How to Arm Your Settlers - Fallout 4 

Back in my day we needed training to use power armor. Now any old settler can use it.

I died because Preston used a missile launcher on a radroach

my castle got attacked and when I was looting a behemoth I saw a settler calmly walking back inside holding my grognack ax.

It seems like kind of a missed opportunity on Bethesda's part to not have a quest series for the Minutemen to go on an offensive against the Gunners, I mean lore wise once the Institute and possibly the BoS are gone the Gunners are next down the list of threats. They are much more organized than raiders and have better equipment and they occupy Quincy and they probably would start targeting the Minutemen when they try to get back up since they would be a threat to their operations

"Don't mind me, just using a blow torch on this mailbox."

Settlers only loot weapons from containers if they have NO weapon. If they have a weapon they will keep what they have forever, even if it is inferior. They will loot weapons (and ammo) that drop from slain attackers, however, if those weapons are better (just like your followers sometimes will). Dozens of attacks with a workbench full of every weapon I loot and they have never taken them over their base Pipe Pistols. They do not loot armor. Followers, settlers, and enemies will all leap into Power Armor if it has a Fusion Core in it. Since settlers consume ammo on the same rules as enemies (meaning they consume nukes and missiles normally, but everything else is endless), the 1 round Barney Fife treatment is sufficient. It also means rate of consumption and cost of ammo does not affect them like it does in your calculation (making Miniguns, Gatlings, Assault and Combat Rifles, and Plasma weapons all good choices). Also, they have no perks, so it is sometimes hard to tell which kind of weapon is best for them because your data is biased towards your perk choices. Avoid giving the AoE weapons - they will kill themselves and others. Settlers are scripted to run to enemies and engage with them at a range based upon their weapon assignment, so giving them rifles instead of pistols keeps them further from the fray. Settlers also have a "sit down" script to protect them. After a small amount of damage they sit down and enemies stop targeting them. They are not immortal (immortals also have a sit down script), but at that point won't be attacked further. Stray fire and AoE damage, however, can still lead to them being killed. This is why you avoid those sources with your settlers (friendly fire applies). Armor serves to reduce the damage they take, keeping them in the fight longer and making them more durable during their sit down time. I find it is best to create a "uniform" for a settlement - a standard set of common gear, as that makes it easy to know who you have or have not equipped, know what they have, know who the new settlers are, etc. If you dump all your mundane gear into your homebase workshop you will quickly accumulate large quantities of things to equip setters with. When I have a "settlement set" (depends on the build what the max number is - usually between 21 for 11 Charisma to 30 for 20 Charisma based on the character) of an undergarment, matching armor set, and weapon, I will Strong Back fast travel it to a settlement that is either not yet equipped or in need of an upgrade, put it on everyone, and store any extra on site for future settlers.

Be *really* careful about leaving Power Armour around with fusion cores in, as enemies can *also* choose to loot it and use in their attack. I had this happen twice in gunner attacks, where a stealthy leader of the gunners bypassed my outer defenses and climbed into really good power armour, wreaking havoc on my settlers.

My weapons strategy (developed in foggy Far Harbor) is to give them all Laz Rifles. I mod each one to have a residual burn. With all the settlers firing red streams & my Laz Turrets doing the same I always know where the enemy mobs are. Often in FH I had no idea where the attacks were coming from! Now I do!

Your settlement just looks like a red light district...

*gives a pipe pistol* *also gives 3 bullets* "Aight, that's all you get, now execute the murphy maneuver" (Execute a deathclaw)

This is how I arm my settlers. I go to the gunners plaza and Quincy, and loot there combat armour off of them

Trash can Carla stole my fully upgraded X-01 power armor when sanctuary got attacked while I was building a factory, then, all of a sudden I’m the bad guy for trying to pickpocket the fusion core out of the armor she stole from me. Everyone in Sanctuary became hostile. Long story short, Sanctuary Hills is uninhabited once again

Ironically, putting miniguns on your sentries with ONE bullet makes them better than you are at defending more often than not...

Cage Armor, a Mining Helmet, and an Assault Rifle Instant Security Detail for my Settlements

I just manually equip settlers as they appear... It's fun and you can just give them a kick ass weapon/armor. I guess it can be a pain if you had 100 settlers to equip all at once, but since I just do it right away, its doesn't build up.

FYI Settlers won't pick up a weapon unless they have ammo for it. If you leave the ammo in the Workbench, the first settler to take a weapon will also take ALL the ammo for that gun. The workaround is to give each of your settlers one of each ammo for the weapons you put in the workshop.

I learned this the hard way. I was doing a power armor survival build and during a raid, one of my settlers stole ALL of my spare fusion cores to power his Gattling Laser (ALSO a stolen spare). And another guy wouldn't get out of my spare set of X-01 MKVI until I pickpocketed the fusion core. I didn't even realize they could do that at the time.

I used the Gunners for supplies, if you catch my drift

The stuff you equip them with doesnt help if you dont show up? But if I show up I might as well kill the attackers myself, so the entire exercise seems pointless. The functionality of the settlement system, especially the attack and defense is really half-baked

That’s why Sheffield kept stealing my shit. Huh. I kinda feel bad for executing him now…

I give them a combat knife, just to be sure they dont turn against me.

Thank you for this. I wish I'd have known this earlier, it would have saved me countless hours ringing the town bell and sorting through everyones inventories one by one.

I used to just give my settlers gatling lasers and laser rifles then see them later with a pipe pistol

...Or you could open the ''trade'' dialog with any of them and actually give them better gear...seems easier to me!

3:08 there is a random settler just welding a mailbox

And there is actually a mod that allows to "lock" doors, and chests. So just put all the stuff you don'T want your settlers to grab ina truck and lock it.

Hey guys, I'm just wondering if there are any mods out there, that make settlers to act more like every day ordinary people, like they sit down for a drink, light a cigarette etc. Stuff that make settlements more immersive. Thanks for your answers.

"As you get higher level and face tougher and tougher enemies" You mean easier and easier surely. This game has a massive difficulty falloff.

Has anyone ever said you sound a bit like Tom Hanks?

Everyone gets a plasma flamer. Settlements now look like slimer from ghost busters.

When i'm going around the commonwealth i will find weapons like Miniguns(Ashmaker) or Gauss rifles(Stalkers Gauss rifle) i will usually give them to my settlers instead of selling them . This is very useful because they settlers will have some serious firepower to back up your settlements. Also do the same with armor. I usually supply them with Heavy combat armor or regular combat armor. :)

I am a big fan of the combat rifle, it´s a great compromise of damage, range and accuracy as well as ammo efficiency. Laser rifles are good too, but i tend to stay away from rapid fire stuff and shotguns due to their inherent inaccuracy. Explosive weapons are tempting, but i did not hand them out as of now.

For those of you who store fusion cores in settlements Settlers will loot the containers storing them and then enter the nearest Power Armor. Be careful, folks.

They won’t be able to use a specific weapon unless they have ammo for that weapon, so you have to make sure they have the calibers you have.

wait so my box of unique weapons can be taken by settlers?!?!?!?!

Dude your content is awesome and it feels like you know every mechanic of the game and plan accordingly. Lol keep up the work.

Hey, i have a problem when i set them the Weapons and leave the Settlement they will switch to default outfit. Any ideas?

Well, personally I have a building set aside that I treat as my base in every settlement, it's usually small and utilitarian in design, but always includes a powered warehouse door, and an alarm bell inside, with which I summon my settlers. I then close the powered door, and take the elevator I place in each of these up to the top floor (usually 3 floor elevator), which is basically a sniper nest for me. On some rare occasions, a settlement may require me to place some turrets to cover blind spots. This also gives me an idea which way enemies are coming from, or are located.

Do not leave powerarmor lying around Sanctuary! Trashcan Carla stole a full set of fully maxed out T-45 armor from me months ago. She's still walking around in it every time I see her. F#*&ing thief!

Wow, thank you for telling us about how it works with settlers and ammo.

Your settlement has a lot of women =3

Settlers will also loot weapons that are just on the ground. Even if you never do anything settlers will start grabbing the guns that are left lying around from previous attacks. The enemy corpses despawn but their dropped weapons don't. Though since Sancturarys zone is fixed at level 1, most enemies won't really have anything better then the settlers default weapons. On the other hand at Croup manor after a couple of gunner attacks a bunch of settlers will have laser weapons, and if super mutants attack with miniguns there will almost always be a minigun wielding settler afterwards. There's also no point in saving melee weapons since NPCs will always prefer ranged weapons over melee if they have a choice, and I don't think they'll ever pick up a better melee weapon if they already have one.

I found Jun Long carrying 6 laser pistols

I've totally seen settlers pick up Power Armor. They snagged my armor and had to ask them to exit the armor.

how do you keep your settlers happy? i've tried everything but the happiness meter still dropping. any tips?

Be careful with leaving power armor with fusion cores around. I've had enemies climb in and use it against the settlers. I've also had enemies grab weapons out of containers.

Hey Ox I just want to thank you for your great videos! I'm new to the fallout world and I'm playing on ps4. But still i got so many tips and help or inspiration from your videos. Thank for your great work! Keep going and have a nice day. Greetings from Germany :)

Every one of my settlers in Sanctuary are armed with maxed out .44 revolvers and 20 rounds of ammo. 240 points of damage a shot. I have never seen supermutants die faster than when they raid my town.

Does the workshop equipping work for legendary items? My workshop is full of them, never seen a settler equip one in about five hundred hours.

Looks like Oxhorn needs to use the Scrap Everything mod.

Someone had no idea you can trade with settlers and equip items on them...

Awesome stuff! On the console, I set aside regular leather armor and short combat rifles because they spawn constantly. The only editions that I make are to increase the magazine size and make them automatic. Since the settlers all have pretty much the same SPECIAL stats, I figured that I would just use them to get as many bullets flying as modestly possible. They also look like a pretty legit militia.

Ive never seen the settlers taking weapons from the Workbench, Im pretty sure its off limits for them. I do see them looting weapons during raids from attackers, even legendaries!

Il try to be brief. When first setting up a settlement. Pick 2 settlers and equip them manually with the heaviest weapons and armor you have (include at least one plasma or cryo grenade for maximum profit) Build two scavenging stations near enemy spawn points and assign your 2 settlers to scavenging. When your settlement is big enough to support a supply line you pick the heavier of the two scavvers and promote to provisioner and the other to guard. Your one guard can hold 3 posts, your provisioner is basically an immortal heavy sentinel and your guard is actually effective, then you promote 2 farmers to heavy scavvers and pretty much everything else sorts itself out when you just store weapons and armor in workbenches and containers. Unemployed > Farmer> heavy scavver> guard> provisioner Is the promotion tree

Great so since I forced my level to level 1000, my enemies would be holding big boys and maxed power armor

i think that may be a PC only function, where your settlers grab gear from containers. i know on xbox1 they will cling to those crappy pipe pistols unless i give them better gear and 1 round of ammo. as i have noticed, 1 round of ammo for a particular weapon, a melee, and a single grenade is sufficient armament. as for armor, hrm still working on that, it doesnt seem to matter what armor they have on, they just knocked on their arses and sit there til the fight is over. maybe the armor will keep them on their feet a bit longer. but i doubt it, as it was said by someone in a comment, when i did equip a settler or companion with PA, they get it smashed really fast. but thanks for the videos Ox, love catching up on fallout4 stuff with your vids!

Dont want to be rude. But i have to ask. Would you want to compose a modpack or something for Fallout 4? You know the essentials to spice up the game.

Thanks again for the inspiring information good sir. I will be equipping all settlers with Vault 88 gear and when Nuka World comes out my Raider gang shall be known as, you guessed it, The Crazy 88's!

Where do they get ammo for weapons they pull out of the workbench? Do you need to leave ammo in the workbench as well?

Each settlement of mine has a specific Look. Some have blackened leather, others studded, metal, combat, etc. there is 2 power armors each settlement. But the rest are armored identical in each. OCD on max. Plus you level up when building the look for each. I keep all armor I loot for this purpose. Plus I assign each resident with a weapon and one bullet. Make sure you equip them with said weapon, and take the crappy one from their inventory, thus making the new weapon the “default” and making that one bullet infinite:). No missiles or nukes as they tend to blow themselves up

I like using the trade menu (Have a PS4). I have given all of my settlers in all of my settlements combat armor and better weapons and ammo. I had a huge surplus of .38 ammo (20,000+ rounds) and like 100 combat rifles. I upgraded those combat rifles to .38 receivers and used a .38 combat rifle as my primary settlement defense weapon. Plus, I got rid of half of my .38 ammo by giving each settler 200 rounds.Granted they aren't as powerful as a .45 combat rifle, but with a few other upgrades, they are far superior to the pipe pistols and shotguns they spawn with. It is tedious at first, but I was able to make several rounds through my settlements, make upgrades and collect caps. Turned out to be a fun task.

I’ll use my ‘Castle’ as an example of my go-to strategy, which I’ve refined through multiple playthroughs. I use mods, of course, but as far as the Minutemen go, the mods only enhance them as a military-oriented faction. All of the Minutemen automatically wear ‘Army Fatigues’ with an ‘Army Helmet.’ They come standard with a ‘Laser Rifle,’ and the ones w/ Power Armor carry ‘Gatling Lasers.’ Anyway, at ‘The Castle,’ I always place a lot of turrets and defensive positions for settlers & minutemen to stand watch at. I build them wherever I deem necessary, and assign multiple people to them, which means I have a constant security detail roving around the fortress. Which really adds to the immersion of the environment. I put ‘Military Fatigues’ on all of the settlers at ‘The Castle,’ to add to the theme of the location, and as a way of discerning Minutemen from settlers. I issue every settler a ‘Combat Rifle,’ ‘Assault Rifle’ (primarily to be a de-facto machine gunner), ‘Sniper Rifle,’ or a variant of a ‘Laser Rifle’ to give them the edge in a firefight, and with multiple people covering an area with overwhelming firepower, that’s how I neutralize any threats to the castle. In short, my ‘Castle’ is very militarized, and heavily guarded.

Will attackers steal your suits of power armor??

The settlers are also equipping the special t-shirts and vault uniforms if you let them in boxes or in the working benches.

whats the point anyway, settlers can't die by npcs

This reminded me. There was one time when I was working on something at Red Rocket, and an attack started. It took my brain a moment to process that I was being attacked, but while I was confused my Red Rocket/Sanctuary provisioner ran into my garage and grabbed a super sledge out of my workshop. That was when I found out that they could take things out of containers, but until now I was still slightly confused about it.

Why do you use traditional Soviet music in your video

I tend to apply mods on weapons for all settlers. An example, when I get a .45 Combat Rifle, I tend to maximize everything on it like so: 1.Powerful automatic receiver 2.Long ported barrel 3.Recoil compensating stock 4.Large quick eject magazine 5.Long night vision scope 6.Muzzle brake And give them ONE piece of .45-ammo, as that's all they need to continually keep using their guns. For some settlers I also add armored versions of clothing's (and maybe even armoring over their clothes), usually those with 'Clean' in the description. Ballistic weave MK5, I think it is called. And usually settlements tend to be able to defend themselves, but sometimes they loose as I'm mostly doing stuff in Nuka World, or other places (Far Harbor).

wait you telling me i dont barter one by one to all settler, god thx its exhausting barter to all settler

A quick note on your script since you are using Armor form the DLC the first two digits can be different for other people. Far Harbor is "03" because you have the season pass and it was the third item in your mod list. Automatron is "01" because it was first in your mod list. This can be different for other people if they are buying them one at a time in a different order then the release date.

Ballistic weave clothing is way better

It brings me joy knowing my settlers are armed and protected. I usually give the ones who are on defense posts the better armor and weapons since they're on patrol.

I have the "Modern Firearms" mods so I arm everybody and their brother with M4's, Kriss's, or MK-16/17's set for semi-auto and give them about 500 rounds each. Yes, I cheat.

As the game went on, I'd give my settlers studded leather and ballistic weave clothes, and I'd give them all double barreled shotties and assault rifles. I'd also try to leave a minigun at each settlement and a suit of raider power armor. To mark things off, when I have a full suit of clothes for a settler, I'd include a miner's helmet with light. Makes it really easy to see who's equipped and who needs stuff.

Does equipping settler with eyeglasses/goggles actually help their perception or am I wasting time setting them all up? Also if I set them up with drugs will they use them?

I'm thinking, if you give a settler equipment with stats that match their intended role, then their fighting will reflect what you outfitted them to be. So, you give a settler a short range weapon, and they will engage combat closer to the enemy. So, since they are closer, they need heavier armor and strength/endurance/agility boosts. And if you have some settlers outfitted with sniper rifle a, you want to emphasis perception and lightweight AP conserving armor. This gives two types of fighters - one that needs to be at close range, and then the rangers who shoot at a distance. And if you have dogs, station their doghouses nearest the entry points in your settlement.

Sorry to say but there's lots of bad information here. For one, if you equip weapons to your settlers they will be "Locked" to that settler, which as far as I know stops them from looting your weapons, and two, you can't _order_ people into Power Armor, and they will leave the armor either on their own or when you talk to them if they do get themselves a set. Also, really - don't advocate cheating as a "normal" way of playing the game. What's the point of making some kind of guide if you're just gonna tell people to cheat?

3:05 BIGGEST TROLL EVER! Welding the damn mailbox shut. Who does that? Honestly?

Should really put in the name of the video that this is using a cheat, and no rationalizing that.

This is great. I like to give my settlers a vault jump suit so it's easier to identify new folks.

Pro tip: Temporary companions, such as Travis, function the same way as settlers do as described in this video, except temporary companions aren't always trade capable and don't always follow commands, again such as Travis. Being trade capable is what makes Preston the best temporary companion in the game.

All my settlers wear cage armor, except for the settlers in my smaller settlements like Jamaica Plains. They get combat armor. As for weapons, I only give them the following: Combat shotguns, Combat rifles, Laser rifles, Plasma Rifles, Assault rifles, Hunting rifles, and Forty four pistols. All of which are modified with the best receivers and largest magazines. I also tend to work on their armor.

>resource duplication glitch. >weapon/armor forges from contraptions workshop. My guards wear lvl 5 ballistic weave army fatigues, military hat, patrolman sunglasses, and full heavy combat armor and armed with either auto laser rifles, auto plasma rifles, miniguns, or gauss rifles depending on where they're assigned.

I don’t know if this is knew, but the settlers will actually loot weapons and ammo from dead raiders. I was recently attacked by a bunch of gunners. I noticed that one of the gunners was a legendary, but didn’t have time to loot his gear during the fight. After the fight I went back to the body and noticed it didn’t have any legendary gear on it. I thought it was a bug until I started to give the settlers the weapons and armor I’d looted from the attackers and noticed one of the settlers had the legendary weapon and the ammo for it. Another one had a legendary fat man I’d gotten earlier and had stored in my house. Luckily, he didn’t shoot me with it!

I am not sure if you are aware of this or not Oxhorn. But I have noticed that even if you leave power armor without fusion cores in them and then leave cores in a container the Settlers will go get the cores out of the container then use the power armor. It happened to me on two seperate occasions so I am pretty sure it is a thing.

my current play through I am taking the approach of supermerchant in that I have set up several water purification settlements (10+ large purification units powered by fusion generators), and use an object extractor and storage unit (wasteland workshop or manufacturing extended mod I do not recall which I also have all settlements extended which stretches the borders of my settlements and allows me water access at additional settlements) to extract purified water from my settlement workshop, thus getting around the water item count limits. I then periodically take advantage of my strongback perk and make my rounds fast traveling between merchants and settlements selling enough water to make Sheng's monopoly look like a kid's lemonade stand. This has allowed me to buy a lot of materials to over equip settlement defense as I stock up on everything the merchant has that I could need, then wipe out their supply of caps. I am running missile turrets at the attack points and heavy gun turrets scattered around the interior of my settlements. I currently have 10 settlements (and more on the way as I get the quests to take control of them) running each with a full slate of tier 3 merchants. The only settlement guard I have us Jun Long who I traditionally "place in charge of Sanctuary Security" to help him recover from the loss of his son and the escape from Quincy (not effective treatment for PTSD IRL, but it seems to help in the game). Yesterday I rebuilt GrayGarden and gave it about 500 points of defense with only turrets and a Security Protectron, plus my 4 artillery cannons (my normal is between 150 and 250 plus 2-4 artillery per settlement, 5 at the castle, and 6-8 at nordhagen to shell the bejeebies out of BoS at the airport), I may have gone a bit nuts with the missile turrets). I fast travel to settlements under attack and the battle is usually over before I can get my gun out. I was present (rebuilding my tower to the overpass) when some mechanist robots attacked... it was over before I could exit the construction menu much less draw a weapon. one shot fired and too many explosions for the laptop to deal with. It turned into one muddy distorted blast lasting for about 10 seconds. I never even saw the robots... just the wreckage. Then again a pack of supermutants attacked while I was setting up initial defenses, and the 6 mr/ms handys had them dealt with in short order, with 2 of the planters "damaged" in the process. (the planters needed enough farmers to reactivate them in order to "fix them") I couldn't get a shot off for fear of hitting the friendly bots... even VATS was having trouble getting a target due tot he swarm of handys. I have had only 2 settler and one minuteman casualty so far this playthrough (the minuteman was lost AFTER the castle was retaken due to me forgetting to go through room clearing... one of the extra minutemen I summoned with a flare before storming the castle "found" a mirelurk the hard way. The radio operator and the two other minutemen Preston brought survived due to me ambushing the queen (she did not make it out of the pond this time, but despite her being triggered while I was clearing the eggs at that corner of the castle wall, it felt to meta gamey being in the right place at the right time with a legendary quad barreled missile launcher on my hot bar, even if Preston makes it sound like cthulhu himself was the creature who destroyed the castle in the first place (my first time playing I went to the castle in power armor with a sniper rifle (maxed out hunting rifle), a fatman (only 1 mini nuke), a missile launcher (a dozen or so missiles), and a minigun (over 1000 rounds of ammo) all on my hotbar I was ready for everything EXCEPT the mirelurk hatchlings... I had to use my pipboy to grab a 10mm I had picked up off a raider or gunner on my way to the castle to deal with them as I still was not that good with VATS at the time))

You get 2 miniguns pretty early in the game (one in Concord, and one in the USAF base you clear to unlock Abernathy Farm). So Sanctuary is usually pretty well defended! Also worth mentioning that settlers and companions can use a grenade infinite times if you equip them with at least one.

Oh, your settlers can nab weapons from the workbench when under attack? That explains how Preston Garvey, who I hadn't teamed up with at any point, came to wield my Alien Blaster and its limited ammo (though I hadn't really used up much of said ammo). I had to retake The Castle or risk pick pocketing it off of him. ...The blaster did make him a bit of a force to be reckoned with against the Mirelurks, though. EDIT: Also, there were a couple times Trashcan Carla helped herself to a set of power armor that was near her waiting point. At first I was like 'HELL YEAH, CARLA!' but then I realized that there was no option to talk Carla out of the armor. I couldn't bear to never again see her charming face, so I had to snag the fusion core to get her out of it.

You can also give your settlers grenades. I'd recommend giving your provisioners grenades as your settlers are liable to destroy your settlement.

If you have a lot of one type of weapon (including the mods) in the container they loot, the settlers will take all of that weapon; I've found settlers in the past carrying 100's of one specific weapon, and then using another, better, weapon they've nicked at a different time. I ended up giving all my settlers the best weapons available with .45 or FCells, as I have lots of those to spare. I also gave them 25 rounds of the specific ammo, as I like to think that they can have a full magazine/clip, rather than a single bullet at a time.

You can farm lots of combat armor and decent weapons from Parsons Asylum. As long as you don't do the Cabot House quests the mercenaries at the asylum will continually respawn. If you have Wasteland Workshops DLC you can build a platform at the top of the drive-in settlement's screen with Gunner cages arranged so they die from fall damage as soon as the cages are opened.

Very helpful thank you. Stumbled upon this by accident, was looking for the mechanics on how provisioners know/decide what to trade between settlers. Though I'm going to check out the rest of your vids because this one was a pleasant surprise and very informative. Again thank you for taking the time to create and share this vid.

I hadn't even thought to arm any of my settlers. I usually just set up a bunch of turrets and hope the settlers figure it out. It hasn't gone wrong thus far, and I've been playing since the game released.

You can park unused power armors without Fusion Core in a settlement without settlers, i use Red Rocket Gas Station. 100% protection vs theft is to use the nuclear shelter "root cellar" behind one of the Sanctuary houses, put legenary own stuff, Fusion cores ammo there (anything you want feel secure)

Easiest is to manually trade/give them 1 weapon 1 ammo 1 armor. (use same trade window to actually equip it). It's ok if you don't give them armor. Order them in your idle power armors, so noone steals them. If you need it back just talk to them to get out. They don't deplete fusion core, neither your companions. Might need repair. Same for provisioners. For them i like to give 1 molotov cocktail too. (summon them with bell) If settler is on guard duty don't forget they can man 6 points of defense. For example 3 chosen guard posts. (same as farmers 6 food)

To be honest, doing it manually is the best way. Takes longer, but you get better control of what NPCs carry. Being I don't store many weapons, I often scrap them for parts. I often keep specific ones I find that I know settlers could use effectively. There are a lot of weapons settlers just can not use well. I learned Combat Rifles, Bolt Rifles, Shotguns, and Pistols seem to work best, none automatics to boot. Being my travels in the waste, there are no shortage of free weapons laying around. Having them use Power Armor is a huge waste as well, definitely being power armor can be damaged, it's unnecessary management to allow NPCs to use power armor.

I usually have enough resources to just customize an automatic weapon for the settlers. Will settlers have just as high damage output with semi-auto weapons?

I didn't know the settlers would loot the work shop that's great thank you for the video

I used to hate the settlement system in F4 but now that I've watched most if not all your videos I love it now thanks for the great content Oxhorn

I normally give my settlers a full suit of Combat armor and a laser gun sometimes plasma and I also have small open boxes with Power Armor, I duplicate it to get top of the line X01