Beacons and Caravan/Comm Pack Brahmins - Where? (Update 5)

[Slb1]

I am having problems with making the beacon system work consistently (~25% success rate for Mk 1 and salvage beacon deployment). Every time I pass Oberland (has both caravan/comm plots), I saw 2 pack brahmins stuck about 200 yards north of Oberland, see image. At Hangman, before I placed a caravan or comm plot at that settlement, there was a pack brahmin at the feeding trough in a corner. Shot /disabled the critter to make room for a plot. So the question is - do caravan/communications plots need to have pack brahmin(s) on-site for the beacons to function properly and not show a busy message? Additionally, I have seen pack brahmin "stuck" with no NPC in other locations, but only gave it passing thought.

Thanks as always.

Summary: have caravan/comm plots at Sunshine, Starlight, Taffington, Oberland, Zimoja, County, and Hangman.
(1) Federal Ration - Mk 1 worked on the third attempt, after days in between
(2) College - Mk 1 has not worked (busy) after 3 attempts
(3) Fanuiel - Mk 1 and salvage have not worked (busy) after 1 attempt. Second attempt was apparently out of range see below.
(4) National Guard - Mk 1 and salvage have not worked (busy) after 2 attempts. Third attempt successful but caravan disappeared (?), see below
(5) West Everett - Mk 1 worked on first attempt
(6) Weston - Mk 1 and salvage worked on first attempt, see below
(7) Super Duper - Mk 1 worked on second attempt
(8) Revere - Mk 1 worked on first attempt, second attempt could call the caravan, but got stuck at site, see below
(9) Waltz - Mk 1 did not work on first attempt, second attempt could call the caravan, but got stuck at site,see below
(10) Transfer of Loot/Resources by Salvage - Red Rocket to Starlight, Red Rocket to Hangman, Starlight to County, plus 3 - 4 attempts throughout area did not work - busy message.

Update 1: Cleared Weston and both the scanner/Mk 1 and salvage worked as expected. Even though there are functional caravan/comm plots at Sunshine and Hangman, the Mk1 team came from Oberland and the salvage team came from Taffington.

Update 2:
(1) After 2 game days, the resources from Weston (#6 above) must have been hijacked by some mysterious force, because the Mk 1 and salvage beacon stuff have not shown up.
(2) The Starlight loot did show up, however, the Taffington caravaner has been stuck for at least 10 game hours at County, see images.
(3) Tried to move loot/resources from Hangman to County via salvage beacon and got the busy message.
(4) Tried National Guard Mk 1 beacon and received busy message.

 

[magitsu]

Yeah, it was useless for me anyway, had 30k scrap and storages maxed in the network since at least 24 hrs back. Just for the experience to see it done.

I appreciated the most Knox's several different lines where he was thankful for us providing safe jouney by escorting him.
Now I get the empire building part a bit better. Though I probably don't have time to do more escorts. But it could be an interesting RP choice for a playthrough, since nobody cares about vanilla storyline anymore. Just caravan protection and maybe another mods that make it harder/eventful when player is around.

 

[fiicus]

I would fight an entire army of super mutants with only a pipe pistol for that much Ceramic. Pity its "virtual" scrap

Yet another thing I was not aware of! Are the salvage beacons only for virtual scrap as well? Or do they function like they did in SS1?

 

[Deleted member 10215]

Yet another thing I was not aware of! Are the salvage beacons only for virtual scrap as well? Or do they function like they did in SS1?

As I understand it, the one you attach to a container dumps that container's items into the Workshop of the settlement the caravan came from, only the "scan the room" one is Virtual Scrap.

 

[Deleted member 10215]

But it could be an interesting RP choice for a playthrough, since nobody cares about vanilla storyline anymore. Just caravan protection and maybe another mods that make it harder/eventful when player is around.

NPCs Travel mod or something else to up enemy spawn rates semi randomly... that could be fun for a bit, yeah.

 

[magitsu]

Yeah, the other seems to be basically just the Salvage Beacons that has been available as standalone since SS1.

edit: Maybe we'll get a Caravan run in Chapter 2...? It would make perfect sense to display the mechanisms within the storyline.

 

[Slb1]

providing safe jouney by escorting him

That is an interesting game play mechanic, particularly if you can lose the NPC and/or brahmin, and must rescue or provide escorts to the caravan.

 

[Bored Peon]

You're guaranteed to get them at the end of Jake's Questline, but if you don't do that I can't figure out what the other requirements are ("Story Unlocks" doesn't include them for some reason?)

Unlocking and building Advanced power plants will unlock the communications plot.
Building communication plots will unlock the two beacons.

 

[Kaldusar]

The salvage beacons work werid... Cant get to work caravans to pick up stuff from Bedford memorial... So I go to Switchboard and droped beacon there... It worked! But caravan was dispatched from Slog... Like Why from there?

 

[magitsu]

The salvage beacons work werid... Cant get to work caravans to pick up stuff from Bedford memorial... So I go to Switchboard and droped beacon there... It worked! But caravan was dispatched from Slog... Like Why from there?

It's a complete mystery. Like I described above (though it wasn't salvage but they should work similarly), my expectation was that the caravan would've come from right over the hill Taffington instead of Tenpines (even Starlight was probably closer). So is it that everyone's caravan was sent to another and permanently busy but Taffington got the first caravan ever from Sanctuary and had its one left free? If so the solution could be to build more caravan lots? Which doesn't seem great either... anyway this should and will be clarified when the mod development progresses.