Questions about settlement attacks

[BenieTheDragon]

Right. So, in Sanctuary, I have 0 Defense and have been tasked in building turrets. Though I wonder, if I don't put the beacon up to attract more settlers to my settlement, will I be attacked?
Has anyone tried this? I'm hoping it'll work as my settlement.. well, I barely even started. I got their food/water and beds and that's pretty much it.

[Defektiv]

If you progress the story at all you'll have people at Sanctuary anyway. So either build a few small defense platforms or a single turret and you're good to move on until they show up.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Can Sanctuary even be attacked? I"ve never had it attacked, even with 0 Defense. Tenpines Bluff seems to be my bait settlement.

[BenieTheDragon]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Can Sanctuary even be attacked? I"ve never had it attacked, even with 0 Defense. Tenpines Bluff seems to be my bait settlement.

I've seen videos of Sanctuary being attacked, but I don't remember when (and what version it happened).
The wiki claims that once your settlement reaches a "certain stage", you'll be more open to attacks. I'd like to know what this stage is (and if said stage is persistant in causing it or not)

[Bored Peon]

Settlement attacks are completely and totally random.

EVERY settlement has a base minimum chance of 2% to be attacked each day. That chance rises if your defense ratio is low. This came from someone who decompiled the code. I think Home Plate, Boston Airport, and The Mechanist Lair are the only ones that can not be attacked.

It also allegedly rises depending on how much food is stored in your workshop. The food storage has been hard to prove because the higher chance is not significant enough to see it. I got bored one day and put 1000 food and water in the workshop it really did not increase the chances much. I went over a month of game time and nothing happened. With it being random chance still I could have been "lucky" and rolled above the chance.

I tell people if you want to increase attacks on your settlement then you just need to make enough UNPOWERED defense points to keep your safety rating (food/defense ratio, it used to be 1 defense every 5 food) so your settlers stay happy. Then put all your powered defenses like missle launchers and laser turrets on a master switch and turn it on when the attack starts.

Unless you did not put up any or enough defenses. I think all new settlements need a minimum of 10 defense or Preston gives you that radiant to go build a couple turrets and then defend.

If you have Automatron DLC during The Mechanicist quests your settlements will get hammered. The robot attacks ignore the seven day between attacks on the same settlement rule. However as soon as The Mechanist story ends so does the robot attacks on your settlements.

Settlement attacks are also hard to avoid if you know it is coming. At some point in the day (I have not figured out that time) the game rolls those attack chances to see if one will occur or not. Then the game determines that at X hour there will be an attack on that settlement. Unless you load a save prior to that random chance decision the attack will still occur.

Originally posted by Benie:

The wiki claims that once your settlement reaches a "certain stage", you'll be more open to attacks. I'd like to know what this stage is (and if said stage is persistant in causing it or not)

That wiki is full of brahminshit myths and rumors. Some jackhole gets a few coincidences then immediate assumes that is how the mechanics works. There is no fact checking to anything posted there.

If you need proof, look up Lucas Miller. Some dumbass wrote a daily schedule of where Lucas will be every day according to the day of the week. One slight problem the game does NOT tell you what day of the week it is. Then if you build any of the Bunker Hill Trading posts that schedule gets altered. Meanwhile the Bunker Hill Trading post building does not even have a damn entry in the wiki.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

I doubt many people know about the Bunker Hill trading post... it can be completely missed if you don't do Kessler's quest before the Battle of Bunker hill.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

I doubt many people know about the Bunker Hill trading post... it can be completely missed if you don't do Kessler's quest before the Battle of Bunker hill.

I usually do it fairly early since it it is easy. Plus I like dressing my farmers in the flannel outfits and there is ussually three or four there. On top of that you get to control where the visiting merchants sit in your settlements that they travel to by default.

I think the wiki even used to have a note that Greygarden never gets attacked. Which is wrong. Own any settlement long enough and you will see it get attacked.

Settlement attacks USED to be based according to your level. My last game in survival I was pissed at running to Abernathy Farm from Warwick to kill six raiders armed with 2 pipe pistols, 2 pool cues, 2 tire irons, and 2 moltovs (I was 100+ levels.)

Also keep in mind if you are close enough to a settlement there will not be a misc quest to defend. I almost got sucker punched by a legendary death claw in Sanctuary in that same game.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

My most brutal attack was an Ancient Behemoth leading a Super Mutant charge, I was only lvl 30 so I am thinking the game bugged out on generating the attack and pulled way too high for my lvl? Needless to say, Tenpine's Bluff was completely destroyed.

99% of my attacks are derpy raiders and super mutants though. Like, lvl 1-10. I've also never had a Synth Attack.

[Democracy Officer 0311]

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

My most brutal attack was an Ancient Behemoth leading a Super Mutant charge, I was only lvl 30 so I am thinking the game bugged out on generating the attack and pulled way too high for my lvl? Needless to say, Tenpine's Bluff was completely destroyed.

Now see that is a prime example of the randomness of this game. I have almost 1700 hours played and I have never seen a behemoth attack a settlement.

If you want nasty, try opening dog and radstag cages at low level, lol.

Originally posted by kordulus:

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

Wrong. As soon as a settlement has population it is considered open for business. It being attacked does not matter if your beacon is up or not.

[BenieTheDragon]

Originally posted by kordulus:

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

Is this confirmed by others? I want to believe this, but I also want insurance.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

My most brutal attack was an Ancient Behemoth leading a Super Mutant charge, I was only lvl 30 so I am thinking the game bugged out on generating the attack and pulled way too high for my lvl? Needless to say, Tenpine's Bluff was completely destroyed.

Now see that is a prime example of the randomness of this game. I have almost 1700 hours played and I have never seen a behemoth attack a settlement.

If you want nasty, try opening dog and radstag cages at low level, lol.

Originally posted by kordulus:

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

Wrong. As soon as a settlement has population it is considered open for business. It being attacked does not matter if your beacon is up or not.

That attack is the only time I've ever seen a Class of Behemoth greater than "Behemoth."

From what I understand, there's actualy like 4 or 5 Behemoths, including a Glowing one that has the largest HP pool of any creature in the game. I don't know if that's true, the Ancient Behemoth I had to deal with was like LVL96 and a Sneak attack didn't even knock 1% off it so I bailed and left Tenpines to its fate.

Originally posted by Benie:

Originally posted by kordulus:

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

Is this confirmed by others? I want to believe this, but I also want insurance.

This can't be true, my settlements get attacked all the time. Specifically, Tenpines Bluff, which I never build a beacon at.

Also, Sturges and Company do function as settlers without a Beacon. I don't build a beacon at Sanctuary either, which I use to store all my Named NPCs I find. (Sheffield, Tina, etc)

[Defektiv]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

Can Sanctuary even be attacked? I"ve never had it attacked, even with 0 Defense. Tenpines Bluff seems to be my bait settlement.

Yes, they all can. And later on the game WILL put pressure on your weaker settlements. More than once I've remembered I forgot to finish my wall and defenses on a settlement by responding to a very heavy attack. Last time this was at the Slog. Multiple waves of level 89 super mutants, one with a missile launcher. It was in survival and I reloaded several times before responding and the best I could manage was 1 dead settler and 11 destroyed resources.

Generally if your defense on a settlement is more than Food + Water for that individual settlement then the attacks will be minimal but not zero. The higher the difficulty, the harder they will be. But there's still an element of randomness to it. Lots of times it will just be a few raiders that a few turrets will easily take care of.

[CursedPanther]

Settlements get attacked at random. Recruitment beacon or none makes zero difference.

I received all kinds of warnings from my settlements while I was busy at Far Harbor. People, get your ♥♥♥♥ together and fight for your own survival already. I ain't gonna take an entire boat ride just to save your sorry asses.

[Democracy Officer 0311]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

My most brutal attack was an Ancient Behemoth leading a Super Mutant charge, I was only lvl 30 so I am thinking the game bugged out on generating the attack and pulled way too high for my lvl? Needless to say, Tenpine's Bluff was completely destroyed.

Now see that is a prime example of the randomness of this game. I have almost 1700 hours played and I have never seen a behemoth attack a settlement.

If you want nasty, try opening dog and radstag cages at low level, lol.

Originally posted by kordulus:

my second playthrough i completely ignored sanctuary. WIthout a beacon .legit settlers will not be sent there, you'll still have sturges and preston and whatnot but they do not count as settlers until you raise the beacon. The beacon itself is what tells the wasteland "hey come attack me"

Wrong. As soon as a settlement has population it is considered open for business. It being attacked does not matter if your beacon is up or not.

Well at least in my game anyways. Settlements are never attacked unless a beacon goes up. They don't even show up on my pipboy as working settlements until beacons go up.

[Defektiv]

And to be clear, even settlements with 0 population that have never had any that have no beacons built will get attacked. Red Rocket and Covenant I have always kept empty and get attacked constantly. Mechanists Lair does not seem to but that's the only one I've seen not get attacked.

There is one element of truthiness to the beacon though. If Preston sent you to initially find a settlement and set up a beacon, the place doesn't seem to get attacked if you never build the beacon and keep it empty. But simply having a beacon alone won't cause attacks that I've found.