What is the Danger icon in workshop/settlement UI?

[spark.milanders]

OK so when I am in my pip-boy and go to data> workshops I can see the list of settlements. Looking at each one shows the population, number of beds, food, water, defense. There is an icon next to defense for almost every settlement that looks like a triangle with an exclamation point. What is this?
I thought the defense was too low so I got it up to 50 in Sanctuary and the icon is still there. Does it need to be higher? That seems odd when water is ok at 9. I thought it might mean they were being attacked but it doesn't. I'm sure it means there is an issue because I saw it once when I had more people than beds, but when I built more beds it went away.
If anyone can help I'd appreciate it since google gave me nothing useful.

[Tex_Recoil]

What kind of defense did you build? If you built turret guns that fine, but if you built baracades you need to assign someone to use them.

[spark.milanders]

They are all assigned. I have 12 people in Sanctuary. 3 assigned barracades and about a dozen turrets. I lost count, I built as many turrets as I could afford. I thought I read it was one point of defense per population but at 50 its still got the symbol.

[Mastima]

I've got it too. Have 6 turrets and 4 manned posts. Defense is like 68. But that little triangle is still there. Some Clarification would great.

[spark.milanders]

I'm glad it's not just me then. Maybe no one else has noticed or cared but it's really bothering me.

[Mattrex]

I am also experiencing this issue; the most annoying thing about it is that the symbol appears and disappears over the Defense stat, and I'm not sure what criteria it is checking for. Sometimes, when I build an extra turret or man a barricade, the symbol disappears. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it goes away on its own.

[spark.milanders]

Update: there was an attack on one of my settlements. I fast traveled there and defeated it. After, the danger icon was gone from the workstation UI in the pipboy. Maybe it represents impending attack?

[spark.milanders]

Ok I know what it is now. After much experimenting it seems the defense needs to be higher than the total food and water. I was able to get rid of the icon in my 2 smaller settlements with 6 food 3 water and 9+ defense.

[dysphorya]

I've started to ignore it but check the workshop view as soon as I return to the settlement. When I get this symbol, it can be on any one resource and comes with zeroes for all of the other resources. On more than one occasion and worried I was being attacked (since I leave settlements with Defense rating higher than the Food+Water rating, Defense more than 30 points higher than in People, as well as at least 5 points higher in all other resources than in People), I used a "coc sanctuaryext" to get there instantaneously. Nothing was happening or had changed, and the workshop HUD showed nothing in red. When I was a newbie player, I actually reloaded to the last save prior to my Corvega Plant quest (every save while there showed this messed up pipboy display) and lost at least an hour of questing and exploration. I've seen other posts that explain the symbol can indicate the Happiness rating moving (one direction or the other), that Defense needs to be at least the same value as Food+Water, and as spark.milanders pointed out also a deficit of one resource compared to the others. It's supremely irritating that there is no explanation in Help or a contextual description when you hover the mouse over it in the pipboy. I've read that the tutorial with Sturges will explain the required ratios, but if you were like me and started building before he assigned the tasks, you will have missed the explanations -- and there's nowhere else to find them. Right now, I've got it on my Beds resource, but I KNOW that I have manually assigned a bed to each settler and was careful to not double-assign any of them. As far as I'm concerned, the settlers can just pound sand until I get back.

[hisey606]

That triangle indicates what needs your attention and yes the more food and water you have the more likely you are to get raided. Defense needs to be greater than the food/water total as somebody already figured out. If "happiness" has the triangle symbol build more stores or restraunts and lots of "stuff" settlers love flags and paintings on the walls!

[NotApplicable]

What if your water is capped 999?

[Nite69]

Your Defense has to be more then your water and food combined and it will fix that

like if you have food at 20, and water at 20, you need to have defense at 41 or better

edit: wait why are we posting in a nov 2015 thread? :/

[SIlverblade-T-E]

and also note, you can make turrets BETTEr
machine gun turrets spawn at a random level
MK1 is weakest
further south you go on map, higher the maximum level turrets can be
Sanctuary cn only be MK1 or maybe Mk3?? machine gun turrets
but the BOTTOM end of Taffignton Bathohouse I cna get Mk7 and MK3 maz on the North end!

youc an store to worknehnch, then rebuild turret, switch between between turret types, until you see a higher value appear on the machine gun turret (if that settlement allows higher Marks)
;)

doesn't affect Defence score
but makes HUGE difference when YOU are there in a fight
MK5s and higher rip the hell out enemies!