I've Been Robbed

[jasonbarron]

I think. I have two levels of Scrapper and I've been religiously collecting weapons and junk and scrapping literally everything I could carry. I had well over 200+ circuits, aluminum, ceramic, fiberglass, nuclear material etc. But, now when I decide it's time to do some upgrading on my brand new power armor, I check the storage in my main settlement where I've been keeping everything, and it's all gone.

Screws, steel, aluminum, oil, you name it. There's still a random assortment of stuff, but all the big stockpiles have vanished. I went back in time several hours and it looks pretty much the same when I check storage, even though the save is 5-6 hours earlier.

Am I screwed or is there some way to get my gear back? The follow up question is how do I keep it from happening again?

[steventirey]

Failing a settlement defense quest results in things being removed from the workbench. Even if you build tons of defense, the formulas used to determine success or failure when you are not there always have about a 1 in 3 chance for the settlement to lose. And it is quite possible the message bugged out and never displayed properly, so you didn't even know a settlement needed help.

Things you want to keep should be stored in some other container, not the workbench. The best one for the job is the armor display mannequin added by one of the DLCs. Since they are technically NPCs and not a normal container, no one but you can ever take things from them. Specifically weapons and ammo. Everything else could be stored safely in other containers.

[random_frugality]

What did you store it in? If it was left in the workbench or an ordinary container, and if you had a raid, it might have been stolen, or a settler or two might have done some pilfering, in which case it's gone, unless you have a previous save from when you had it all.

The best storage is the Armor Rack from the Contraptions Workshop DLC. I was advised by folks here to use that to keep stuff safe and it hasn't failed me yet. I'm told that the reason why it works to keep NPCs out is that in the game it looks like another NPC and the game doesn't allow them to steal from each other.

[jasonbarron]

Thanks for the input, guys. My stash was mostly in the workshop, but there was also quite a bit in a wooden box next to the workbench.

I haven't been getting any messages at all about my settlement, Sanctuary, being attacked, but I noticed that happiness has taken a huge hit, all the way down to 61 percent. Everything is green and happiness is climbing now.

[SpudNoggin]

Any settlement with settlers is liable to be raided. If you store your loot in a settlement that's never had settlers or companions, it'll be safe.

[chakkman]

I'm pretty sure the settlements where you leave your compaions are especially liable to be raided. I had my main "HQ" in Red Rocket Truck Stop, and, there were many, many raids on it...

Which is a bit weird, as it's not really a crowded area.

[steventirey]

Originally posted by chakkman:

I'm pretty sure the settlements where you leave your compaions are especially liable to be raided. I had my main "HQ" in Red Rocket Truck Stop, and, there were many, many raids on it...

Which is a bit weird, as it's not really a crowded area.

Has nothing to do with companions being there. The base chance for a raid is 2% per day. Each unit of food and water (stored and produced) raise that chance by 0.1%. Each point of Defense lowers it by 1%, and each settler lowers it by 0.5%. Cages (Added by one of the DLCs) that have captured something increase the chances of the settlement being attacked by creatures/people of the appropriate faction, even if those sort of creatures/NPCs don't normally generate attacks.

By default, those are the only things that increase attack chances.

[chakkman]

Thanks. Still weird, as I'm pretty sure that its chance for a raid is lower than other settlements then. Anyway.

[The Inept European]

It does sometimes happens that you don’t get notification of settlement raids. They will be in your quest log but you might fail to check if you didn’t get a notification.

Raids where the defence fails will lose random and potentially large amount of resources from the workshop. (It would make sense if those resources increased the raid probability and raid strength- but they don’t).

Another possibility for lost resources is if they are used to auto-repair settlement objects. This occurs without any notification. The repairs don’t need to be local - they could be for another settlement that is connected by a supply line.

[Xenon The Noble]

wow. Something going around. I just had ~1500 water disappear from my inventory. Now I don't feel like playing anymore... if I do I'll probably get a mod so everyone is killable, and then make war on Diamond City and Goodneighbor.
I mean, I was right there! Look in the workshop, have purified water, put it in the container. fix up power armor, look in the container... GONE!

[Emmental]

This kind of thing is why I keep all my valuables in homeplate, then insert materials into hangman alley when needed. It's a pain in the bum sometimes, but you can't really lose much in a failed raid.

[jasonbarron]

Originally posted by Emmental:

This kind of thing is why I keep all my valuables in homeplate, then insert materials into hangman alley when needed. It's a pain in the bum sometimes, but you can't really lose much in a failed raid.

Please elaborate on that process. What exactly does "homeplate" and "hangman's alley" mean?

[jasonbarron]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

It does sometimes happens that you don’t get notification of settlement raids. They will be in your quest log but you might fail to check if you didn’t get a notification.

Raids where the defence fails will lose random and potentially large amount of resources from the workshop. (It would make sense if those resources increased the raid probability and raid strength- but they don’t).

Another possibility for lost resources is if they are used to auto-repair settlement objects. This occurs without any notification. The repairs don’t need to be local - they could be for another settlement that is connected by a supply line.

One suggestion another poster made was that I store my resources in an armor mannequin. Does that make my items more secure then other containers?

[steventirey]

Originally posted by jasonbarron:

Originally posted by Emmental:

This kind of thing is why I keep all my valuables in homeplate, then insert materials into hangman alley when needed. It's a pain in the bum sometimes, but you can't really lose much in a failed raid.

Please elaborate on that process. What exactly does "homeplate" and "hangman's alley" mean?

Homeplate is a home you can acquire inside of Diamond City. As it is an interior space, it is safe storage. It is not a settlement, so can not be attacked. While you can build inside of it, certain things are prohibited. But you can still store everything there and decorate it as you see fit.

Hangmans Alley is the closest settlement location to Diamond City.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Xenon The Noble:

wow. Something going around. I just had ~1500 water disappear from my inventory. Now I don't feel like playing anymore... if I do I'll probably get a mod so everyone is killable, and then make war on Diamond City and Goodneighbor.
I mean, I was right there! Look in the workshop, have purified water, put it in the container. fix up power armor, look in the container... GONE!

What kind of container was the 1500 water in?

[The Inept European]

Yes OP an armor rack mannequin should be safe from all forms of stealing (apart from user error).

It’s not exactly clear to me if off-screen raids can steal from any container other than the workshop itself. I’m not saying they definitely don’t, but I don’t see how they could. But it’s possible- there are built in functions to “search all nearby containers” so they could use those. Possibly.

Obviously it’s very convenient to leave resources in the workshop for crafting purposes and supply line purposes. I don’t think it’s worth the hassle of storing things outside the workshop (apart from AID and weapons/ammo). I have never been hit with this issue or if I have I have not noticed it.

Here are a few more known causes:

Containers can reset, and if they have an LL associated that can overwrite the contents. This happens even in settlements. The mail boxes in Sanctuary are a good example. They periodically spawn new items (which is why I never scrap them).

So never store anything in a container that you didn’t craft yourself. Those containers never spawn anything. Workbenches (anywhere) are also perfectly safe for permanent storage, except during attacks.

The other possibility is that you have too many different types of items (rows) stored in the container. At some point the container starts to lose rows. That could be all yiur water for example. It’s likely to be whichever row was updated last. This is very rare as you have to have a very large number of rows in one container. You can see a trivial example of this by getting Dogmeat to his carry limit and then making him fetch more stuff by telling him “go get X”. Eventually his container will glitch out and you will lose one or more rows of items.