From what I have been hearing, the straightforward conclusion is that if the player does NOT get his/her character to the settlement in a timely fashion the outcome is automatic: "Failed to defend ______". HOWEVER, there seems to be a wide range of just how badly the settlement will suffer. I have had outcomes where pretty much ALL turrets were knocked out, ALL water producers were damaged, ALL generators damaged, and ALL crops damaged. Then I have had at least one case where ONE turret was damaged and that was it. And outcomes anywhere in between.

I think it is obvious by the fact that when the player character is present when an attack takes place and the settlers mop the floor with the attackers that when the player character is not present, the program does NOT play through an attack sequence to determine the results. It simply declares the settlement the loser and then starts to ascertain just which things get damaged. This is how I think it is being done:

1. No player character present = "Failed to defend"

2. A Random Number Generator is activated to determine just how bad the damage will be. The probability of something being damaged will be 5%-95%. (I am guessing the RNG is based on the old D&D 20-sided die, since nearly all RPGs grew from that seed.)

3. One item at a time, each plant, turret, generator, water purifier, etc. "makes a die roll". If that die roll is = or < the percentage that the RNG generated, then that item is declared "Damaged".

Given the speed of CPUs these days, that whole process would take less than 30 seconds. (Probably more like 30 milliseconds.)

This theory would explain why it is that despite the fact that a "battle" took place, there is NEVER any enemy casualties lying around, none of the settlers get killed and why even at its worst, not EVERYTHING has been damaged, nor is NOTHING the only apparent damage. (Though those two outcomes are, in fact, theoretically possible.)

I find that the most galling aspect of "Failed to defend" outcomes is that there is absolutely nothing that the player can do to adjust the results. The possibility that a settlement with minimal defenses is barely damaged is just as likely as a MASSIVELY defended settlement is thoroughly trashed. And the above theory could very possibly explain just why that is.

I've had settlement battles report a success, even if I was not present. (Only one, though)


I think we need to wait for the GECK to know what really is happening with these, and how they can be controlled.

Additionally I have experienced 4 cases now where a settlement has been trashed but there has been no prior warning.

Maybe I was in earshot of a settlement when it was attacked and didn't realise.

I don't know.

Anyway comme ci comme ca.

It's easily repaired.

I didn't even know settlement battles cause damage if you just ignored them...I need to check on one of my settlements.

I find that it is real easy to miss a notification of an impending attack. A message pops up in the exact same place where every other message is placed, with no emphasis whatsoever. The ONLY surefire way to catch every notification is to check the Miscellaneous quest log every five minutes or so. (Note that in the quest log there's absolutely no emphasis either. YOU must drill down to just see that there's a settlement notification under the Miscellaneous label.)

I firmly believe that it would help players IMMENSELY if when the notification pops up, a siren or klaxon goes off and the message strobes until you acknowledge that you've seen it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't miss them as i always check the Pip Boy and I don't have much there in miscellaneous.

I think there was no warning.

One time I did check by going back to a save game and it transpired that I had fast travelled out seconds before the game dropped a Deathclaw in the settlement.

You don't normally get warnings to defend a settlement when you are there when the attack starts.

I tend to get messages saying my settlement is under attack, I'll travel to it find nothing wrong wait around just in case and then do my own business only to get failed to defend settlement and nothing wrong once I travel back.

i have missed multiple just seeing them in the quest log, i agree that the warning is far too hidden.

Note that you can also get random encounters after fast traveling, this is not an attack, yes you can get this together with an attack.

My second deathclaw as at the outdoor cinema, travel just to do some building, cait wanted to talk, deatclaw crashed the party hard.

I have also had attacks on settlements with far higher defense rating than food+water.

Try sleeping there for a few hours.

That's what I do, I'll either sit or sleep for a while.

It's messed up that a settlement attack can go by without much notification, but whenever Idiot Savant procs I get a pop-up animation as well as a sound notification.

I never had that. Not a single one. On the contrary, I had a failed when I was there. One turret took damage and a fail was declared.

I also think, that the missing warning of the attack happens, when you are near enough that the cell with the settlement in it is loaded, i.e. active. In same cases I heard the gunshots, and could help, but since no quest starts, you also receive no success message. Despite that everything is fine. I also had attacks happen, while I was inside the settlement - this is obviously easy.

If you are far away, you receive a quest - travel to the settlement and help. This quest is timed with a rather short timeout, but it still is several hours of in game time. This is because fast traveling also takes (in game) time! It seems to depend on the distance, but can be several hours. So if you receive the message (and manage not to overlook it) you have time enough to save, prepare and then fast travel. But waiting/sleeping or fast travel elsewhere will trigger the quest timeout and you will fail.

But the quest starts automatically as soon as the cell is loaded. So if you choose to run towards your settlement, you are at a disadvantage, since the attack starts when the cell loads, but this happens while you still are quite far away! If you fast travel, you land directly in the correct cell, and the quest starts.

So - if you are in bad luck, you are far from your settlement, with mountains or buildings in the way but still near enough that the settlement cell is active. The quest then starts immediately without a message!

In this case - if you hear the gunshots - you can run or fast travel to the settlement and help. If you do not hear or see anything you will loose, because the quest starts and resolves itself without you ever knowing. This cannot be the way it was planned! There should be at least a message.

In my experience the missing warning is connected to fast travelling long distances. Usually you don't check your log every few seconds, so it might be there. But doing other things, you miss it until you get the fail. I always got it when arriving at a destination.

This is the same for me, at least for all the ones I've seen. I get it right after arriving at my destination after fast traveling. I've gotten into the habit of just checking the Misc quests every time I arrive now. (It helps if you do all of the other Misc quests, so that section won't even be there unless a settlement is under attack.)

As some have said, we'll unfortunately not know the full mechanics of this until the GECK is released and people dig into the programming surrounding Settlements. Hopefully that will answer a lot of questions.

This is where Freedom Radio would be useful - warning you of attacks in a way much less likely to be missed - but it's so broken with the spamming of radiant quests that none of us use it.

I had another trashed settlement tonight.

As it happens i had a game save from the moment I fast travelled away from it.

The game tricked me by luring me away to respond to a help defend the settlement message for another spot.

Seconds after I left synths and a cursor mounted an attack.

Cunning bastards.

They must have been watching me rearrange the accomodation to fit in the new arrivals and waited until I left.

From tomorrow, 5th Jan 2016, Fallout 4 was realised here in the UK 8 weeks ago.


As the settlement attack notification issue, enemies hiding and failure messages if enemies are cleared before you arrive, are all well document here on Bethesda's own forum, when are they going to fix these?


With the caps glitch being fixed shortly after it was reported, I presume these forums are also here for Bethesda to monitor the more persistent issues players are regularly reporting.


I do hope the settlement attack issues are fixed sooner rather than later.

I can't wait for you PC players to report this, because something is very broken with this system.

I was at Somerville Place building my settlement when a group of Raiders attacked. The settlers, each with boosted weapons and combat armor, took all but one of the Raiders out almost as quickly as they appeared. The last was wearing power armor, so it went down as soon as I got to it. The defense was well over 180, with heavy lasers, machine guns, and shotgun turrets laying waste to the enemies.

What shocked me was how much damage was done to things no where near the spawn point. When the Raiders showed up (to the left of the house), they took out 1 turret and some crops. Yet the most damage came from the other side of the settlement where 5 wells were crushed, crops destroyed, and 3 turrets required repair.

I was right there watching it all and at no time were these items attacked. In addition, I have a partition that goes down the center of the area from the main house down to the entrance as I learned from Sanctuary of attacks spawning within the compound. That's how I know there's no possible way the items were shot at from distance (unless enemy fire can shoot through walls during attacks?).

Knowing how damage is calculated via GECK will help making better settlements, whether we're around or not.

I will say this, though: knowing the spawn points of settlements and creating "mazes" truly helps reduce damage (if not negate it). Most of my settlements have walls that "maze away" from the center point, which allows turrets to take them out while my settlers are safe.

This is probably why I've not seen damage taken when I'm not there, but then again, I could just be very lucky in the RNG rollout.

Tell me about it?

I had everyone's favorite. A synth attacking from the inside. Down before I even arrived there. It was at Sanctuary and when I went down to the river, where my purifiers are located and got the failed to defend message. Along with watching all six purifiers crumble before my eyes. Without anyone being near.

sounds like OP is pretty much correct. I have experienced similar damage from single, weak enemies while I was present. So the whole town takes a damage "roll" with the presence of enemy.

that needs to be addressed for sure!

That's just the worst when the whole settlement is sacked and you have to watch it. This has happened to me a few times with Abernathy before I started my current strategy. I'd get there, everything would look fine, but then my farmers just sort of wandered away from the crops as, row by row, they started getting destroyed. I'd look up to see my turrets, one by one, just shutting down.

Just awful. Easily the worst part of the game for me. And the lack of an understanding of the mechanics makes it even worse.

I changed my strategy as well: no more expensive turrets. All just standard machine gun turrets so if I need to repair, the cost won't be expensive. They say adhesive is rare but no where as rare as fiber optics, which all the powered turrets require.

Then again, I am taking advantage of the duplication glitch in my new game. If I can't find it, I'll just buy it and produce enough of it to last me for years.

Yeah, I avoided the duplication glitch until I found myself in severe need of Oil for turrets. Now that I think about it, anything underhanded or exploitative I've done in this game has pretty much been to defend settlements. If they weren't so damn buggy and unpredictable, it wouldn't be necessary.

Settlers don't have any strong weapons/armor as default, you need to give them weapons/ammo and armor. I have notice that heavy missile turrets works best to defend a settlement, but they also destroy everything else where rockets hits - settlers will not die, just be disabled a little bit. Investment an alarm tower is good. This one should be placed in the middle of the settlements. NPC will turn this on/off by themselves, but sometimes you have to turn it off if settlers are on alert too long. Alarm tower should be connected direct to a source. Often while travel, a settlement is under attack. Do a instant save as soon as possible. Fasttravel to the settlement and do the needed stuff.

Sometimes the attackers attack from one or several angles so you have to be very fast. The attackers can easy disable the turrets/water- and power sources if they came close (it happens very fast) so turrets should be placed on rooftops etc. I use also shack foundations. Even with latest savegame you cannot complete "defend settlements", you may need to use another savegame, go to the settlement and add turrets/wall foundations to protect the settlements sources and then continue whatever you did.

After the fight, just wait a little. Some of the destroyed things will be automatically fixed and some you have to do the fix by yourself. I have seen caravan folks dies, but I don't know what happened. Maybe they can kill eachother if they are using area weapons. In such cases, I just reload saved game until I'm pleased. Some may say that relead is cheating, but I don't care because the game "cheats" as well (read: bugged). Problem when attackers spawns in the middle of the settlements, it's best to stay away a little so you don't destroy more than needed (I assume you have granades and missile launchers)

Good idea to have a count on settlers before and after the fight, so the ammount of settlers are even. Be sure that you talk to the settlers until someone "thanks for helping defending", just to be sure that everything is ok. Sometimes there are enemies nearby who don't count as "attacker" so you need to search the area even mission complete. In a settlement of 20 settlers, I have about 140 in protection, overkill maybe, but I have minerals/metals to spend. When I do missions, visiting area, I pick up *everything* I can find, some traders also sells in bulk/shipment, buy them all if possible. Scrap armor and weapons will do as well.

Cheers,

-Klevs