No Response AI is a real problem

The NPC AI in Fallout 4 is pretty bad to begin with. Now needing my Raiders to stay alive, even just wandering around a settlement, it is even more of an issue.
I captured Starlight as my first Outpost and had 15 raiders still alive - it was a prebuilt settlement - and I kept losing them to random encounters popping in near the bridge. The Raiders will wander the area, and get attacked/attack these random encounters, and they die sooooo easily! Too easily. My population was dropping by 2-3 a day!
I think I need to not only provide better weapons and armor asap, but a supply of stimpacks as well!
No idea how the Raiders assigning themselves to plots works out. Do those Raiders stop going on raids? If I give one a minigun, I currently can't choose him/her as one of my crew for the next settlement attack. right? It is all still so random, but the AI issue really is a problem.

The raiders level with you, though I think that means 'new' recruits are your level when they arrive rather than the existing recruits grow stronger - someone who knows for sure can reply. They do need equipment, that's a fact.

Sim Settlements will auto assign to plots, but I also wonder what happens when you tell Jammer you're going raiding. Do they get temporarily unassigned? Are they still assigned but on Temporary Duty?

It's less about "Do I need to equip them?" than simply the poor survival AI package they use. Will they use stimpacks if they have them? Will they seek cover? Fight from range? All too often, I see pistol/rifle bearing Raiders stand their ground as melee attackers close on them and cut them down. I keep trying, but I am fighting an uphill battle because the AI just doesn't have the code for them to make "better" choices.

It's definitely part of our long term plans to address so that you don't have to feel like you're just meat grinding people (though some amount of that is part of the experience, raiders are essentially brutal hordes, not tactical wizards) . The first thing I will probably do is just add an option to take away the mortality so people who find it frustrating can just cheat past it until we have more options in place to strengthen them.

You can always equip your raiders with the Ring of Low Maintenance. Give them some stimpaks as well. Makes them much tougher. :D

I've found that Raider Overhaul WIP helps a good deal. Of course you will be making ALL raiders tougher like that, not just yours.

NikitaDarkstar said:

I've found that Raider Overhaul WIP helps a good deal. Of course you will be making ALL raiders tougher like that, not just yours.

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Funny I had this since the beginning, and now there's even a SSC patch to make your recruits have the RO stuff :D

I'm assuming that the friendly raiders use NPC AI? You might want to try out a mod called Pack Attack. It makes the NPC AI a bit smarter. They'll flank, use grenades a little better, use cover and all sorts of fun stuff.

I was going to post a link to it, but I haven't posted enough here to do so. Anti-spam protection and all that. Shouldn't be hard to find though.