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.

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

I'm sorry, but this is too funny

It just feels like this sometimes.

From some Tumblr

Unkillable Settlers?

When you assign a settler to be a provisioner, they become "essential", they cannot be killed by another NPC other than you. Just like a companion. They may get knocked down but not killed.

So what if you assigned all you settlers to be provisioners but then immediately reassigned them to other tasks like farming or defense? Either it's a bug or feature but once an NPC is assigned to be a provisioner their name becomes "Provisioner" and even if you reassigning them they stay a "Provisioner".  Yes, they still maintain their essential quality.

I tested this out. I shot, but didn't kill, a "Provisioner" that had been reassigned to defense. My companion, MacCready, "killed" the NPC but in a few seconds he got back up again. I then permanently killed the NPC.

The only possible problem is that this may screw up you supply lines. I have a couple "phantom" supply lines (they show up on map but there is no one assigned to them). I'm not sure if this is due to the few reassignments that I've made or not (I've killed reassigned provisioners but the routes don't go away). But, creating a settlement of invincible inhabitants would be an interesting experiment.

Named NPCs in Sanctuary

You know how all the named NPCs in Sanctuary spend a lot of time "fixing" the house? Which is really annoying since it is not productive and noisy.

I had a couple of the named NPCs in Sanctuary assigned to defense.  I noticed that they spend most of their time "fixing" the house and not on post. Unnamed settlers will stay on post. If someone is assigned to defense and not on post then they're not very useful (not detecting and shooting hostiles). Preston has a particular tendency to just roam around the settlement.  I assigned the named NPCs to things like farming and scrapping station. They don't have to be physically there to accomplish the task. A farmer doesn't actually have to be in the garden to create six units of food, just assigned.

Image from shacknews.com

Get out of the damn suit!

I don't use power armor all that much and always forget how to get out of it. Hold X on the PS4! Maybe I'll remember it now (or know where to look it up)

The easy way to get a settlement

I was reading somewhere, maybe on Reddit, that a FO4 player felt that he was wasting his time, resources, etc, on settlement quests. When he got a new settlement quest he just killed the two existing settlers and gained the workbench. Brutal but effective. 

Pip Boy build

An interesting, cheap, build of a Pip boy, It looks pretty good.

Humorous Glitch

Watch out for that super mutant crate! (This one's not mine. Original is on Imgur)

Build Mode - Select and Hold

I still haven't quite figured out the select and hold function in build mode. It clearly selects connected objects but it will also select nearby objects which is annoying, Selecting objects in this mode also screws up lights. Lights stay connected but turn off. Selecting the light and replacing it fixes it but it's a pain.

Fertilizer - Who knew?

I *just* found out that Brahmins make fertilizer and it will show up in your workbench just like excess water. Fertilizer can be used to make chems like Jet that you can sell for caps. Awesome!

Reading on the throne

Teddy bear hospital

Why brahman, why?

TV shootout

I think a raider had an Elvis moment.

Raiders Are So Silly

Screwdrivers and toasters don't play well together.

Sorry Dora

At least I got some cat meat

A Glitch Saves My Ass

I have no idea what happened here. I was out of grenades so that couldn't have blown the Deathclaw in the air. It must have been a physics glitch of some sort. Thanks to the PS4 constant video capture, I've got proof.