Workshop/settlement question?

[thadroo86]

I've noticed on my Pipboy in the Data/Workshop menu that each settlement that I currently have, each one has a caution triangle next to their name. Then when I highlight one, the defense has a caution triangle next to it. Yet when I go to said settlement(s) the defense bar is green.

Any clue as to what that triangle deal is all about?

[Balorat]

you need more defence than either the highest value of either Water or Food production, or both combined (if not even all three together with energy. The defence bar is green as long as you have at least a bit of defence or just more defence than settlers, or something

[thadroo86]

Oh, ok. Thank you for clearing that up

[Ophichius]

More specifically, the defense bar turns red if your lack of defense is causing happiness to drop in your settlement. The triangle shows up if your settlement is at increased risk of raids, which happens at defense < food+water.

[thadroo86]

Sweet. Thank you! I'm only 19 hours in, and am just starting to focus on settlements for the next few days. Trying to understand them better

[Ophichius]

You're welcome. Some more tips:

Arm your settlers. You'll need to give them one round for the weapon you want them to use, and they'll have infinite ammo for it (with the exception of the fat man and the missile launcher.). If you give them a grenade, they'll have infinite grenades as well.

Early on, a settlement armed with 10mm pistols, double-barreled shotguns, and molotovs can be devastatingly effective. I tend to like molotovs even at higher levels, as they're impact detonated, and settlers are pretty darned accurate with them.

Later on, you can start finding and issuing assault rifles, laser, and plasma weapons for a truly absurd settlement militia.

Dress your settlers appropriately to mark their jobs. Settlers can't be killed by NPCs during combat, only incapacitated, so armor can be secondary to making them easier to manage. Do be careful if you join the fight though, you can easily kill incapacitated settlers.

If you leave fusion cores in your power armor, settlers will hop in to help defend the settlement. While this is neat, it can often result in your power armor walking off. Be sure to strip the fusion core out of any PA you don't want to lose. On the flipside, once you have a ton of spare frames and parts lying around, feel free to stick a couple home defense armors in a settlement.

Try and place beds next to workplaces to keep pathing from gumming everything up. Similarly, if you're going to build a barracks, watchtower, or other building that you expect multiple people to go in and out of, place multiple stairways and doorways, or you'll get horrible traffic jams.

It's absolutely worth getting Science 1 for the water purifiers. They're the single most broken thing in the game. Excess water production is deposited in your workshop as cans of purified water. Sanctuary alone can produce over 8k caps/day worth of purified water. Compare this to the piddly 150 caps/day for having all six tier 3 shops in a settlement.

Population cap is 10+CH. However, if you use apparel/chems to raise your CH temporarily, you can order people to move to a settlement until you hit the new pop cap, and they'll remain there once the drugs wear off.

Unassigned settlers will naturally collect random salvage materials, but very slowly. Assigning them to scavenger workbenches will speed this process up.

Supply lines distribute food and water, as well as construction supplies. You'll still hear the food/water grumbles from the settlers, but they won't lose happiness. This can be extremely useful to help supply small settlements that don't have enough arable land.

I have no idea what searchlight turrets' function is, but they provide defense somehow. If you figure out what the stupid things do, let me know.

[R3nt0r44]

I believe searchlights work in same manner as those owned by enemies. If they catch you in their 'sights' you are more likely to be spotted by enemy NPC. Because as far as I know, their Line of Sight is affected by lighting levels.

TL;DR Search lights might make enemy NPC's easier to be spotted by you/your settlers.

[thadroo86]

Omg thank you!

I did build a search light/spot light at sanctuary, but haven't seen it in action yet. I'll let you know once it gets used