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For the activity in Fallout 76, see Defend Workshop. |
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Defend (displayed as Help defend (Location Name)) is a miscellaneous quest in Fallout 4. There are many variations of the quest using the same script, with the only difference being the attacking party.
Quick walkthrough
| Miscellaneous quest: Defend | |||||||||||||
| Travel to the settlement. | |||||||||||||
| Repel the attackers. | |||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough
See also: Fallout 4 settlements
A settlement owned by the Sole Survivor can be attacked by various enemies, including raiders, super mutants, feral ghouls, synths, and Gunners. When an attack is imminent, the Sole Survivor will receive a miscellaneous objective on their Pip-Boy pointing to the settlement. The Sole Survivor can travel to the settlement and deal with the attackers, or leave the settlement to deal with it themselves. Either way, the objective disappears once the attack is resolved. No reward is given for a successful defense, but a failed defense will result in damage to the settlement.
Quest stages
Notes
- These attacks cannot be prevented entirely, but their chances can be reduced by building up the settlement's defenses (see attack chance).
- Failing to provide assistance will result in damage to the settlement and reduced happiness if the attackers win.
- Occasionally, multiple Defend quests may be given at the same time. It is possible to do all of them with fast travel and not fail any defense if one travels direct to each location.
- Defend quest notifications can occur at any time, even mid-quest, which can be a challenge if the Sole Survivor is deep within an area and far away from an exit to the outside (i.e. a place requiring transition to a new cell) that allows for fast travel (only a handful of "new cell" locations allow for fast travel, such as Diamond City (including Home Plate), Goodneighbor, and some DLC locations such as The Mechanist's Lair and Vault 88.) This can delay response to a Defend request. Most quests, however, can be left in progress, allowing the Sole Survivor to travel to the attacked settlement.
- Settlements on Spectacle Island can be attacked by a group of mirelurks.
- Settlements on The Island can be attacked by Trappers and local sea creatures.
- Being allied with the Institute doesn't prevent synths from attacking settlements. The attacking synths and any Gen-3 synths in the settlement can be killed without penalty. Becoming enemies with the Institute again restores the chance of attacking synths to normal. However, if the Institute is destroyed, the chance will be reduced.
- Attacks can occur even if a settlement has zero population and resources. They are often triggered due to supply line provisioners or caravans being attacked in or near the settlement.
- The Sole Survivor only needs to be present at a settlement for a successful defense. Often, turrets and settlers are strong enough to defeat raiders on their own, though this is not guaranteed with unattended raids. Being present will also not prevent turrets and crops from being destroyed and settlers killed.
- Some combat at or near settlements does not trigger this quest, such as animals wandering too close or attacks on caravans and provisioners that happen to take place at or very near a settlement. Automated turrets placed close to the settlement development boundary might be triggered by enemy activity nearby if a settlement is very close to such a location (such as the Nuka World Red Rocket and The Slog, both of which are within sight of enemy spawn locations).
- Occasionally, remains of defeated attackers may be found at settlements even if no Defend quest was given.
- Using fast travel may occasionally result in the Sole Survivor arriving at a settlement mid-attack, but without receiving the Miscellaneous Quest. Likewise, once the attackers are defeated, no "Completed" notification is given.
- Turrets and settlers may occasionally attack wandering animals or enemy NPCs who venture too close to a settlement's "build zone". These are not counted as "Defend" attacks.
- If an attack begins while the Sole Survivor is present at a settlement (often indicted by a settler making a comment about incoming enemy), the Defend quest is not given.
- Although companions and other characters designated "essential" cannot be killed during raids, it is possible for both named and unnamed settlers to die, including by "friendly fire", including some provisioners and robots created in the Automatron DLC.
- A variant, Help defend the checkpoint, is unlocked after the endgame (by assisting a chosen faction instead of simply settlers). Some of the checkpoints in question are located close to settlements, resulting in possible overlap.
Bugs
Sometimes the quest objective might mark itself as completed before all enemies are killed.[verified]- Sometimes the quest doesn't complete.[verified]
- Search inside and outside of the settlement for enemies that have not been killed and kill them. Also, a new wave of attacks may take place after a few minutes. Hostile animals in the vicinity may also prevent it from completing right away.
- Open the console. Target a dead enemy (by clicking on their corpse). Enter the command resurrect, exit console and kill the resurrected enemy. This will help in case the kill-counter is missing a kill.
- If on arrival you find your settlers have killed a synth infiltrator you may also find there is no attack incoming. Open the console, and enter the command completeallobjectives WorkshopSynthInfiltrator02. The quest will complete.
- If playing on PS4 or Xbox without the console-command option, searching the vicinity and waiting may not reveal any further attackers (who possibly spawned in an inaccessible location). In order to end the quest, it may be necessary to fast travel away, which may result in the defense failing and damage being taken by the settlement. To avoid loss of items from the settlement's workshop, it can be emptied before fast traveling using "Take all," if the perk allowing for fast travel while overencumbered is active.
- When defending a settlement against an invasion of synths, the quest may become stuck and uncompletable if the first synth is killed before more can spawn.[verified]
- After completing one of these quests, some settlers may get stuck in the "thank you" mode, i.e. constantly thanking you when you try to talk to them, locking out all other options such as trading and bartering.[verified]
- This can be fixed by talking to a settler or shop owner from another settlement.
- Also can be fixed by using the console. The bug is triggered when settlers are not correctly removed from the WorkshopAttackDialogueFaction faction by the appropriate script. This faction has the editor id 001125FE. To solve it, open the console, select a settler then enter command removefromfaction 1125FE
