Do items despawn?

[Jont]

I want to decorate my house with all manner of junk but also some good stuff so is it safe for me to drop items on the floor and drag them around wherever i want to put them without them despawning after a while? Thanks.

[Calypso]

no, in my case i left power armor at police station because it's out of fusion core and go with paladin. then i came back and it still there.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by WITNESS ME:

no, in my case i left power armor at police station because it's out of fusion core and go with paladin. then i came back and it still there.

Did 30 ingame days pass though? Skyrim's re-spawn timer was very long. But it was there.

[magickmynd]

I'm curious as well. I've got a ton of stuff I want to drop off at my house and I don't have enough storage for it. So much for increasing my strength to carry more stuff :\

[probe]

Hehe.. From a review I saw you might wanna store the Power Armor on one of those Power Armor "stations" (or whatever they're called).

Some random villager in his little community stole and ran around in it because he hadn't "docked" it at the power armor thingy.

Fortunately he could just talk to the villager and tell her to get out of the power armor. Never turn your back on anyone in the wasteland, I guess....

[morph113]

I'm not sure outside of settlements, but I would think that all items stored in containers in settlements should be safe.

[tneelilsupaguy]

I just dropped a pile of stuff beside a bed and slept a total of 36 days. Nothing despawned, so I don't think it has the same 30 day item respawn cycle as Skyrim.

[Amnesia]

no items dont despawn unless there on a corpse. Corpses decay and they will also take there items with them (including there weapon unless you interacted with it. Items you droped will remain indefinatly. ALSO NPCS RESPAWN! YEAYS! thats right you may clear a raider camp out and comeback later and find more raiders there (well the same raiders in the same spot doing the same thing but different gear!) Unique npcs dont respawn though =( like raider boss with specific name... another raider boss / chief will spawn but it will be some generic randomly generated "Raider Leader" or whatnot.

BUT NO~ items you drop wont despawn.
Because of the base building feature items are now static once you drop them. they become part of the environment. so you can decorate your house with guns and armor.... or skulls... and its not just inside of base camps... if you have too much and want to come back for it later you can do that. no time limit!

[emperorjoe]

Originally posted by tneelilsupaguy:

I just dropped a pile of stuff beside a bed and slept a total of 36 days. Nothing despawned, so I don't think it has the same 30 day item respawn cycle as Skyrim.

few things.nothing in settlements despawn.everything else despawns. you can't be near the area if you are it will never despawn.

lastly containors in settlments can be accesed by settlers so they will take whatever they wish.
same with power armor. take the cores out and make a settlemt just for you and your junk so no one can steal it

[Jags]

Items definitely despawn outside of settlements, such as the Prototype UP77 in University Point.

[Lord Tony]

I've had items placed in settlements that despawned.

[emperorjoe]

settlers can take weapons and armor if placed in settlemts so probly not despawning just check their gear,

[DCid]

Items do not despawn if they're on the ground. There was a specific mod for Skyrim that auto despawned them becuase they were cuasing massive save bloat leading to long loading times and overall poor game performance. The sames goes for ash and goo piles. This was an issue for Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: NV, and Skyrim.

This issue is still present becuase Fallout 4's engine is the same they used for Skyrim and earlier games up to Oblivion. People saying this is a new engine have been proven wrong.

Pick up ALL dropped weapons. Do not leave any behind. MarkForDelete any goo or ash pile you find.

[Lanky :3]

I left a holotape lying around in my house, I came back after a while to find it gone and a bunch of other items had been moved down to the room below. Not sure what caused this but it's a pain in the ass to sort out.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by morph113:

I'm not sure outside of settlements, but I would think that all items stored in containers in settlements should be safe.

Items in a container are safe, except power cores. They must be store din your workshop. Otherwise NPC will take them form a container to activate nay suit nearby.

Originally posted by CheezBurger:

I left a holotape lying around in my house, I came back after a while to find it gone and a bunch of other items had been moved down to the room below. Not sure what caused this but it's a pain in the ass to sort out.

Originally posted by Lord Tony:

I've had items placed in settlements that despawned.

Items do sorta despawn/disappear. A couple things I noticed when trying to decorate. The physics in the game can fail and they move, either they fall through the items they were placed on, or the physics throws them somewhere else.

I also think if you mess around too much with the item capacity of a settlement it will cause items laying around to disappear. Such as dropping a lot of stuff to increase settlement size.

I had a bar I made in Sanctuary and one of the times I came back all the bottles and stuff I placed on tables and counters were "gone." Some items fell through the counters and tables, other were just gone. I laid out clothes and such and palced items on a shelf near my traders and they were gone as well, only I found them later about 100 feet away laying on the ground.

You can see the physics fail with the comic book racks, all the comics fall through it onto the ground. Not sure if a settler running it it caused it or not. I placed my racks in Home Plate this time to see, have not been back to check.

The safest thing to assume is that if the item is not buildable through the workshop then it is not safe from physics or despawning. Items placed in a container should remain safe, the only things I ever seen removed were power cores. Even then those cores were only removed when the settlement was attacked and I was there to defend.

[Mikey]

I spawned in thousands of kickballs and need to delete them all please help.