Fast Travel Safety

It annoys me that fast travel in Fo4 can dump you right into a firefight. I thought a cardinal rule was that fast travel would put you into a safe spot. Now I have to assume that any fast travel, outside of settlements, will get me into trouble. I'm spamming VATS even before I materialize. Maybe that's by design but I still don't like it. I hate fast traveling to Satellite Station Olivia and getting jumped by bloat flies and mole rats which alert the raider guards. Oh well.

Far Harbor - Cool!

I haven't started Far Harbor yet. I'm still having fun with Automatron and Wasteland Workshop but Far Harbor sounds amazing. It's the largest map that has been developed as a DLC and has completely new creatures. The following was posted to Reddit Fallout Sub:

Far Harbor is not a friendly place. The town’s inhabitants don’t trust you. Monstrous creatures lay in wait around every corner. Even the island itself can kill you. “It’s not like walking around the Commonwealth and maybe encountering some pockets of radiation,” warns Lead Producer Phil Nelson. “The island is radiation.”

But you’ll find much more than just hostile denizens and radiation in Fallout 4’s latest add-on. In addition to being Bethesda Game Studios’ largest landmass that they have ever created for an add-on, the island is host to a wealth of mysteries for you to uncover. Discover new creatures, arm yourself with new gear and seek out the truth behind the ongoing conflict between factions on the island. Along the way you’ll face some of the most complex and nuanced choices in Fallout.

Follow the link to read the rest. There's also some great concept art. This is one I liked:

Fallout 4 Far Harbor concept art

Settler Weapons

*** Possible Spoilers ***

Since I installed Automatron DLC, I've been considering what weapons my settlers should have. Almost immediately after Automatron was installed I had an attack on Abernathy Farm. The attackers were six Mechanist robots. The settlers did a pretty good job defending themselves but it makes me think that I should be diversifying to include some energy weapons.

Laser Rifle - Image from Fallout Wikia

Initially I gave settlers pipe rifles and automatic pipe rifles because they were plentiful, the same calibre yet more powerful than the .38 pipe pistols settlers normally come with. As I advanced, settlers were upgraded with my looted guns. Many now have .45 combat rifles and .45 submachine guns. The "Triggermen" in the Goodneighbor warehouses respawn after a certain amount of time (30 in-game games, I believe). So .45 submachine guns are easy to get. I now have a decent collection of of energy weapons so I'm starting to hand them out. Hopefully, with a combination of kinetic and energy weapons they'll be able to deal with robot attacks.

Lasty, is it better to give settlers single shot or automatic weapons? Just from my observation, settlers are not very good shots. It may be better if settlers have automatic weapons taking a "spray and pray" tactic. Since settlers don't use up ammo, running out of rounds isn't an issue.

Scavenger Stations

I've been assigning unassigned settlers to scavenger stations so that they're pulling their share of the load but I was wondering how much this really help. I found some good info on the Fallout Wikia.

Image from Fallout Wikia

Normally, unassigned settlers will scavenge by themselves at a rate of one random junk item per day (in game day I assume) when assigned to a scavenger station they can collect two random junk items per day.

This was basically what I thought it was but the following was of most interest:

Once the total number of junk items in the workshop reaches 100 + (population × 5), no more junk items will be added to the workshop in either case.

So there is a limit on how much can be scavenged at which point they will stop. So how to resolve this? Do we have to clean out all the junk from a workbench when it reaches or looks like it's reaching, capacity? Would it help to manually scrap the junk in a workbench? Players have mentioned that they move junk from a scrapping settlement to another settlement where they aren't doing scrapping. This really sounds like a pain in the butt.

I'm not sure what the best solution is but I'll keep looking.

Another interesting thing is that scavenger stations can be wrecked in an attack. There is no external indicator. You have to cursor over it in build mode and it will give you the option to repair it.

A Little Better Notification Please

I was playing FO4, just goofing around, and I get a notice that I failed to defend Greentop Nursery. WFT! I didn't remember getting a notification that it was under attack. It would be nice if Bethesda could provide better alerts when settlements are under attack. Something more noticeable than a bit of little text in the status area. Different color, flashing, something.

Of course there's a mod for that. No help for PS4 and XBone.

Shaikujin's Better warning for settlements being attacked