Beds/Defenses keep “disappearing” when not in the settlement

Question

Recently, I've had an issue in Sanctuary where certain resources "disappear". By this, I mean they aren't being counted when viewing them in the Pip-Boy's "Workshop" tab.

Typically, I start exploring/questing by emptying junk and gear I won't use in Sanctuary and fast travelling out. While out, I'll occasionally check the Workshop tab to make sure none have the exclamation point that signifies some attention needs to be given. The last couple of days, Sanctuary has been constantly lit up with the "!" icon. Most commonly, it shows that there are zero beds and/or defenses (or less than there are actually are... It might show that I have 4 beds when there are actually 16).

Upon returning to Sanctuary and going into Workshop Mode, everything looks right. All beds and defenses are accounted for, happiness starts to rise again. But when I leave, happiness starts to drop again because of "lack" of beds/defenses.

This may be unrelated, but Sanctuary is my "main base". Meaning, I always go there to unload junk and store weapons/armor/aid in the Workbench, trying to keep everything available in one place.

Has anyone ran across a similar issue? Is there any solution to this?

Answer 1

I have seen this extensively during my multiple playthroughs and believe this to be a bug of some kind. As you've noted, visiting the settlement and looking at the statistics in workshop mode reveal the correct numbers and once you've seen these numbers they'll be correctly reported in the Pip Boy interface.

This isn't limited to specific settlements and as far as I have seen, not related to specific events either (it's not going to happen more frequently if, for example, that settlement has just been attacked).

I have not found a method of ensuring these numbers are correct without visiting the settlement.

Answer 2

This happens to me ALL the time, and it's an increasingly annoying bug I really hope gets fixed ASAP. It seems to start happening when the settlement size becomes large enough (or for some other complexity reason, I'm not sure), which especially affects Sanctuary and Red Rocket Truck Stop for me.

It can happen with any of the workshop/settlement stats; people, food, water, power, defence and beds. For me, in Sanctuary it's most often the beds and defence and in Red Rocket Truck Stop it's most often the water and people.

The ONLY work around to the problem I've found, from a tip in the Steam Community forums (but I unfortunately don't remember who wrote it), is to avoid fast-traveling FROM inside settlement borders. In Sanctuary, I usually run across the bridge towards Red Rocket before I fast-travel away, which appears to work 100% of the time.

But, when the Red Rocket Truck Stop settlement got large enough and started quirking as well, the problem got worse: if I fast-travel directly to Sanctuary, the Red Rocket numbers seem to always get corrupted so I now also have to run through Red Rocket from Sanctuary before fast-traveling away. An alternative that also works when I want to fast-travel to Sanctuary, is to first fast-travel to Red Rocket and then run to Sanctuary from there. Because of this, I'm considering shutting the Red Rocket settlement down and scrapping it. Its closeness to Sanctuary seems to trigger the double-problem. Maybe this only happens with max viewing distance (I can see the settlers and turrets etc from Red Rocket and vice versa), I don't know, but I refuse to reduce the viewing distance.

Answer 3

That isn't true in my case because I have this issue in two areas. One in Sanctuary Hill and the other on Spectacle Island. Though I did have a recruitment Tower in Sanctuary, I never had one on Spectacle Island. All the settlers on the Island was sent there from other settlement.

Now there are 2 methods mentioned to work around bugs. One is to leave area before fast traveling which seems to work most of the time. The other is some claim removing all TV's and Jukeboxes also fix it. I have removed them all yet to see if this works but many claim it does while others claim it doesn't. I will say I didn't start seeing the bug until I started decorating Spectacle Island. It took a while to build my buildings with no problems and had the settlers I have now. Didn't see it until I started decorating so who knows.

Answer 4

Note: I never fast travel

I think I've finally figured out what triggers this bug. If the number of people in a settlement (not sure if all or just some) is at 6+ then any new arrivals that result from a recruitment beacon will cause at least the water to glitch out to zero. So the only solution I can think of to avoid the bug is to set up a "Recruitment Settlement". IE: Never let the number of people in that settlement get over 6 (maybe even keep it at 2 or 3), and use the people that initially go there to fill your other settlements.