
I am presently level 73 and have noticed an increasing number of settlement attacks. I don’t know what’s prompting this — leveling? more settlements and population? the lure of tasty carrots?
Whatever the reason, I get attack notices pretty frequently now. Mostly they occur down south and they’re usually in water-facing places like Kingsport Lighthouse. Often, I’ll not get a notice but decide to go to a place to improve it. About ten seconds into my workshop activities, an attack begins. I can pretty much count on some kind of violent occurrence when I’m in a settlement just trying to get something done.
I thought this would bug me, but I love it. I really enjoy running to the assistance of besieged settlers. I’m sure it will get old eventually, but right now it’s insanely cool to spawn in a place during a big battle. Appropriately, some enemies don’t notice me; some do. Fortunately, my 300 bl / 300 en ballistic weave armor protects me from most damage as I start sighting multiple targets in VATS. If I start getting shredded, I run for cover and wait for enemies to lose me. It all works really well.
The best thing, though, is watching my well-armed settlers and all my machine gun/laser/rocket turrets go nuts. Heaven help the poor schlubs who try to steal carrots from one of my settlements. Sometimes I don’t even get to shoot anything because the attackers are annihilated in a matter of seconds. Even high-level gunners and legendary raiders scurry for cover and probably have second AI thoughts about rushing into one of my places.
After one of these human-enemy attacks, it’s nice to loot the bodies and give a bunch of upgraded weapons to the settlers who don’t have any. It’s also a good way to collect legendary items without going to a lot of trouble.
Sometimes the settlers seem to handle things on their own. I’ll arrive to build or defend and notice a bunch of ghoul or animal corpses all over the place, and I had no hand in killing them.
Last night, for the first time in an age, Sanctuary got attacked. It turned out to be a couple of unlucky radscorpions. They were vaporized before I even figured out what was happening. They obviously burrowed past my defenses near the bridge, thinking they’d pop up closer to the middle of town and start eating my pathetic Sims. As a line in Beowulf might go, they soon learned how wise they had been.
As a cool plus, one of the settlers ran to a warning siren I’d installed and switched it on. Of course, the scorpions were dead long before he got there, but it was a nice touch. I think I’ll put sirens in all my settlements.
So to sum up: hooray for settlement harassment. Be assured that I will now improve more places. I just have to keep buying oil. I can never keep enough oil.