How to Max Charisma to get the most settlers (no spoilers) plus a small exploit to boost more.

[Aminom]

Hopefully someone will find this useful.

First there's 10 base charisma, 1 from the bobblehead, and 1 from the SPECIAL book (save for last, you'll probably need to start a new character if you already used it) which gives 12 total.

For clothing, suitable hat and glasses of course, but for clothes it's a bit more complicated. Normally, you'll want to use Agatha's dress/Reginald's Suit from Trinity Tower which gives +3 to charisma and 5 total with glasses and hat. However "sharp" legendary gear gives +1 charisma and +1 int. The Trinity clothes let you equip arms but not legs, but Summer Shorts (you can find some at general atomics galleria) gives +2 charisma. Best case scenario for clothes would be 4 sharp legendary pieces for arms and legs, along with summer shorts, hat, and glasses, which gives 8 charisma total.

Chems stack but alcohol does not, however beer gives +2 charisma if you have the party boy level 2 perk. Grap Mentats gives +5 charisma, Day Tripper gives 3 (very rare and only sold from 1 place) and x-cell gives 2 (extremely rare and can only be found in a few places.) Taking all of this gives 12 charisma total.

So the highest possible charisma value is 32, allowing for 42 settlers at a single settlement. To do this, first max out the desired without the rare chems (except for grape mentats which are somewhat easy to make) go to a feeder settlement with lots of people, pop the chems, and move as many people to your desired settlement.

There is an exploit you can use to get a few more over the natural amount. Notice how there's lag between assigning someone a job, and it taking into effect? If you assign as many settlers as fast as you can, you can assign a few more above the limit before the game notices and greys out the target settlement from the move menu. In practice I can get about 3-4 more than normal using this trick.

[|UGA|PatPeter]

This is a great guide, thank you very much. Now that I'm in endgame Fallout I'm focusing more on settlements than anything else and I want to fill up Vault 88 with dozens of people. My high so far is 26. Sadly, I already wasted the SPECIAL! book on Intelligence :\

[Cakefiend]

I'd use the SPECIAL book first (with a debuff active, as I've read it doesn't work on a stat that's already at 10 without debuffing; I haven't actually needed to test the truth of it yet since what I wanted to take to 11 has so far been relatively easy enough to debuff). Then use the bobblehead. The bobblehead will always add +1 to whatever your base is, and doesn't require debuffing first.

That said, any settlement getting near 20 settlers tends to have horrific pathing so charisma isn't something I bother taking to 12... except on one character, who is attempting a no-kills playthrough. I haven't touched him since his first day. XD

[raubrey]

I think Daytripper and Mysterious Serum should be on top 10 spoilers you (the player) want to know.

Nice job @OP

I'm a 20ish-ish settlement person myself. Maybe on Survival-Survval-lite it will be different as I won't have the means to build defenses like I do now and keep up with it all. At least such I expect to be the case. Then again, on that difficulty I won't be a Charisma build. Oh well. :D

P.S. Isn't there a cap removal for Vault 88, someone mentioned. I turned off the radio as I was getting too many peasants. Turned it off at 33 peeps and my Charisma was 14 or so buffed ...at least I think it was. Going to test it again in a bit.

[us271934-Слава Україн]

I'm at 25 settlers and am starting to lose sight of the individuality of the settlements. Too often the settlers seem to stand about without purpose and immersion is lost. Frankly I think I'd be content to have around ten with populations in the low 20's. Plus I've only settled about 15 locations and am thinking I may not build out the rest manually. I just started using SimSettlements RoTC and am letting a single settlement run itself a bit before expanding that option.
Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing :-)

[Lifeisagame]

neat Guide, why you post it here not under guides? :D

[Doombringer]

The OP is an outdated guide from 2015, here is an update after DLC:

12 base (get to 10, use drug withdrawal to get down to 9, use You're SPECIAL and bobblehead)
+15 - 5x legendary unyielding armor pieces (and radiate yourself down to 25%) (Far Harbor)
+2 Dapper Gent hat (Far Harbor)
+1 Fashionable/Black-Rimmed Glasses
+2 Fancy Plaid Suit & Tie (Nuka World)
+1 use Barber Chair (Vault-Tec)
+15 chems (Alcohol w/Party Boy/Girl, Grape Mentats, Day Tripper, X-Cell, Smooth Operator (Nuka World))

can get another +1 with CC Modular Backpack, and up to +5? from CC donuts (I don't know how many of those stack, I don't have it, so I can't check - it adds 5 items that give +1 CHA though.)

So max settlers ends up between 60 to 64...
Which doesn't matter because Rogue Robot (Automatron) can give you settlers and doesn't care about population caps.

[lordoftheapes79]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

The OP is an outdated guide from 2015, here is an update after DLC:

12 base (get to 10, use drug withdrawal to get down to 9, use You're SPECIAL and bobblehead)
+15 - 5x legendary unyielding armor pieces (and radiate yoursself own to 25%) (Far Harbor)
+2 Dapper Gent hat (Far Harbor)
+1 Fashionable/Black-Rimmed Glasses
+2 Fancy Plaid Suit & Tie (Nuka World)
+1 use Barber Chair (Vault-Tec)
+15 chems (Alcohol w/Party Boy/Girl, Grape Mentats, Day Tripper, X-Cell, Smooth Operator (Nuka World))

can get another +1 with CC Modular Backpack, and up to +5? from CC donuts (I don't know how many of those stack, I don't have it, so I can't check - it adds 5 items that give +1 CHA though.)

So max settlers ends up between 60 to 64...
Which doesn't matter because Rogue Robot (Automatron) can give you settlers and doesn't care about population caps.

You covered everything I saw missing there. There are a few sets of clothes that give you +2 charisma tho. I like the Vault-Tec Lab Coat myself.

Robots are tricky. While they don't need any resources(food, water or beds) they are also limited to 50% happiness, no more, no less. So with any robots at your settlements, you're limiting your rewards. However, there is the rogue robot "exploit" where after doing the mission, there's a chance of a settler(or 2) being nearby that you can send to any settlement despite limitations.

Oxhorn did a good video on an efficient settlement build awhile back that, so far, seems to still be relevant after all the dlcs. There are production caps on a bunch of stuff to take into account and it seems exceeding 24 settlers only hinders it.

Good post overall tho, I could have used it a couple weeks ago.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by lordoftheapes79:

You covered everything I saw missing there. There are a few sets of clothes that give you +2 charisma tho. I like the Vault-Tec Lab Coat myself.

The fancy plaid suit and tie is used because it fits under all armour, allowing you to wear a full set of legendary armour.

[Willow]

Alternatively, you can use this mod to set the settler cap up to a maximum of 999.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1613

I prefer something like a cap of 20-30, just so I don't need to invest a whole lot into Charisma to have a populated settlement.

[Doombringer]

You can use a console command to set the limit to whatever you want if that is your intent...
(don't need a mod to 'cheat')

[Grantorino]

I like settlers bu Charisma is kind of useless unless you play on survival. I'm going for a gun fu build so right now most of my perks are in agility and luck and I'll need to put some in endurance as well.

[raubrey]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

The OP is an outdated guide from 2015, here is an update after DLC:

12 base (get to 10, use drug withdrawal to get down to 9, use You're SPECIAL and bobblehead)
+15 - 5x legendary unyielding armor pieces (and radiate yourself down to 25%) (Far Harbor)
+2 Dapper Gent hat (Far Harbor)
+1 Fashionable/Black-Rimmed Glasses
+2 Fancy Plaid Suit & Tie (Nuka World)
+1 use Barber Chair (Vault-Tec)
+15 chems (Alcohol w/Party Boy/Girl, Grape Mentats, Day Tripper, X-Cell, Smooth Operator (Nuka World))

can get another +1 with CC Modular Backpack, and up to +5? from CC donuts (I don't know how many of those stack, I don't have it, so I can't check - it adds 5 items that give +1 CHA though.)

So max settlers ends up between 60 to 64...
Which doesn't matter because Rogue Robot (Automatron) can give you settlers and doesn't care about population caps.

Awesome. I knew the post was off but I wasn't up-to-date enough to figure it all out and didn't notice the date of the OP.

Been meaning to ask you if you have to teleport to Institute before going to the Robots as when I do the quests the settlers are dead. Only took me about 9 times to figure out something was wrong. :-/

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by I am Fruit:

First there's 10 base charisma, 1 from the bobblehead, and 1 from the SPECIAL book (save for last, you'll probably need to start a new character if you already used it) which gives 12 total.

That SPECIAL book trick does not work on any stat that you began the game with 10 with. Least every time I tried it would not allow me to.

Originally posted by Doombringer:

12 base (get to 10, use drug withdrawal to get down to 9, use You're SPECIAL and bobblehead)

Captains VIM is -2, I was able to do it from a base 11 using that. A trip to the VIM factory leads to a bottle or the recipe. So you can skip the withdrawal pain in the ass and do the bobblehead before grabbing the book.

Originally posted by Doombringer:

up to +5? from CC donuts (I don't know how many of those stack, I don't have it, so I can't check - it adds 5 items that give +1 CHA though.)

Pretty sure only the one food buff counts, just like alcohol. Chems stack independently because of the different withdrawals. I can check next time im at a donut fryer. I havent bothered to tyr yet because pretty sure one food buff jsut going to overwrite another the same way alcohol does.

In my current game I am at 19 with easy items. I have the base 12 with the SPECIAL trick.
Armored newsboy cap
Greenshirt and combat boots (fits under armor)
CC backpack
Barber buff
Glasses
2 sharp pieces

Honestly some settlements you dont really want more than 20-30 at. Like Red Rocket for exmaple. This is because it becomes kinda hard to keep them all employed without having some super huge excess build.

Also keep in mind the Vault beacon is cha +20, not cha +10 for population limit.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by I am Fruit:

First there's 10 base charisma, 1 from the bobblehead, and 1 from the SPECIAL book (save for last, you'll probably need to start a new character if you already used it) which gives 12 total.

That SPECIAL book trick does not work on any stat that you began the game with 10 with. Least every time I tried it would not allow me to.

I haven't found that to be the case in my extensive playing around with duplicating the book and using it to increase all SPECIAL statistics well beyond their normal maximum.

Charisma in particular I could ramp up to a baseline total of 20 by using all the temporary penalties I could find (total -9 including survival mode penalties) and adding the bobblehead after that.

[candyundfelix]

dont know really why but have now 38 on starlight drive in, and no mods on for settler max.
charisma is only on 10.