The problem was the person assigned to the supply line had died lol. And I guess there is a bit of lag when you assign a new person, it was working the next time I came back to Tempines bluff.

My defense in Sanctuary is 242, overkill even for 55 food + 51 water, such a large area to defend. Do turrets shoot behind them? It looks like they only swivel in 90 degree arcs. Hence I have a lot of them.

Thanks for the tip about the wacky numbers. At one point it said sanctuary had 43 people and 0 beds... The reported number is usually under, I teleport into a farm and there are 18 people asking for beds. I'm starting to get a refugee problem :)

I've leveled up the dmg perks too now. I've got a never ending combat rifle that does 78 dmg, can't upgrade to .308 ammo yet for more damage and better fire rate, I still need gun nut rank 4 to upgrade to better ammo. I think it's at lvl 39 (lvl 32 atm)
My best atm is Righteous authority from the Brotherhood of steel at 115 dmg. Better than my .50 sniper rifle at 102 dmg. Plus that laser rifle does double crit dmg and fires a lot faster. The double barrel shotgun is at 124, powerful punch up close but only 2 shots at a time.
I've found a plasma rifle last night, upgraded it to 76 dmg, both ballistic and electric, does that mean 152 total dmg? I haven't tried it yet. It can go higher when I get science rank 4.

I haven't used any drugs yet at some point all my weapons had huge bonusses, the shotgun was at 168 dmg. No clue what that was from.

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/366323/Fallout+4+made+The+Witcher+3+devs+catch+a+lot+of+colds/

Shots fired.

I'm pretty sure turrets will swivel around if alerted, such as when another turret starts firing.  I've definitely seen them fire outside their senor arc and I've seen enemy turrets turn all the way around.

I'm also pretty sure that only named settlers can die so don't use those as provisioners.  One of my no-names was going head to head with a Death Claw and he only got that "disabled" status like companions.  I've had my named settlers killed, though, so I keep them secure.

I don't have a high Gun Nut rank, either.  I just take all the best mods off guns I find.  I check them out before I sell or drop them to see if they have something I don't have.  My combat rifle, combat shotgun, and hunting rifle (sniper rifle) are all fully upgraded from doing that.  The .308 combat rifle I use is a legendary that ignores 30% of armor so I even use it against robots and I use another with a silencer that fires 2 bullets at a time.  I use a recon scope on my .50 cal sniper rifle, which is a legendary that does extra explosive splash damage.  Combat shotgun with a drum magazine is way, way better than a double barrel.

I actually haven't even use a plasma rifle yet so I'm not sure how the radiation damage works.

Ah, I probably used one of the named settlers from Tempines Bluff on that supply route, it was one of the first I did. The plasma rifle doesn't do radiation damage, it looks like it combines guns and laser rifle damage in one. However I got sidetracked again before trying that out.

I've been playing with the different programmable power circuits and displays instead. Putting a couple of 'for' counters in a row is a fun way to make a visitor counter. With the only problem that you need a whole line of pressure plates to cover the width of the bridge with a ton of in and outgoing wires :/ Just linking them together makes them work as AND switches. (You have to stand on both to get the power through) It most likely won't work when your not near either, I see no reason why the game would track that. I'll give it a test, see if the timer updates when I'm not there, although I'm pretty sure it won't.
I used the laser trip wires for my flame thrower trap, you just need two of them to cover the bridge and it looks a lot nicer. However, those don't reset, you have to manually arm (turn off) the laser trip switch every time.

I wanted to make a blinking warning light with sound signal that stays on for a little while each time someone crosses the bridge, yet that doesn't seem possible. Pressure plates turn off again straight away (when you step off) and there doesn't seem to be any way to trip a switch electronically. I did make a set of differently blinking lights powered by an interval switch with counters and on/off delay switches. I'll need a lot more copper though and power to make any sort of nice looking electronic sign. 1 power per pixel, 10 pixels per large generator. To make a blinking sign just saying Sanctuary in the smallest font, that would be 99 power, 10 large generators and a whole lot of wires.
I'll probably tinker on it anyway, add a letter at a time. Good reason to go out on sidequests :)

You know what would make the entire base building aspect ten times better? Overhead view; the angles are ridiculously poorly suited for placing parts and modules and the angling is rigid and needs more flexibility (the worst is when you're building fences or fitting stairs).
Also, I can't seem to get more people in Sanctuary (I only have 7, my CH is 10 with gear).

You've hooked up the recruitment beacon to a power source?  Make sure the green light is on, too.  You should be able to get 17 at least, though it seemingly takes a random amount of time.  I've got at least 15 in four of my settlements.

I don't know if you already knew this but some helpful controls
L2 or R2 to rotate objects
Hold X + L1 to move the object with the left stick
Hold X + L2 to move the object vertically with the left stick
And you can always build a couple of simple stairs and floors to get higher up and place things below you, scaffolding is your friend.

Advanced tips: Place items on a small rug. Then you can move the rug with the item on top so you can clip the item through other things, remove rug afterwards. Useful to get things close to walls or other items where they normally won't go.
To move entire buildings hold X to select everything connected together.
To clip entire buildings through scenery like trees (build a treehouse!), hold x on a foundation piece to select everything, only the placement of that foundation block (and the settlement boundaries) is being checked while moving it all together.

It's still a whole lot of trial and error, the game can be very picky about the order you try to place things in. For example the standalone stairs only want to snap on the right or left side, unless you place a doorway first, then it snaps in the middle and you can remove the doorway again. It gets easier after a while, apart from some food items. Razor grain is almost impossible to pick back up and always seems to be floating above the ground. Bugged.

Instead of waiting for your recruitment beacon to attract more people, simply move them over from other settlements. with CHA 10, you should be able to fit 20 people in Sanctuary. Recruitment is very slow in Sanctuary, too remote maybe? Abenathy farm keeps filling up to capacity in my game (with a recruitment beacon ofcourse) so I keep sending people to Sanctuary from there.

Yeah, that means 152 - 76 for physical + 76 for energy (you'll notice that laser rifles have only energy symbol).

Try to find yourself proper combat shotgun, and put silencer on it...sneaking around buildings with it and blasting unsuspecting foes is a...well, a blast.

I know the controls (I play on PC btw), it's the angles that bother me, you don't have a good overview of what you're doing in the big picture in first person or third person view and that's by far my biggest gripe with building. Sure, the interface is Bethesda-style clunky as well but the angles are the main culprit.

Pokoko; I have the beacon hooked up, but people aren't showing up. I do a lot of people in other, smaller settlements though, most have more than five at least, so I could send some over. I think my boathouse has ten people, and there's not much room to grow food there so I could send half of them away.

As for defenses, like others have mentioned, I've not had any problems protecting the settlements, and I think it has been at least 7-8 game hours since my last attack. I can give most of my settlers power armor if I want to, I have about 200 fusion cores and at least a dozen suits of power armor hanging around in my settlements (I don't play with power armor at all, I find it quite boring to be honest).

No mod on PC yet to make you able to fly around? I build in first person mode on PS4, it's fiddly yet after years on Minecraft the angles don't bother me. The twitchy snap system does. You have to stand in weird places to get some things to snap in place. Indeed some things only snap while looking at it under some weird angles.

I never even touch power armor, too heavy to carry around and walking inside it is too slow for me. Plus it's stupid you lose all deep pocketed bonuses when you get in one. Do you get in there naked or something? It looks like Sturges used the original one I brought back to Sanctuary at the very beginning. It's now standing in the middle of the street as a statue.

I removed the pressure plates at the entrance of Sanctuary again, looks like crap with all the cables hanging and provisioners have trouble walking over them screwing up my visitor counter. I finished the security system, pointless yet fun to build.

Controls at the guard post to arm the alarm. When the laser trip wire gets broken a 2 tonal alarm goes off with alternating flashing lights and flame throwers. Good to barbecue Dog meat or caravans, enemies spawn inside.

They don't do much damage, the 4 heavy laser turrets will shoot anything off the bridge before they get close.

Also finished the bazaar. Shopping mall with all shops and an upper cafeteria level.


They've got everything now, happiness still won't get into the 80's however. They even complained about the bed situation again with 38 beds for 25 people. Somehow the map reported 48 people in Sanctuary. I placed more beds in my hotel, then the number went down to 25, people still complaining. It seems happiness only goes up when you're around and falls back down when you're away. I guess I should stick around for a while to get the 100% trophy.

Btw I can't send new supply lines to Sanctuary. Does that count as a population increase? I guess I can send people from Sanctuary to new settlements instead or use Starlight as a new hub.