the Sim Settlements forums!

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Raider Happiness

Messages
27
Forgive me if this has been posted before!
In previous Raider style playthroughs (Before Conqueror), I never really cared about Raider happiness. However, I have to imagine this plays a bigger role in Conqueror besides the occasional "I didn't sign up to be a dirt scratcher."
What would be a good way to raise their happiness? Besides going to NW, to get the Wasteland Raider perks because I imagine this mod was created for people who maybe planned on doing that later.
 
As you would expect, raiders love chems, booze and smokes.
Add these to the supply container on the city planners desk.
There are several recreational plots for raiders, that will boost happiness a lot.
You can go to NW anytime, I tend to become overboss before I start conqueror, or start them both at the same time.
 
It will also become a lot easier to increase happiness once the "settler death" penalties fall off. When taking the outposts, every settler killed adds a penalty and possible the same for the defending Gunners. The penalty stays in effect when you have taken the settlement as an outpost, though I am not sure how long it lasts. This is why you might see very low happiness initially like 10 or 20.
 
Is the definitely the case though XV?
My outposts never drop that low initially. Now, I add recreational plots and dump chems in pretty soon after takeover, but I don't feel like they would drop that low without them.
It's always the case when I enter workshop mode after just taking the outpost. I use a cheat generator that gives huge happiness bonuses and normally pushes happiness straight to 100, but with outposts it slowly goes up. I place beds if I don't want to take the time to build up a settlement. After a few days it will go to 30 or 36, after a week or 2 it will be about 50. Whereas it just goes to 100 if I claimed the settlement the old way.

I started using the generator last year when happiness was bugged out at one point to be far lower and some saying it was causing settlements to leave. One theory is that individual happiness bonuses have a cap but I changed mine from having a single huge bonuses to just having 20 +100 bonuses
 
Ahh ok. All good replies I haven't gotten much into the Sim Settlements building part of it (as I am still new to it). But I will go with the suggestions you guys pushed through thanks.
 
It's always the case when I enter workshop mode after just taking the outpost. I use a cheat generator that gives huge happiness bonuses and normally pushes happiness straight to 100, but with outposts it slowly goes up. I place beds if I don't want to take the time to build up a settlement. After a few days it will go to 30 or 36, after a week or 2 it will be about 50. Whereas it just goes to 100 if I claimed the settlement the old way.

I started using the generator last year when happiness was bugged out at one point to be far lower and some saying it was causing settlements to leave. One theory is that individual happiness bonuses have a cap but I changed mine from having a single huge bonuses to just having 20 +100 bonuses

Would you pls list this happiness mod?
 
Would you pls list this happiness mod?
Mine is a modified version of this: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/6304

Due to the nature of mod permissions it's almost certainly impossible to get permission to share mine. What I did is modify that mod to give higher values: 1000 to Power & Defense, 100 to Food & Water, extremely large Happiness bonus to offset the penalties for every settler/Gunner killed when taking an outpost.
 
What would be a good way to raise their happiness?

Recreation Plots! More the better. Why make them work anything else? Defense, sure, but any productive shnizz is for Vassals. Raiders are built for happiness and killing.

The penalty stays in effect when you have taken the settlement as an outpost, though I am not sure how long it lasts

Death penalty caps at -50 and should go down by 20% each day. https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/comments/43rcts/the_math_behind_your_settlers_happiness/

This is most notable if you attack an unbuilt/unprep settlement. The game adds a couple of settlers as token resistance to empty settlements. Them getting wasted kicks in the max penalty. No beds, no food, no water, no water starts the settlement down in 20's happiness wise and it will be a very slow slog back to normal.

Completely different story with built settlements. A fully upgraded mess hall or other rec plot can more than cover the max death penalty. If you can work out keeping them fed without making farms in the settlement, then key is to put down lots of Rec plots.

If you successfully attack a city plan, time to turn those farms into drug dens and pool halls.

I like to build (prep) RR up with a Mess Hall, Armory, and field hospital. Workbench stuffed with enough food to cover the troops until I can vassalize (if it sounds dirty, it is) Abernathy. Enough water and beds for 20. Dogs, cats, Rec plots, and other happiness producing objects. Get it to 100 happiness and then after you attack the death penalty won't matter. And the settlement should stay close to basic happiness.

Also if you can manage to take a settlement with fully upgraded plots or a level 3 City, then you really only need to maintain a bare minimum happiness. If your not chasing upgrades, you don't need to sweat happiness.
 
Mine is a modified version of this:

Due to the nature of mod permissions it's almost certainly impossible to get permission to share mine. What I did is modify that mod to give higher values: 1000 to Power & Defense, 100 to Food & Water, extremely large Happiness bonus to offset the penalties for every settler/Gunner killed when taking an outpost.
TYVM , IF i use fo4edit, pretty easy to edit values myself i assume?
 
TYVM , IF i use fo4edit, pretty easy to edit values myself i assume?
Yes that's exactly what I did. I made the values be on a clone of small generator. Then bumped up values. Removed faked beds since I'd thought it would interfere with residential plot but seems from others that it's fine to have the beds.
 
It will also become a lot easier to increase happiness once the "settler death" penalties fall off.

Then you get the penalties for each raider that dies during offense actions and defense actions.

While you lost the penalties for the dead settlers you will replace those penalties with penalties for dead raiders, lol.

A fully upgraded mess hall or other rec plot can more than cover the max death penalty.

The death penalty is not as easy to cover as you think. The death penalty is a modifier to target happiness, it is not a simple -50 (5 dead raiders) spread out over your population average like bonus happiness is. Granted it does dwindle each day the same way a radiant buff does (it dwindles over 7 production type days, ie you cant just wait it out.) However when I decided to go with the "wait for it to pass" some @#$%head gunners decided to attack and killed 5 raiders with their grenade spam.

I took over a level 1 plotted settlement and the happiness has been constantly kicking my ass. When I took it over I was at 23 happiness, and the highest it got was 60 so far. Simply because with such a low happiness none of my farms and water would upgrade. So I had to take some vassals, which gave me more penalties, lol.

That is with 12 recreational plots, and 2 commerce with happiness (cant get to the damn brewery because eof happiness, lol.) Thankfully the recreation plots will upgrade despite the low happiness. So it aint like I am not trying to solve the happiness.

I tried getting some guard dogs or happiness and that went over like a fart in church. The triple dog spawns ended up eating a few raiders, another time my settlement turned into a frakking battle royal between the different raider ranks and the turrets because eof friendly fire killing the dogs.

I could easily solve the issue with some CC stuff that increases happiness, but I am trying to keep my settlements GOTY/Nexus friendly to release plans later. The settlement have not been easy to take, some high casualties and I even failed to take my Red Rocket, twice. People who think walls dont mean anything aint ever assaulted a settlement with walls before, lol. Combine them walls with the grenade spawn as your people try getting inside and you lose people fast.

I think one of the easy ways for establishing an outpost would be add a stage/step that gives a temporary +20 target happiness buff (equal to the radiant buff) that would offset the death penalties. Obviously establishing a vassal should keep the happiness penalties.
 
However when I decided to go with the "wait for it to pass" some @#$%head gunners decided to attack and killed 5 raiders with their grenade spam.

I always thought the first Gunner attack didn't happen until you talk to Jammer after taking your first vassal, After the first vassal assault, I try to avoid Jammer until I'm ready for the Gunner attack.

Simply because with such a low happiness none of my farms and water would upgrade.

Doesn't any food production in an outpost lower raider happiness by a lot? I thought it worked just like NukaGang Outposts.

From @Jacozilla 's SS/Nuka Gang Guide on the Educational Forums: https://www.simsettlements.com/site...settlements-integration-with-nuka-world.7060/

"3. Raider Happiness - nothing changes far as farms being taboo. This is default part of Nuka World behavior with raiders. They hate food production - doesn't matter who farms the food - them, robot workers, anyone - long as any food is somehow produced or farmed at that raider outpost, happiness goes down a lot by even small food production.​
  • Default Nuka World behavior is 1 raider farmer working normal, non-Sim Settlements patch of (6) food being produced generates -18 happiness. That is negative 18 points of unhappiness or -3 per food point.
  • A single Level 4 SS farm would therefore create 20 food or -80 points of happiness. So basically, no food production at raider Outposts unless you want to micromanage rec plot spamming to keep up with happiness drops."
  • [I think -80 happiness for a level 4 farm should read -60 happiness (-3 happiness per food point x 20 = -60 happiness)]
I tried getting some guard dogs or happiness and that went over like a fart in church. The triple dog spawns ended up eating a few raiders, another time my settlement turned into a frakking battle royal between the different raider ranks and the turrets because eof friendly fire killing the dogs.

Cats! No one f's with cats.

Though I did just recently download a mod that unlocked Gorilla cages. Higher defense and higher happiness than dogs. No risk of caging a hostile. I did experience a situation with some Raiders fighting the Gorilla. It only happened when I scheduled the vassal raid from the war desk, but not when I scheduled the raid by talking to Jammz. Best I could tell when you do it through Jammz the assault force appeared to teleport to the rendezvous point, but through the desk the raiding team (or at least some of them) appeared to walk to the rendezvous. There's a brief moment at some point between scheduling the assault and meeting up at the rendezvous that your raider's will show hostile if you VATS them. This window of them appearing hostile may account for settlement defenses, including dogs/gorillas, aggro-ing your Raiders. But when the raiding force teleported away, there was no chance for things to go wrong because this momentary hostility happens away from the settlement.


Another thing you might consider is taxes.

"Cumulative Effects
The tax adjustments done for each plot type also have an overall affect on your settlements. The tax system will "add" up your tax rates for each plot type and apply the following:

For Each "No Tax": -1 Defense per Martial Plot AND + 3 Happiness
For Each "Half Tax": -0.5 Defense per Martial Plot AND + 2 Happiness
For Each "Standard": Normal Martial Plot Defense, and No Happiness Modifier
For Each "Double": +1 Defense per Martial Plot AND -4 Happiness
For example, so if you reduce all 5 tax zones (Residential, Agricultural, Commercial AND Recreational, Industrial) to "No Tax", you'll have -5 Defense/Martial and +15 happiness."--https://simsettlements.com/web/wiki/index.php?title=Holotape_Tax_Laws#Cumulative_Effects

The happiness provided from lowering taxes isn't divided by population: it's just tacked on to the settlements total happiness. And if you lower taxes in all five zones you will get +15 happiness added to every settlement you control regardless of whether any plots from those zones are actually built in the settlement. I don't use residential plots at all. If i wanted to I could lower their taxes and still get +3 to every total settlement happiness even without any residentials built. The cost of course is martial plot efficiency and no caps incoming. But raiders shouldn't be paying taxes anyway.

I could easily solve the issue with some CC stuff that increases happiness, but I am trying to keep my settlements GOTY/Nexus friendly to release plans later.

Philosophically, what's a raider settlement look like to you? To me it looks like a town with mostly all Recreational plots, enough martial plots, maybe a power/water industrial (but only maybe) and no farms whatsoever. Anything productive seems counter to the raider lifestyle.

I don't use city plans, but if i did I think the first thing I'd do is switch all the plots to Recs and just enough Martials, but mostly just Recs. I'd not only want to take over your town, but I'd want to ruin it with a bunch of drug dens: there goes the neighborhood.

Anyways. That's all just me. If the shoe doesn't fit, maybe you can use the laces.

The settlement have not been easy to take, some high casualties and I even failed to take my Red Rocket, twice. People who think walls dont mean anything aint ever assaulted a settlement with walls before, lol. Combine them walls with the grenade spawn as your people try getting inside and you lose people fast.

I completely agree with this. Walls finally do have a purpose and it's to keep the player out of settlements.

Grenade spawn: I lost at least two raiders taking vanilla Abernathy in one of my test runs. The dumb bastards were throwing molotovs inside the big house and burnt themselves up.
 
Top