I've had populations stagnate for no reason. At least no reason I know of. Max charisma(10+), everyone has a job, a bed, food, water. Happiness is up. Recruitment beacon active. But 6 pop, and then nothing. I usually wind up having to take people from other settlements and send them where I want them. I dont think I've had a settlement go beyond 8, without me sending people manually. But usually they get stuck at 4-6

Good to know. I'll try setting up more recruiting beacons and see if that helps out.

If you intend settlers to come, prepare your settlement in advance.

Adequate to at least 10 settlers: Beds, under roofs that you build
Plants for 12 (2 settlers for farming will provide 12 food)
Water for 12 (all settlers, I usually add 'and plants' but I don't think the game accounts?)

Defenses for them to match the food/water production - turrets. Build other guard stations when you NEED them, food is priority if you have turrets built.

Fun things to do and/or jobs for them to act in, if you have your perks brought up to do it, put in a bar, your clinic, and armor/weapon/clothing/general stores. As people show up, the first two will go for the food. You have to assign others to things as they show up.

If you build guard stations (rather than turrets) I have noticed that the first settlers will not go for food production but will self-assign to those guard stations and then promptly *complain that there's no food*.

Originally posted by Jariah Synn:

Good to know. I'll try setting up more recruiting beacons and see if that helps out.

You need ONE per settlement, just make sure it's powered and on.... More won't help individually, but they must all be in each separate settlement to attract settlers. When you're full up on one location or only want a specific number, go back to it and turn it off / remove it to stop them from coming.

The QUANTITY that they can hold is indeed your CHA+10 plus any items which alter your cha. You can still manually send settlers to settlements where you haven't turned on the beacon or turned it off, if you hold that location. (Build one anyway, just in case, but no more than that are needed per settlement.)

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Originally posted by Jariah Synn:

Good to know. I'll try setting up more recruiting beacons and see if that helps out.

You need ONE per settlement, just make sure it's powered and on.... More won't help individually, but they must all be in each separate settlement to attract settlers. When you're full up on one location or only want a specific number, go back to it and turn it off / remove it to stop them from coming.

The QUANTITY that they can hold is indeed your CHA+10 plus any items which alter your cha. You can still manually send settlers to settlements where you haven't turned on the beacon or turned it off, if you hold that location. (Build one anyway, just in case, but no more than that are needed per settlement.)

That's extremely helpful information thank you!

Wear your best CHA gear at night and whenever you are just hanging out. The Settler recruitment check runs once a day at a random time so maximise your chances of having high CHA when it decides to check.

Also it is claimed that 4 settlers with no assigned jobs will halt recruitment. (Others dispute this)

Yeah that is def a myth these days, every time I run around the map after having left the Commonwealth I've usually got full up (to 40-50) locations and have to assign like a dozen settlers to some when I left them at under 20...

Also there are mods where you can create your settlers if you want more of them.

Settler Builder (up to 7 each male and female, but are unique so you can change their apperance via looksmenu presets)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/63451

This one has the added advantage the new settlers ( men or women) will be unique coded so you can change thier apperance via showlooksmenu presets (if you have that and some presets)

Also spawnable unique settlers: You will have to use console commands but it explains how to do it.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/27969

To change your settlers looks you need this:
Show looksmenu:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12631

Some presets with minimal requirements to get you started male and ( many more) female:

this one has zero requirements exccept looksmenu and is a collection of male and female presets:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/16788

If you want more:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/78062
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/81629
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/27684
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/30019

This is a strong male preset I like (but it has a lot of requirements)

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/81981

Once you get into this you will find its hard to stop, but keep in mind it only works on unqiue NPCs (and some of them are hardcoded so when u leave the cell it will resorts in distoreted face like if u try it with lucy abernathy or Piper.)

But there is a patch for that issue and I always make Piper a real hotty right when I meet her at the gate and use console commands to strip her and dress her in slutty clothes.

I really wish that the guy who did the Supermutant and Ghoul settler button mods hadn't taken them out and vanished. :( They could have been improved, but now we'll never know since they're not on nexus any more. bit weird about that because it wasn't when 'everyone left' years and years ago, it was very recent.

Originally posted by Zekiran:

I really wish that the guy who did the Supermutant and Ghoul settler button mods hadn't taken them out and vanished. :( They could have been improved, but now we'll never know since they're not on nexus any more. bit weird about that because it wasn't when 'everyone left' years and years ago, it was very recent.

I can probably dig that file up somewhere if you are eager for it.

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Wear your best CHA gear at night and whenever you are just hanging out. The Settler recruitment check runs once a day at a random time so maximise your chances of having high CHA when it decides to check.

Also it is claimed that 4 settlers with no assigned jobs will halt recruitment. (Others dispute this)

according the the recruitment radio script. the game rolls between 1 and 100 when the script triggers. if the number is lower then 60 you get one settler, if 60 or higher you get two settlers, if 80 or higher you get three settlers.

there is nothing in the script i see that checks for how many unassigned settlers there are and the quest that runs the script doesn't have any other scripts attached. so the game doesn't care how many unassigned settlers you have.

as for the timing the script has two values 0.2 and 0.5 so the recruitment is roughly done at the same time as the previous day, but over time the random deviation can throw off the time potentially by a lot.

Originally posted by socialmediaaddress3:

Originally posted by Zekiran:

I really wish that the guy who did the Supermutant and Ghoul settler button mods hadn't taken them out and vanished. :( They could have been improved, but now we'll never know since they're not on nexus any more. bit weird about that because it wasn't when 'everyone left' years and years ago, it was very recent.

I can probably dig that file up somewhere if you are eager for it.

I've still got them, I think, but it's just sad that the option isn't available currently for people who don't have it. It wasn't the best, but it was certainly something fun.

just to throw that in... when using charisma gear and chems you can overpopulate settlements according to your temporarily higher charisma.

and vault 88 has naturally space for 10 more settlers than any outdoor settlement would have.

also, because its so darn easy to ensure a high level of happiness and just dunp moar water and defence into the vault its a perfect place to recruit reasonable numbers for later reassignment to other places.

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Defenses for them to match the food/water production - turrets. Build other guard stations when you NEED them, food is priority if you have turrets built.

That has never been true. You only need 1/10th your Food + Water production (counting both the actual production and the amount stored) to minimize the chance for attack. You need Defense = the number of settlers for maximum happiness, and need Defense + Settlers to equal 100 (more than that does not give additional protection) to maximize the chance for a settlement to defend itself. At no time as having a Defense = Food + Water ever been a thing.

Each point of Defense is enough to protect 10 units of food/water. So a basic 5 Defense turret is enough for 50 units of food/water. Each settler is also enough protection for 5 unit, regardless of their job (a settler on guard duty combines those amounts).

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

just to throw that in...

"People of the Commonwealth, do not interfere. Out intentions are peaceful. We are the Terran protectorate"