Attracting settlers

[NeonX]

I have put up the recruitment siren/radio. Is there any way to quicken the rate at which new ones come in.
In few settlements, the rate very low while in some too fast to even keep up.

[socialmediaaddress3]

The more stuff in your settlement , the better ( Beds, defense, food, water)
The lower the number of settlers the higher the rate also.

Some of us who are impatient, have installed a mod called "settler builder", It takes 10 bone and 8 Bloodpacks to make one settler at the push of a button in the workshop menu under "resources"

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by socialmediaaddress3:

The lower the number of settlers the higher the rate also.

That only applies if the settlement has less than 5 settlers.

Recruitment chance is 20% per day from the beacon + happiness/2
Which means the max is 70% so with a RNG system you can get lucky or unlucky.

The only way to "speed it up" would be complete the Mechanist quest line then chase Rogue Robots down, which gives you a chance at a radiant quest where you can save settlers. Then those three settlers can be sent to any settlement (ignoring CHA limits.)

[NeonX]

Happiness is dropping a lot at a settlement although all parameters are met. So I suppose that is slowing the rate.
Anything to do abt that?

[Ffabbia]

Do what I do.

Don't put Recruitment Beacons up everywhere. It makes things messy and they're also slow.

Choose one settlement as a main centralised recruitment station. For this run I'm using Red Rocket, but in past Survival runs I've used Oberland.

Put up enough infrastructure (beds, water, food etc.) to accommodate around 12 settlers and then build a beacon.

As soon as you have enough settlers switch the beacon off, (or scrap it if the old bug's stlll intact).

When you liberate a new settlement simply go to your recruitment station, and send however many you want over to your new settlement and then switch the beacon back on (or make a new one).

That way you can always be assured of having settlers when you need them.

Additionally I like to set up supply lines between each settlement, so I'll typically send two people to my new settlement and then send a third to the nearest settlment to it, go there, wait a few hours until they appear and then put them on supply line duty.

[peon]

I had a weird experience this playthrough on survival, its been a few years since I had played so maybe it was like this last time too.

I wasnt actually seeing new people, until I shut the game down and reloaded and all of a sudden a new settler would just appear in the new save.

Im thinking somethings bugged there too.

Again no mods, completely vanilla.

[NeonX]

Thanks guys.

[Lucus]

my advice is to place radio beacons in 2 empty settlements you won't use. preferably ones near each other so it is easier to remember which ones they are. periodically check their population on the map.

when they have settlers fast travel to them and move the settlers to the settlement you want to populate. that way you are effectively tripling the settler intake for that settlement provided it also has a radio beacon.

[Lord Nighthawk]

Originally posted by NeonX:

Happiness is dropping a lot at a settlement although all parameters are met. So I suppose that is slowing the rate.
Anything to do abt that?

Never let them run dry, means don´t take all food or water out of the workbench, let there be enough per day for all settlers and just take the excess , else mood will drop. Stuff like pictures, carpets and so on increase the mood.
If you have the vault88 dlc you can unlock certain items that also increase mood or stuff like that (can also be unlocked with mods if you want these things earlier, vault88 is not that interesting after having it done once, still it has some nice resources for sure).

Else, if you have a place you don´t really want to build a settlement, at last put a recruitment beacon up there as the settlers that arrive there can be instantly send to an active settlement.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by NeonX:

Happiness is dropping a lot at a settlement although all parameters are met. So I suppose that is slowing the rate.
Anything to do abt that?

When a new settler arrive (after the initial 1-3 turning the beacon on) the game treats them as having 50 happiness, so their 50 happiness can lower the current happiness. So basically you will see a "dip" in current happiness of a few points each time a settler arrives.
The target happiness will only change if you have happiness items and that bonus is divided among the amount of settlers. Even then it is decimal points it will change later on.

Originally posted by Ffabbia:

Choose one settlement as a main centralised recruitment station. For this run I'm using Red Rocket, but in past Survival runs I've used Oberland.

The problem with this is Bethesda did not put anything in the code for changing settlements when settlers have dialogue chosen. So they only remember the first settlement they get recruited at.
Meaning the dialogues about raids, living conditions, etc as based upon the original settlement they came from.
For example if six came from Settlement A and are sent to Settlement B and six are from Settlement B. If settlement A has a shortage of beds, then some at Settlement B are going to complain, same if Settlement A got raided recently, the settlers sent to B will talk about that.

Settlement leaders are also a "lifetime job" meaning if you move that leader to another settlement then you will have to go to the new settlement for radiant quests involving that settlement. For example, if you send the Ten Pines leader to Starlight and later Preston says go help Ten Pines you will notice your quest marker is at Starlight instead.

Also you should never transfer the first five settlers from somewhere else because you are robbing yourself of the double recruitment chance for the first 5 settlers. If you are going to transfer settlers you should wait until after you get the initial 5 settlers. The same also applies if you are using mods to recruit NPC like Settlers of the Commonwealth.

[NeonX]

Originally posted by Lord Nighthawk:

Originally posted by NeonX:

Happiness is dropping a lot at a settlement although all parameters are met. So I suppose that is slowing the rate.
Anything to do abt that?

Never let them run dry, means don´t take all food or water out of the workbench, let there be enough per day for all settlers and just take the excess , else mood will drop.

So apart from building water pumps I need adequate amount of water in the workbenches too? Is water also produced like food can be harvested?

Also how do I get the "income" from trading stalls? I have assigned settlers to each of them

[Lord Nighthawk]

It´s all the same. If you have a normal pump with 3 water it will put 3 water in the workbench per day, if you have 3 settlers these 3 will remove these 3 water over the day leaving zero but they will stay happy. If you want water for to sell you have to produce more then you have settlers and keep the same amount of water as you have settlers in the workbench to keep happyness - the rest can be taken and sold.

Income from the shops end up in the workbench also.

[NeonX]

Originally posted by Lord Nighthawk:

It´s all the same. If you have a normal pump with 3 water it will put 3 water in the workbench per day, if you have 3 settlers these 3 will remove these 3 water over the day leaving zero but they will stay happy. If you want water for to sell you have to produce more then you have settlers and keep the same amount of water as you have settlers in the workbench to keep happyness - the rest can be taken and sold.

Income from the shops end up in the workbench also.

thanks
Is that also shared in supply line or i have to go to each settlement to collect?

[-={LG}=-]

Originally posted by NeonX:

Is there any way to quicken the rate at which new ones come in.

Go to wherever you desire a settler. Open the console and type the following:

player.placeatme 20593 1

Select the new settler in build mode, and "move" him to where you are since he won't be assigned a settlement yet. You can change the final "1" to any number higher to spawn a bunch of settlers, this is the way to spawn a single settler.

After several thousand hours playing this game, I don't waste my time on beacons anymore unless I'm trying to spawn a Brahmin. Besides sometimes I want my settlement to have one man and one woman, and this is the way to do that handily.

[Lord Nighthawk]

Originally posted by -={LG}=-:

After several thousand hours playing this game, I don't waste my time on beacons anymore unless I'm trying to spawn a Brahmin. Besides sometimes I want my settlement to have one man and one woman, and this is the way to do that handily.

Yeah, some people are nitpicking a bit too much in a fully modable game. 1-2 full legal playthroughs are ok but after that i stopped wasting time on simple time-eating nonsense.

Originally posted by NeonX:

Is that also shared in supply line or i have to go to each settlement to collect?

I can´t answer that exactly as there are scripts involved that are always in movement and what you get displayed is not always what´s going on. Water is produced, consumed, on the way to another settlement as this happens in real time. Technically water is shared, but you won´t necessarily see if there is a water exceed in another settlement, too much movement. Best in this case is to keep all water production in each settlement equal to it´s settlers and just use one settlement for water production. Else you need pen and paper to note single exceeds.

[Ffabbia]

The problem with this is Bethesda did not put anything in the code for changing settlements when settlers have dialogue chosen. So they only remember the first settlement they get recruited at.
Meaning the dialogues about raids, living conditions, etc as based upon the original settlement they came from.
For example if six came from Settlement A and are sent to Settlement B and six are from Settlement B. If settlement A has a shortage of beds, then some at Settlement B are going to complain, same if Settlement A got raided recently, the settlers sent to B will talk about that.

Settlement leaders are also a "lifetime job" meaning if you move that leader to another settlement then you will have to go to the new settlement for radiant quests involving that settlement. For example, if you send the Ten Pines leader to Starlight and later Preston says go help Ten Pines you will notice your quest marker is at Starlight instead.

Also you should never transfer the first five settlers from somewhere else because you are robbing yourself of the double recruitment chance for the first 5 settlers. If you are going to transfer settlers you should wait until after you get the initial 5 settlers. The same also applies if you are using mods to recruit NPC like Settlers of the Commonwealth.

I've been playing this game since release, and have constantly moved settlers around from one settlement to another with no issues whatsoever. I have never encountered any of the issues you described above - in fact I've never even heard of any of the issues you described above.