Whats the point of a supply line?

[CJ]

Do you get caps or what happens?

[Tex]

It links your workshops so they all use the same resource pool.

[WC?]

its just a convenience thing. that said its really worth it if you plan to use settlements extensively.

[Zourin]

Supply lines link resources together, but they don't allow remote access of items specifically.

If you have 3 extra food points at A, and are short 2 food at B. You have a supply link between them.

B will be 'fed'. A will have 1 extra produce remaining which will go into its inventory.
When crafting food/chems at B, you can 'use' that 1 extra produce from A, even though it isn't physically at B.

This works the same way with junk. You drop off a ton of junk at A, go to B. The junk isn't there, but you can consume it for crafting or construction.

Supply lines can be 'networked', allowing for shorter, safer trade routes. If you link A to B, B to C.. A and C can share.

[socialautiste]

Yes, it's all shared. But note that outside of the settlement where you stored something, you can't see it in the other settlement's workstations. It only shares them for crafting purposes, not for directly removing them. That confused me at first. Within a particular settlement, you can see/access/remove the items from any workstation (if you placed them into the storage of that settlement). Also, only junk items are ever destroyed for resources. You have to manually scrap weapons or armor, so its safe in them (but only visible across that settlement).

Edit: So before I realized how it was working, since it looked like it wasn't, I decided to use Red Rocket as a supply hub. All of my supply provisioners live in that settlement and go out to the other settlements from there... and then it links to Sanctuary too, that way there isn't too much bridge crossing and minimized security risks to Sanctuary from too many traders coming and going. It also looks nice on the map, the lines all going out from one point. Its horribly inefficient if it were real life considering some settlements are right next to each other.

[Zourin]

There seems to be something wierd if you craft a pile of, say, adhesive and use up a lot of produce/water all at once, where the game suddenly freaks out and thinks 'supplied' settlements are short on food/water.

[socialautiste]

Originally posted by Zourin:

There seems to be something wierd if you craft a pile of, say, adhesive and use up a lot of produce/water all at once, where the game suddenly freaks out and thinks 'supplied' settlements are short on food/water.

Yeah people complain about food and water in settlements where they are getting it from elsewhere and the data says its fine. They also complain about beds in Sanctuary, despite having more beds than people.