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Confused about recruitment

Rob Banzai

New Member
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16
I started a game and did my usual tear down/rebuild of Sanctuary. I intend to play as a Liberator and claimed Sanctuary as an outpost for the Minutemen using a new faction pack mod from Nexus (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/42069). Donating to the war planner's desk said I could get 5 recruits. I wandered off to quest and when I came back I put more items into the desk and it said I could get 1 recruit.
Looking at the interface there's still no actual recruits though. There's 190 donation units.

I'd watched the Liberator video that said that you only need an empty settlement for conqueror factions so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
 
Make sure you also have beds for your recruits. And once you get past five recruits in your Main Outpost, you will need to keep up your rations, wages and equipment to recruit more (unless you turn off the Soldiers Needs in the holotape).
 
I saw an old post that suggested letting Sanctuary be a settlement and turn RR into an outpost starting from empty, so I think I'll restart and try that. Most of the Conqueror/Liberator mechanics are unclear to me and I can't find a detailed guide anywhere beyond the setup video.
 
Every 100 caps worth of stuff donated to the radio is potentially 1 new recruit.

Your HQ will produce enough resources (wages/rations/equipment) to maintain 5 recruits and enough to recruit at least 6.

As long as you have all three w/r/e bars full and recruitment donations, you will be able to recruit. If any of the w/r/e bars on your Conqueror HUD aren't full, recruitment will stop no matter how many donations are in the recruitment radio.

Turning soldiers needs off in your Conqueror Configuration will make recruitment only depend on donations.

Most of the Conqueror/Liberator mechanics are unclear to me and I can't find a detailed guide anywhere beyond the setup video.

start here: https://simsettlements.com/web/wiki/index.php?title=SSConqPatch#Version_4.1.0

suggested letting Sanctuary be a settlement and turn RR into an outpost starting from empty, so I think I'll restart and try that.

The structure of this suggestion is sound: it is good to have a regular settlement, an outpost, and a vassal to work with. But Sanctuary/RR isn't ideal. The only benefit is they are nearby at the very beginning of a game.

However, a good game is a long game and there are a heck of a lot of other settlements. Plus, you have to consider that building all three (Sanctuary, RR, and Abernathy) can lead to trouble: https://www.simsettlements.com/site...sanctuary-abernathy-farm-and-red-rocket.6964/

I like to spread things out a bit more: Sunshine Tidings (Main Regular Settlement), Starlight (HQ Outpost), Abernathy (Main Vassal) I'm 80+ hrs into a game and have never been to either Sanctuary or RR.

RR used to be my choice starting Outpost. But it's small. Tiny, in fact. Starlight gives the troops some elbow room.
 
Starlight is centrally located, so it's sphere of influence as an outpost covers quite a few other settlements, and if you like building your own outpost instead of using city plans, Starlight has a LOT of empty space to work with for all of your outdoor plots. You could literally fill half the place with shooting ranges, and just have all your recruits pew-pewing all day e'ery day. Starlight is also a great settlement to work with if you love concrete, as it's fairly flat, wide open, and very large, so your concrete fortress can become pretty massive. You could basically build your *own* Castle here.

Also, if you started your game with Starlight pre-built using a city plan, don't forget that when you go there and take control of the workbench, you can just raze the entire thing to the ground if you want to build your own outpost fortress. You might want to move any settlers there off to other settlements first, though. Having a ton of civilians in an outpost can become quite a hassle when it comes to W/R/E production, because civilians can't really sustain themselves outside of the vassal's production bonus. Besides, you'd probably end up with a bunch of civilians using all your shooting ranges, and you want them to enlist *before* you start training them to take over settlements...
 
I never knew about this! I've been building all three since the beginning and suffering the consequences! :shok1
Yep, probably the LAST thing you want to do in a Sim Settlements game is have city plans going at all three of those, and then trying to sleep somewhere in the area. The sleep timer takes FOR EV ER when there are so many scripts just constantly trying to run at the same time.
 
I started fresh and made Starlight a settlement with Sturges as the leader, then converted to an outpost. One settler showed up before I made the conversion and I find that I can't send him anywhere or use him for a supply line because his destination window is blank.
I did get a single recruit and assigned him to be an outpost guard so that much worked.

I'm still confused about the role settlers play in an outpost. I turned the recruitment radio off that came with the pre-made plan so there's just that one seemingly bugged settler. But should I leave it off and only recruit through the war desk?
 
I'm still confused about the role settlers play in an outpost.

An Outpost shouldn't have settlers. Conquerors don't have this problem. You have to get rid of them to make an Outpost. As Liberator, I guess this is a possibility.

Any settlers in an Outpost will have to provide some sort of support role for your troops. Having settlers in Outpost can be problematic. The only good thing about them is they only cost you rations, but not equipment or wages. The bad thing is they cost you rations! and don't get the production bonus that workers get.

I find that I can't send him anywhere or use him for a supply line because his destination window is blank.

Outposts should only connect to other Outposts/Vassals and technically it should be thru the virtual supply chain that is built into that system aka no need for a provisioner. If this settler was in a vassal you'd be able to send/move her to a regular settlement via the workshop mode move command. In an Outpost this command only lets you move settlers/recruits between Outposts.

An IDEK's station will/can link the entire Outpost/Vassal system with any regular settlements that also have a logistics station.

I did get a single recruit and assigned him to be an outpost guard so that much worked.

HQ always produces 50 wages/ 50 rations/ 50 Equipment on its own. You will always be able to support 5 troops. This will fill up your bars and allow you to recruit at least one extra recruit in the beginning. You only need all bars full to recruit: at which point recruitment is determined by available donations and daily limits. In a brand new HQ, provided you have donated 600 caps (100caps/per new recruit) worth of goods to the recruitment radio, you can get up to 6 recruits (up to 5 the first day, then another the day after) with no plots built. I've gotten up to 7 and maybe even 8 with no plots built.

It would be better however to make three of these first recruits work 1 Commercial 1 Ag and 1 Industrial. (If these are roled as workers you will have an equipment surplus. Workers don't use equipment.) Doing so will give you more w/r/e to burn on new recruitment and/or get your bars to full again if you have already managed to get some new recruits.

Because you have a settler in your outpost your wages bar will always be slightly more full than your rations bar. Settlers/civilians don't use wages.
 
That settler snuck in during the brief window between creating the settlement and turning it into an outpost, but now I understand why I can't move him because I only have one outpost. I will put him to work.
I will quest a little so I can make more donations, then place those first plots and try to get them assigned first.
 
That settler snuck in during the brief window between creating the settlement and turning it into an outpost,

I once had a Minuteman, the last of an attack force on my Raider outpost at OZ, size up the situation and decide to throw in with my ranks of blood thirsty savages. A glitch. but a satisfying one.

I will quest a little so I can make more donations, then place those first plots and try to get them assigned first.

Good luck and happy hunting. Patience and planning are rewarded. it's a slow slog to get the first outpost up and running. But it gets easier.
 
Civilians in an outpost really are more like refugees than settlers.

They are incredibly ineffective at working in an outpost because they won't get the bonus production that vassals get, so all you can really do with a civilian in an outpost is have them work an agricultural plot to cover their own rations for existing. They could probably also work the IDEK plot, because early on, you're likely to be using workers who don't have a need for the equipment resource, and a worker on an agricultural plot would be better for you than the civilian, while you're going to have a surplus of equipment anyway from the IDEK plot. If you do *anything* else with them early on, they're costing you 10 rations that you're probably always short on already, and not really putting anything back into W/R/E/C, essentially wrecking your early resource management. Now, if your game has progressed to the point where you might be able to afford the spare rations for civs that don't put anything back into W/R/E/C, you could have them doing something like tending your tatos, mutfruit, and corn that you use for your personal adhesive production, but even that is assuming that you don't just use naked protectrons for your personal farming needs.

Now imagine having a dozen civilians in an outpost that you just liberated, and you can't send them *anywhere* else but another outpost that doesn't need or want them. With a heavily skewed ratio of soldiers to civilians, the outpost's morale tends to crash pretty hard. The Conqueror system doesn't have this problem with civilians in outposts, because you either kill them or enslave them and ship them off to work somewhere else. The Liberator system, on the other hand, truly does need some sort of "refugee" system to take the place of the slave system, to allow liberators the opportunity to do, well, *anything* with civilians other than simply execute them. Maybe we could add some special plots that allow civilians to work in outposts and actually be productive without the vassal production bonus? Is it even possible to make plots that can only be built in outposts, and *not* in vassals or settlements? Maybe we could even use the same system as conquerors, only instead of "capturing slaves" we "liberate refugees" which we can then send to other settlements. If we cannot find a viable way to send civilians from an outpost to a vassal or regular settlement, we really do need to find some way to put them to use at the outposts in which they are forced to live like refugees.

One other point I thought I'd make here, is that I recall some faction packs having faction civilians in them. I think the Brotherhood of Steel faction pack was one of these, where civilians that showed up were scribes and engineers. I also recall the Children of Atom faction pack having faction civilians, which were essentially brainwashed cultists that were not warriors. In cases like these, the "fluff/lore" lines between civilian and soldier are much less defined, and it is pretty logical for military outposts to have some civilian personnel. Would it be possible, or rather, practical, to create some sort of system that allows for these civilians to work and live in outposts while retaining their civilian status? The system that liberators have available now has such a high opportunity cost that it is not viable to have civilians in an outpost early on, as this is when W/R/E/C is most fragile, and the problem with rations in particular will greatly hinder your ability to recruit more soldiers and expand your influence in the very beginning. So far, the refugee problem has been the biggest I've had as a liberator, and the most viable solutions I've found were to either: a) use the console or some other mod to manipulate the settlers in question, b) execute all of the civilians in question (which I was unwilling to do), or c) simply withdraw my control from the outpost and let nature take it's course (either letting the outpost be taken by another faction, or letting the settlement decide to just leave on it's own).
 
:lol

I tried Conqueror but after I took my first settlement and saw how it became liberally sprinkled with dead people on pikes it just didn't work for me. Have to be a filthy do-gooder!
 
Civilians in an outpost really are more like refugees than settlers.

They are incredibly ineffective at working in an outpost because they won't get the bonus production that vassals get, so all you can really do with a civilian in an outpost is have them work an agricultural plot to cover their own rations for existing.
Are named NPCs (like Sturges or Marcy) as inefficient as civilians, or can they be put to work?
 
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