return to that location. I also noticed that happening with other locations. Is this how it's supposed to be, enemies and loot respawning in all locations throughtout the Commonwealth after a set amount of time?

[JohnnyBonny]

I've noticed this too, I think it's because some dynamic quest reuse areas like settlement quest.

[MagicMarker]

Yeah, in some areas this is supposed to happen. If it didn't, at some point there would no longer be anyone to fight. That would make for a truly boring wasteland.

[Lady Aeleanor]

Respawn is common, and perfectly normal. Loot and enemies will come back after a set length of time.

[Shadowrun]

yes the cells reset after awhile. the mod Game Config Menu lets you adjust how long the timer is. looks like the default is:

Hours to clean corpses: 24
hours to reset cells: 168
hours to reset CLEARED cells: 480

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810529744

If a cell has sat empty for 167 hours then you visit it, the timer will reset to 0 again. in order to re-spawn you have to leave the area un-visited for 168 hours or 480 hours for cleared areas. when you visit a cell, it resets the reset timer to start all over.

Game Configuration Menu (REQ: Mod Config Menu)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/33759

MCM: Mod Configuration Menu (REQ: F4SE)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/21497

F4SE: Fallout 4 Script Extender
https://f4se.silverlock.org

[Xenon The Noble]

Yeah. They respawn.
Know who doesn't? Knight Reek. That craven little coward couldn't clear these areas with the whole squad, and by the time you meet him, Danse has already lost over half his squad to puny ghouls and raiders.
Know how I know Knight Reek doesn't respawn?

[Lady Aeleanor]

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

Know how I know Knight Reek doesn't respawn?

Do you mean Knight Rhys? At the Cambridge Police Station?

[Iron Knights]

1) It's by design so you can keep playing the area.
2) Radiant quests, aka repeating quests to same area need re-spawns.
So anything outside scripted story areas will re-spawn endlessly, even destroyed vehicles, containers with junk in them, etc...

[Xenon The Noble]

Originally posted by Lady Aeleanor:

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

Know how I know Knight Reek doesn't respawn?

Do you mean Knight Rhys? At the Cambridge Police Station?

Yeah. I said that. Knight Reek. The guy who hates SS and sends him on quests were he's tried it and got his butt kick. You know him, the angry little craven coward. He's a piece of work, as in work badly done.

[TheSuit]

Respawn timer is prettty short in normal mode and pretty long in Survival mode
Nothing new about it - is an old feature

[Njorl]

Originally posted by Shadowrun:

yes the cells reset after awhile. the mod Game Config Menu lets you adjust how long the timer is. looks like the default is:

Hours to clean corpses: 24
hours to reset cells: 168
hours to reset CLEARED cells: 480

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810529744

If a cell has sat empty for 167 hours then you visit it, the timer will reset to 0 again. in order to re-spawn you have to leave the area un-visited for 168 hours or 480 hours for cleared areas. when you visit a cell, it resets the reset timer to start all over.

Game Configuration Menu (REQ: Mod Config Menu)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/33759

MCM: Mod Configuration Menu (REQ: F4SE)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/21497

F4SE: Fallout 4 Script Extender
https://f4se.silverlock.org

"Cleansing the Commonwealth" quests can make the zones respawn faster. Once, I cleared out "College Square" for a Minuteman quest then went to the police station right after. Rhys told me to clear out "College Square" . Sure enough, the ghouls were back.

[HunterFromAbove]

Thanks for clarifying it guys.

[Hylie Pistof]

from the wiki about survival mode

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Survival_mode#:~:text=Survival%20mode%20%28sometimes%20called%20Survival%20difficulty%29%20is%20a,mode%20can%20be%20accessed%20in%20the%20options%20menu.

" Location respawn time is 35 in-game days for non-cleared locations and 80 in-game days for cleared locations to repopulate enemies and loot, as opposed to the standard 7 and 20 days respectively.

While fixed enemy locations have increased repopulation times, the occurrence of random enemy encounters is two days or less. "

so, it also depends on your difficulty setting

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

Originally posted by Lady Aeleanor:

Do you mean Knight Rhys? At the Cambridge Police Station?

Yeah. I said that. Knight Reek. The guy who hates SS and sends him on quests were he's tried it and got his butt kick. You know him, the angry little craven coward. He's a piece of work, as in work badly done.

Lol. I agree. The developers should have gave the SS a option to take the jerk out in the alley next to the police station and adjust his attitude.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

1) It's by design so you can keep playing the area.
2) Radiant quests, aka repeating quests to same area need re-spawns.
So anything outside scripted story areas will re-spawn endlessly, even destroyed vehicles, containers with junk in them, etc...

Respawning also sort of compensates for the game world being a tiny vague sketch instead of something closer to the real-world size of Boston.

Instead of there being a much bigger area with proportionately more enemies and loot spread across it, you get a smaller area that respawns.

[Shadowrun]

Originally posted by Njorl:

"Cleansing the Commonwealth" quests can make the zones respawn faster. Once, I cleared out "College Square" for a Minuteman quest then went to the police station right after. Rhys told me to clear out "College Square" . Sure enough, the ghouls were back.

good to know. i think i've experienced this too actually.