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After clearing out a location I travelled back to Sanctuary Hills, where I keep all my spare power armour and my fancy weapons, and it was under attack from super mutants. Before I knew it Marcy Long had taken a Fatman and all my mini-nukes from the cabinet where I store them and wasted three mini-nukes on mutant hounds, and another settler had stolen one of my power armour suits and 21 fusion cores!

The strategy guide says settlers will only take things left out in the open:

unauthorized acquisitions

I think they can also take things from the workshop, so I stored all my good stuff in a cabinet next to the power armour repair frame. Apparently that isn't safe, because Marcy helped herself to that cabinet!

I loaded an earlier save and when I arrived in Sanctuary Hills the first thing I did was take all the ammo and cores from that cabinet, to stop anyone stealing them. But when the mutants attacked one of the settlers still stole a suit of power armour! I think the settler must have brought a fusion core with them when they arrived in Sanctuary Hills. Usually I trade with new settlers to take nice loot from them and make sure they have some ammo and a bit of leather armour, but I must have not done that for this guy.

Apparently you can get NPCs out of armour by talking to them, but after the mutant attack everyone just said "thanks for the help, pal" and "you arrived just in the nick of time" (over and over and over, if I hear it once more I'm going to feed them to the next super mutant attackers). The thief wouldn't get out of his armour. I eventually pickpocketed the fusion core back (which took lots of reloading because I only had a 7% chance to succeed) but I don't want to have to do that again.

What is the best way to prevent settlers taking your "personal" gear, and how do you prevent settlers from taking power armour if they have their own fusion cores?

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    You could try to keep all the ammo and Fusion Cores in your inventory. Ammo and Power Cores all have a weight of 0, so there's really no need to keep them stored in some chest, now is there?
    – Nolonar
    Dec 14, 2015 at 10:53
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    As I said above, that isn't enough, settlers can have their own ammo. Two of my settlers were walking around with fusion cores in their pockets, and if someone had a mini-nuke they'd still have taken the fat-man, and I can't carry four fatmans around as theyr'e too heavy (but at least that's easier to get back than power armour).
    – boomstick
    Dec 14, 2015 at 11:27
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    Plus I was intentionally not carrying 100% fusion cores, so that when one ran out it wouldn't just get replaced it with the next one, as I was trying to only use up my partially-used cores, running them down to a few percent before swapping them out (you get the same price for a 1/100 core as for a 100/100 core). Now I'm just carrying them all with me, but that doesn't answer "how do you prevent settlers from taking power armour if they have their own fusion cores?"
    – boomstick
    Dec 14, 2015 at 11:28
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    Why do you think settlers take guns out of a workshop? Have you had it happen? I've never in my 200+ hours of playing seen a settler using a gun that I had stashed in a workshop. I've never stashed weapons anywhere but the workshop.
    – Unknown Zombie
    Dec 14, 2015 at 13:43
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    I just did a little experiment where I put a single Fatman+nukes in the workshop then started a few wars on Sanctuary Hills. First I shot Trashcan Carla's Brahmin, and Carla stole the Fatman and nukes to attack me. During a different war I got all my settlers to attack Carla, and one of the settlers took the Fatman and all the nukes out of the workshop. So when "under attack" (in this case from an angry Carla) settlers will take things from the workshop. Maybe if I keep all the ammo with me they won't take weapons, as long as nobody has mini-nukes and the scavenger station doesn't find one
    – boomstick
    Dec 14, 2015 at 17:49

8 Answers 8

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There are still a few options; Keep your best equipment and power armor in a depopulated settlement, such as Red Rocket truck stop. If you haven't sent settlers there, then settlers can't steal your equipment. Raiders may still be able to steal your things, but that's what all the turrets are for, right? ;)

Alternately, find a safe connected to a terminal, drop your stuff in it, and lock it. This has the downside that you'll have to travel back to wherever the terminal-safe was. And even if you can find or somehow create one in a settlement, settlers that have the hacking or lock-picking skill might still be able to get at your things.

Optionally, keep all your things in a region of the map inaccessible to settlers, such as a rooftop or closed-off upper floor with a welcome mat. This ensures that you can fast-travel to the area, while your settlers won't be able to reach it.

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  • Aha! I read that any settlers can still open a safe, but didn't realise I can use a terminal to stop most of them opening it. Thanks. I've seen Sturges and Jun standing on the roof of my workshop building, even though there are no stairs, so there might be no completely inaccessible areas ... but I think they spawn up there randomly, so they are unlikely to be able to get there in a hurry during a raider/mutant attack.
    – boomstick
    Dec 14, 2015 at 18:30
  • To clarify, I'm not entirely sure if you can create a terminal-locked safe, but I have found them in the wild. I'm also not sure if that doesn't just make it twice as easy to break into the safe, since then either lockpickers OR hackers can open it...
    – Ayelis
    Dec 14, 2015 at 19:35
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    How about just build a fully-enclosed shack with no doors, and put your storage container in there? That way, you're the only one that can get in/out (unsupervised at least) via construction mode.
    – Iszi
    Dec 15, 2015 at 0:05
  • @Iszi Or, if you put a fast travel pad within the shack.
    – Carcigenicate
    Dec 15, 2015 at 21:06
  • @Iszi, that's what I said in my own answer below.
    – boomstick
    Dec 16, 2015 at 11:01
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use Home Plate (within Diamond City) for your house/abode/safe/etc. Buy it from the mayor's receptionist for 2,000 caps. No settlers, no companions unless they are with you, and no npc's; plus, you zone in at the front door INSIDE -- teleporting out is allowed to anywhere that's open on your map.

yes, the npc's/settlers/non-player-beings take even the Legendary weapons from workshops/benches/containers, plus the ammo to go with it.

I'm going to nuke Sanctuary Hills (so help me God!) because of all the stealing going on in that place--armor, weapons, ammo, FOOD (sometimes) too! All I need to do is finish cleaning it completely out, construct artillary, use the smoke bombs to aim, and BOOM!

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  • The downside of Home Plate is that the crafting stations are outside, and so junk and mods in your workshop are not shared with e.g. the power armour station or weapons workbench. Not a big inconvenience though, so I do keep a lot of my gear and armour at Home Plate now.
    – boomstick
    Apr 11, 2016 at 20:25
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So far the comments and answer are concentrating on the "settlers take things from containers" part of the question, but I'm also trying to ensure a settler won't get in power armour if they have a fusion core already. After I got stung by this and got my armour back I went round all 20 settlers at Sanctuary Hills and found a second settler who was walking around with a fusion core in their pocket (as well as the first one who got in the armour and I pickpocketed the core back from).

My current solution is to build a fence around my armour, and when I want to access it I go into Workshop Mode, click on a piece of fence as if to move it, walk forward through the gap, then cancel, so the piece of fence goes back where it was. This works, but is a bit annoying.

I read somewhere else you can build an elevated platform (using the shack foundations) that can only be reached by jumping, which apparently works because settlers can't jump. I might have to move my armour (it's currently indoors where the power armour frame starts in Sanctuary, and the roof is too low to let me jump over the fence).

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    I may have been the one who made that 'elevated platform' suggestion on another thread. I currently use a variation of that method however, which is actually much easier to do; The second floor of my building (where I keep my power armor) can only be reached by warping back to Sanctuary. Just put a welcome mat on the second floor of your building, and remove the staircase. ;)
    – Ayelis
    Dec 14, 2015 at 18:15
  • Good idea, I already have an elevated building, I can turn that into my armour store. I currently have my mat on the "armour side" of the fence, so I can fast-travel to it, and can fast-travel straight out again, and only need to make a hole in the fence if I actually want to do stuff in Sanctuary like visit my stores.
    – boomstick
    Dec 14, 2015 at 18:29
  • Someone on gamefaqs has this advice: "Just move an object in front of the door to your room in build mode. I keep a nuka cola machine in front of mine. I just slide it in the way when ever I leave."
    – Ayelis
    Dec 14, 2015 at 19:37
  • @boomstick You don't have to pickpocket your settlers. Just talk to them and select trade.
    – Tom
    Dec 16, 2015 at 7:46
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    @Tom, as I said in the question above 'Apparently you can get NPCs out of armour by talking to them, but after the mutant attack everyone just said "thanks for the help, pal" and "you arrived just in the nick of time"'. so no, you can't trade with settlers after an attack on a settlement. You have to wait until they reset and stop saying that, or pickpocket them.
    – boomstick
    Dec 16, 2015 at 11:02
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I don't know if people have figured it out yet but if someone steals your power armour you just have to fast travel out of there and fast travel back in and then you speak to them and you will tell them to get out of it. I had this problem at the castle but I just left them in it as I have several suits. I am having the opposite problem though I want to leave some good weapons in a container so that the settlers will help themselves when under attack instead of trying to kill mutant overlords with a crappy pipe pistol but they won't take the stuff

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  • He's storing ammo, which implies he's playing Survival, which means he can't Fast Travel.
    – Scott Prive
    Dec 27, 2018 at 14:00
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Just give your fusion cores and weapons to Strong. He can't get in power armor in fact he hates it and unless you have a gatling lazer he can't use the cores for anything. Regarding the weapons, just hand them out and keep a list of who has what. If you keep them in a box they might as well help to keep your settlement safe and I'm pretty sure cait stole a fusion core from my workshop yesterday and took my power armor which I'm having trouble locating now (probably some raider took it after cait left it somewhere). The power armor location also no longer shows on the map.

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I have solved all the stealing and sleeping in your bed, sitting around in your house...Build a house where ever you like but use a wall instead of door. When you come home just click into build mode, click on wall, walk through then hit B to cancel. Bingo. Your home and no one has touched a thing. Mine is on top of Red Rocket. Works great.

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Just simply block it off but leave a wall free and put a fence so u can jump over it but settlers can't and I always get attacked but I have 30 missile turrets on each side of the castle were the people try to attack me and everyone is in power armour with 50 cores each and I have 15 settlers all brotherhood power armour I got the cores by pickpocketing brotherhood knights no one gets pass my defense and if they do they're a friendly

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Getting your weapons & power armor back from settlers or companions is a non-issue, as you can simply trade gear back for free, & tell them to exit the armor. No big deal there. Settlers won't refuse to return items or leave town. They won't even take a projectile weapon unless they have ammo for it... However, here's the kicker: If your settlement is under attack while a merchant is there, the merchant may also enter empty power armor & take a stored weapon to join the fight. They have plenty of various munitions in their inventory, & they can take power armor even if there's no core in the frame or in their stash. In fact, ANY friendly NPC can use power armor without a power core during a settlement attack. I removed all the cores from my fleet & they're still used by settlers during settlement fights just the same. However, merchants won't give it back. After the battle is over, there's no option to retrieve any of the stuff a merchant took. If you try to steal or trade back a weapon yoinked by a merchant, it won't show in their inventory, presumably because they've equipped it, & there's no command option for merchants to exit power armor. Trashcan Carla entered my Atom Cats armor, & took a highly modded rifle from my workshop during a raider attack. Now I can't get them back. The rifle isn't in her inventory, but she still pulls it & fires it if attacked. As for the armor, you can kick a merchant from power armor by stealing the core (plant one first if there's not one in already), but they'll turn hostile, getting killed by settlers & turrets unless you have a high steal perk. Leaving a corpse & power frame in the street for the rest of the game ain't cool. Merchants will also exit your stolen power armor in Bunker Hill, at the sales counter, but it's hit & miss when they'll show up. Simply waiting or sleeping doesn't work, you'll need to leave the area & return later, whenever their caravan arrives. I keep all of my shit alone at Red Rocket now. I've even built a home there, but it too is along the merchant route, & therefor subject to the same event.

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    "tell them to exit the armor. No big deal there." Read my question to the end, as I said: Apparently you can get NPCs out of armour by talking to them, but after the mutant attack everyone just said "thanks for the help, pal" and "you arrived just in the nick of time". A lot of the info in this big wall of text (heard of paragraphs? ;) is already stated above in the question, answers or comments.
    – boomstick
    May 22, 2016 at 15:47

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