No Response Cannot say it doesnt work but.. [some spoilers]

[Agi_]

I exited the vault with prebuilt settlements, went to Sanctuary, killed bugs with Codsworth, before going to Concord i did the quest for Abernathy and foud the settlement developed as i think it should be.
Then i went to Concord, heard the message from the raider, dont remember name atm, that started Conqueror; killed raiders inside, got the power armor and killed the lizard, went in and then to Sanctuary with Preston to make the quest here and started to build a bit, spoke with the raider that sent me to kill a few raider bosses. Did the one at the lake and cleared the mart then, considering i had to go to Corvega i took also Preston quest to get the first settlement. Killed the last boss for the raider and he told me to go conquest a settlement and i took Sanctuary as an outpost. Now the raider told me to take another i choose Abernathy and he told me to just kill the hired guns, not the settlers.
It was a I love you of a bloody fight, had to reduce the difficulty a lot because having 15 settlers and civilians, what is the difference?, and some hired guns shooting at me from eveywhere while trying to keep alive a dozen of morons way weaker than the settlers was way too hard for me to do in VH, tried dunno how many times, and also in Hard and Normal. At last i won but of the 15 settlers just five survived the carnage even if i didnt execute anyone of them.
Now i have those problems:
Just five settlers alive in Abernathy to feed the survivors in Sanctuary
The raiders in Sanctuary that in stead of growing dwindle; i had 11 after the Abernathy battle and now i have 8; could be because i sent Preston to Red Rocket and i had to kill him later
The raider idiot i have to tell i conquered Abernathy decided to take a long walk, and a good swim, and now is in Spectacle, a place i dont feel very like to go at lvl 11 and i have to speak with him to go on
If i start a new settlement, have the mod that adds some settlements in the north, but think it will be the same if i get the drive in, it goes in the Minutemen line, not in the raiders one.
If i mouse over Red Rocket, that now is empty after killing Preston, i see for an instant a chain with a men in the middle that immediatly reverts to the standard rocket symbol

Is it everything as should be or i did mess with something and now i'm sorta screwed because i will need some more levels to go Spectacle and kill a queen with just Dogmeat as a partner and continue the Conqueror campaign.

 

[Axonum]

Yeah, it's kind of hard not to kill the Settlers shooting at you while your raiders are charging to their deaths.

 

[Agi_]

Settlers shoot you and are everywhere, if you kill them they sit down but if you keep hitting they die there is not, like when i killed Preston or Sturges, the option to execute them.
I usually play Very Hard with a sneak and stab build, just did Trinity with barely a few scratches, but i never think to engage ten enemies together, i sneak in, i wait and i kill when they are alone. Attacking the settlement once you start the assault there is no way to hide again and if you go away to hide the settlers do short work of your raiders; had to use, in Easy, a lot of granades to win the fight and most settlers died.
Next time, should my raider advisor come back from his holiday, want to try a go alone tactics; before meeting my gang locate the guards snipe or stealth kill them and after that start the main assault.

 

[kinggath]

They should not be dying during a Vassal attempt, something is going wrong. Only during an Outpost attack should they be dying.

Your raiders will die on any attack - that's a core gameplay mechanic. You can recruit lots more each day by donating caps, chems, and alcohol to Jammer. It becomes an option after you claim your first outpost and settlement.

We definitely plan on offering more raider activities in the early game so you can level up more, as I think one of the issues at play for folks, is that we didn't give enough quests to level you up at this point in the game, so you and your raider recruits are fairly weak if you only did our quests.

For now, I'd recommend opening a bug report with your load order so we can try and figure out which is causing the settlers to be killed. Then if you want to do something while you wait for us to solve it, I'd go do other tasks to level up and collect resources to grow your gang.

The higher level you are, the higher level the recruits will be that Jammer is able to convince to join your gang.

 

[Agi_]

They should not be dying, OK, but should all the shoot at me or just the, half a dozen in my case, hired guards?
It was a nightmare fight and i had to reduce difficulty from WH to easy to come out alive and go very heavy on granades

I dont think many more quests are needed.
After all there are some quest that one does anyway for the companions, bobbleheads and equipment. I just did Trinity to have Strong and melee BH, Valentine for the commercial BH and have next in queue BS for the nice laser and Pickman for the knife
The only one i see out of theme for a raider is the Brotherhood one; what's better for a raider warlord than a supermutant bodyguard and mr. Pickman is killing raiders that could be of my gang

 

[Ain't Much]

We definitely plan on offering more raider activities in the early game so you can level up more, as I think one of the issues at play for folks, is that we didn't give enough quests to level you up at this point in the game, so you and your raider recruits are fairly weak if you only did our quests.

Yeah, if you follow Jammer's quest exclusively, you won't really be at a good level for Federal Stockpile on Normal Mode. Of course there aren't many other quests around to give you xp expect Drumline or being a temporary Minuteman/helpful neighbor.

 

[Agi_]

Federal Stockpile is the easiest even on WH with Dogmeat as a companion.
Sneak in from the church shot the turret go backand hide; come back when it's green again, drop a mine near the stair, go back a bit a shot the wall; red Tourette will come out and BOOM. After that you can easily clean the underground tunnels.
Entering from above is a lot harder because of the guy in power armor, but you just need to kill Red not everybody
I just did Drumlin quest, thats a charisma check, and the quest for Abernathy before doing the raider questline, in last playthrough i didnt even give back the museum quest to Preston, just killed raiders an lizard.
An easy and free way to get more xp is finishing the museum quest, go Sanctuary, ask Preston and go to Tenpines where they will ask you to kill Corvega boss, something you should do anyway for Jammer; doing this way you will have an harder fight for Sanctuary because the settlement will be a bit developed, but nothing compared to what is waiting at Abernathy.

 

[kinggath]

The Civilians should be attacking, yes. Though I've been told there are two issues hitting some people, maybe this is happening to you.

1. Visitor NPCs are joining the fight. I hadn't even considered their AI package, and am going to make them flee in the future so they aren't making things more difficult.

2. Civilians and Settlers are spawning, filling up the settlement with 30+ NPCs. This is not supposed to be the case. Using the optimized City Plans, the most you should ever encounter is 15, plus a handful of Hired Guards (at least early on, after you start your campaign to take over all of the settlements, you will find more and more guards with each subsequent one as the Commonwealth starts to fight back). All of the Civilians are level 1 or 2 and only have pipe pistols.

Until we get this stuff patched, your best approach is going to be to gear up all of the raiders in your main base, as those are the pool that Jammer pulls from first when you choose how many to send.

We have lots more plans to smooth out and balance things, but there's always going to be an element of challenge to this based on the City Plan used, your settings during startup, and the level your character was when your raiders were recruited. So feedback like this helps.

Any of you interested in exploring potential balance solutions, can play around with the startup options. For example, if you start the settlements at 30 to 40% population, with population growth enabled, the early settlements can start with very small numbers of people, and then by the time you make it to the far sides of the map, they will start to be fleshed out.

That may end up being on the balance changes I make to the default startup options - having the population percentage start much lower.

 

[Agi_]

In my battle settlers were probably 15, plus half a dozen hired guards. I dont know their level but on WH difficulty a single hit with Big Jim and two point in melee perk was not enough to kill them as wasnt enough a single body hit with a 45 combat rifle no skill points there. I'ìd say they hare a bit harder than the weakest raiders in Corvega, hard to judge because i usually hit from sneak and this is almost always a one hit kill.
Hired guards are a lot tougher; hitting them in VATS hand to hand takes more hits than the 4/5 my AP allow; hard opponents if you dont surprise them and you get just one attack from sneak in the whole battle after which it's always DANGER

I dont remember having seen any visitors, just settlers, civilians and the Abernathy family. In one attempt i remember a civilian standing but with a green mark not red on it. Was the last one i killed because the battle was over but the quest was not completed; she was standing not aggressive in the far side of the farm, talking to her she spoke about a brothel but she was marked civilian not mistress/courtesan. Shooting her till she sat down the quest finished

I dont remember the settings i started the campaign; i'm 90% sure they were the default ones for everything; being new of the game had no reason to change them

 

[Ain't Much]

Any of you interested in exploring potential balance solutions, can play around with the startup options. For example, if you start the settlements at 30 to 40% population, with population growth enabled, the early settlements can start with very small numbers of people, and then by the time you make it to the far sides of the map, they will start to be fleshed out.

I set my city plans to be randomized level and random # of initial settlers, so I have been seeing some near empty cities as I go around.

 

[cosmic-cube-keeper]

1. Visitor NPCs are joining the fight. I hadn't even considered their AI package, and am going to make them flee in the future so they aren't making things more difficult.

IMO, it would be a thought to have some of the visiting NPCs attack, if it's possible. The premise being, some visitors would be bolder than others, willing to get their hands dirty--or bloody in this case. Not everyone is cowed by raiders.