The irony is that here, one as the Sole Survivor does what The Mechanist tried to do: flood the Commonwealth with an army of murderbots that only kill bad guys.

mechanist's lair, otherwise known as Preston Garvey's prison cell

I've come up with a new favorite form of settlement security. Simply, when I know the settlement is going to fall under attack, I summon all settlers to a central building, lock it down, and then turn off power to my Beta Wave Emitter. Of course yes, that means I've got docile Deathclaws or Radscorpions wandering around my settlements. You ever seen a bunch of bandits try to fight off a small army of deathclaws, or radscorpions? I just call it feeding time. I do wish there were cages for Gatorclaws though.

I approve of making Jezebel into a flying trashcan. :P

All my provisioners are sentry bots with missile launcher arms and fatman launcher shoulder weapons, with the carnage helmet which makes enemies explode. Saw a raider try to attack it once.... The result was the apocalypse re-enacted.

so my Crushinator is the one bringing happiness down? damn.

Nothing wrong with an army of Minigun-toting Robobrains rolling across the Commonwealth. Sure, it makes the Minutemen look like scrubs, and even the Brotherhood of Steel is jealous of your production output, but that's a small price to pay for the betterment of the region.

Now I'm conflicted. My perfectionist OCD side originally drove me to set up supply lines in a circuitous route. Then I saw your video on supply line formations and you mentioned having them all come from the same spot would cause more traffic and make the area seem more alive. That's something I had never thought of, and my new plan became to make Bunker Hill the hub of the Commonwealth. Now I've seen this video, never having realized the Mechanist's Lair has no real use as a full settlement, AND it comes with that office full of little robobrain clerks that really give it that logistics center feel. I am now very heavily conflicted between these two formats.

As a handy tip for y'all, Graygarden already has a bunch of robots, so it also makes for a great provisioning hub. Maybe let Graygarden supply the west while the Mechanist's Lair supplies the East? Maybe theme each one so that every robot from Graygarden is a Mr. Handy and every robot from the ML is a robobrain? I'd love to hear crazier ideas, too.

"Recruitment bacon" should really be a thing.

I only use the highest quality robots for my supply lines. I mass produce sentries with dual laser gatlings that just roam the waste. I have randomly encountered them many times just devastating raiders.

Making robots in to provisioners broke my game. I've made 22 maxed sentry's as my provisioners and they keep resetting to basic protectrons without any armor. Very frustrating, game breaking stuff.

Maybe record during the day

See, now I'd go full nerd and give each one a code-name and unique color.

This is the first thing I did when I finished the dlc. I made the whole fleet the same sans color and gave them beep click voices. They don't complain or fuss. All they do is toot their horn when they float past me LOL

It's the perfect use for the robots. Why risk the lives of my Minutemen, or God forbid farmers, when I can just send a fully armed and armored sentrybot? Though there is that bug that resets the bot back to it's basic form, which gets pricey after having to re-build em a few times.

I always forget to re name my bots but I do tend to paint them all pink so they are super obvious when they roll through the wasteland :)

Your radiation level hurts my soul

This is a great idea! A request, though, to you and all KZfaqrs that use in-game footage...unless you are showing off lighting, perhaps consider filming during the day? Once night footage is KZfaq-ified, the screen is so dark it is often difficult to see anything, even without darker nights mods, particularly if you don't watch fullscreen.

I use em' for dungeon runs. I've got a Sentrybot Automatron with all the carrying-wait addons. I simply park him at the entrance and load him up with all my junk. Named it ATCV. The All Terrain Carrying Vehicle.

I like my robots more than the settlers so I will continue to force the settlers to walk the roads with no cloths and an out of ammo pipe weapon. Also I tend to use my robots either as guards for my settlements or as companions since I tend to give them enough armor and firepower to make them better than the human companions.

this is where my recruitment beacon would be... IF I HAD ONE!!

Mr Oxhorn, Thank you for your videos. I've been playing Fallout 4 for about a year. A couple of days ago, I ran into your site and subscribed. Though I'm really far into F4, I want to start over with the knowledge that you have imparted to me. BTW I'm 55 yes old. Your never to old to play. Thanks again! Best wishes to you and your family.

I don't know why but the sight of a fully loaded brahmin taking off running is hilarious.

Recruitment bacon. The most powerful settler attractor.

Recruitment bacon would work out great for sure! "Move to my settlement and you get free bacon every day!" -> _people gonna storm the settlement_

You can also build robot station at Boston Airport since it can't support normal population. Bonus: If you build a big warehouse with large doors and robot station(s) they won't get stuck. I call it Robot Market :P

Excellent idea! I never thought of using the Mechanist's Lair for that! Great video, as always!

The point of high settlement happiness besides being the kind emperor? lol

COUNTY crossing.

Love how you find ways to work all the game aspects into the lore. Keeps the immersive feeling without ignoring key game elements. Hate to copy but I LOVE your idea of robot provisioners!

I'm so happy that you are still making new content for fallout 4. I'm still hype about fallout and watching your content makes me want to discover more. keep it up

Speaking about renaming things for organizing purposes: Something I do that I don't see many people do is use symbols like #%^*+= etc to "mark" items. My gun inventory looks as follows. # .308 Sniper (Poison) ⭐️ ❤️ # Plasma Pistol (-Time) ⭐️ ❤️ # Cell Tesla (Lobber)⭐️ ❤️ = LegLeft Leather (Cam) ⭐️ = LegRight Leather (Movement) ⭐️ = Chest Synth (+Stats) ⭐️ And so on. You get the idea 😎 some "marks" put things always on bottom while others keep items on top.

Oxhorn, the glitch you pointed out at 7:45 happens to me as well. I equipped all of my robot provisioners with gatling lasers, mini guns and Mr. Handy Thrusters. For some reason when I'm out running around I come across them and the game has reverted them back to the basic model on two legs. So far it has done this with three of my robots.

A year later and IMO you're still the best information for advanced and detailed Fallout 4 strategy. Oxhorn you kick ass!

This is a really sweet idea. I never thought of doing this. Would save a lot of time and anguish trying to figure out what provisioner comes from where.

Darkest night and making a video? Not so cool. But the idea is great.

I love how during this video you run into the infamous reset bug at the end, which is the #1 reason to NOT use automatron provisioners. Sad really, since they make great patrols to clear the roads of baddies.

I'm using robot provisioners for all my settlements now in this new playthrough. Great advice!

This is a really EXCELLENT & smart video! Keep it up man!

I've played a few different games using all robot provisioners, but every time, 15-20% of them would lose all of the mods I put on them.

“Oh man, I hope this isn’t permanent” I feel you Ox. I feel you

once again your tutorials improve my fallout playthroughs. currently on a Raider Overboss/institute Boss playthrough

Never knew supply lines were so creative and complicated. And I've done 8 play throughs with this game. Thanks buddy!

Bad thing though is that there is a bug that everytime the cell resets, a robot or few will have their upgrades go back for default.

Everybody is complaining on how dark the video is because of it being shot in night time... And everybody is giving advice to maybe record at daylight hours... Yet no one mentioned that the pip-boy has a built in lamp that is quit powerful and would have made all the difference to just have it on at night when and if your recording.

This is a clever idea that I like and will use and suggest to friends that play.. I knew I subbed for a good reason, glad I found the channel.

Just wanted to say thank you so much for this idea. on my fourth play thru and I got them going very early in game. Melee Jovovich is gonna have very happy settlements.

All my robots come out of red rocket. Now I'm moving them to the lair.

it's really weird hearing this guy, who's far more knowledgeable about FO4 than I will ever be, say "country crossing"

Man I'm so glad I waited to replay this game after a few years had passed. I built a pc back in 2016 and it could run this alright but now it's almost fully maxed out and is it glorious. Seeing these low fps clips makes me so glad.

Creating robot provisioners was the very first thing I did when the Automatron DLC first came out. I had used Taffington for my central provisioner's location since the beginning (a star supply line style like you mentioned in a previous video) so it made sense to use nothing but robots once i figured out you could use them as settlers. I give them a set of nailguns so I can distinctly hear them out in the wild if they are under attack since the nailgun's sound is so unique. :) In my last game I'm using Zimonja as the new main robot provisioner hub. Isn't as much fun as Taffington since I don't see the provisioners as often. Maybe I'll change it up and move them somewhere else.

Some of the best provisioners to have. I've been using robots since Automatron came out. It's even better that their invincible!

there needs to be a mod that fixes this stupid max 50 happiness for robots.

So basically, you've become the newNew Mechanist and you're robot army is actually helping people. Kudos!

At the mechanists lair you can build a recruitment beacon, get water and plant crops. Try putting a well right on top of some of the trash piles, there are spots where it will let you set one to get water. Use planters for crops or try to put a few mutifruit on some of the trash piles. I put a recruitment beacon right outside of the door, near the elevator shaft.

I just name a robot after the town (Sanctuary, Sunshine, etc.) and made them provisioners. So much easier and kinda fun.

I did the same, but gave the "Drones" the Mr.Gutsy Propulsion and no armour or specials beside a simple laserhand and a sawhand. It´s cheaper, mobiler and if the poor Bot runs in a rustdevil horde it makes no difference if he got quadruple nukethrower and superarmour or a pointed stick. And to hold a single raider back a laser and hit hitpoints do it. But allover a nice idea.

Thanks for this tip. I followed your advice and used the Mechanists Lair as the origin for all my provisioners, and now have all my settlements at 100% happiness except the Mechanist's Lair itself, which is at 50%. There still is an occasional glitch that causes happiness to drop, but it usually straightens itself out just by visiting the settlement. I used Sentry bot parts for the head, and Mr Handy thrusters, which makes them fast and easy to spot. As an extra bonus, they seem to not get killed like the settler provisioners did.

I use grey garden as a starting point for my robot provisioners, there I have a few settlers who "repairs" the robots before they go out... of course they are just working on the scavenging station. For the human provisioners they all meet up at county crossing that has market stalls and are self efficient, I made it where Piper is the "leader" there with a mayor's mansion overlooking the settlement. It's pretty awesome. My BoS character has a robotics station for provisioners in the Boston Airport.. works nice because they don't need supplies and it's like they are helping the BoS and it's part of the Minutemen/BoS agreement. My General(BoS) is the mm general who realizes that the BoS is their only hope against the institute and he doesn't trust the synths or synth sympathizers (railroad) Anyways it works nicely imo

I'm way too late but I have a personal favourite of how to manage my supply lines. My castle is my home base so all my provisioners are sent there from all the settlements. This part I like the most: I give all my provisioners a full suit of T-60 Power Armor and a minigun. I also have two mods installed that makes sure that their armor never breaks and that allows you to assign your settlers to PA. This way, I often randomly get help by my provisioners opening fire on my enemies and absolutely wrecking them.

Wouldn't Boston airport also be a good location for this? Kind of a useless settlement location, but it's out in the open so the robots wouldn't get hung up on everything.

I liked how Jezebel was a robo-brain head on a Mr. Handy Thruster

So Reaper, Cpl. Rivers, and Sarge are bringing down my settlement happiness. Well let's see you will win in the arena. Sarge, an improved and reprogram sentry bot that fights for the minutemen at the castle, Reaper, a powerful and deadly Skull faced Assaultron that fights for the minutemen at Sanctuary, and Cpl. Rivers, a remodeled and improved protectron who serves sodas to my minutemen at the castle on their off time. He also gets shamed on and talked shit about, pissed on by the minutemen guard dogs, spray painted, and used for target practice. Let's see who wins!!!

i just store my junk at mechanistic lair and make the robots there

I retired all of my robot provision bc the pathing was shit and I would get annoyed see some of my fav bots I made into a base protection and it’s a waste of parts

I finally finished it. I created an Automatron for every possible supply line path in the commonwealth. Now I can't go five minutes without hearing the gunfire of one my wonderful murder bots in the distance. It's almost guaranteed that whenever I'm in a fight one of my automatrons will show up to help now, it's amazing.

A awesome mod to use with robot provisioners this one mod that replaces pack Brahmin with eyebots. So when you got your robot with a ton of bags Armor he is basically the pack Brahmin and the eyebot is the one guiding it with GPS technology with its radio.

Wait, then how would the named robots work? I have Cogsworth, Ada and Jezebel all in Sanctuary. Do their presence drag down happiness? Considering that compared to other robots they have actual personality, would their presence affect anything? If they do, that's a problem. I can at least move Cogsworth and Ada because they're also companions, but Jezebel is a stubborn one that refuses to talk. I made her a provisioner so her presence hopefully doesn't drag down happiness, but it doesn't seem to be working because despite all my efforts I've been stuck at 82 happiness for the longest time.

not a bad idea, but too much work for my current games... maybe if I do a new one someday

Well I learnt something today! Also maybe worth a mention is that a sentry bot provisioner is a lot more useful to be casually wandering about than a settler with some cast off gun and armour. For those times you're in combat near a supply line

I don't know if killing Marcy Long increases settlement happiness but it sure sounds like it does!

Another bonus? Robots don't sleep. So it's constant back and forth 24/7 in the game.

Dont bother robots go back to default upgrade for some reason

Years later I started playing Fallout 4 and I worked this one out for myself. When I fly around the map on a Vertibird, I get a constant XP tick from my provisioners killing baddies and wildlife on the ground.

imagine attempting to rob a seemingly normal robot, then it pulls out a gatling laser and shoots beams from its head

Why would you have two provisioners for each settlement?

what made you think a video of a superdark setting would be a good idea?

This is a bug, what you can do is wait until the robot is on its route, then kill it. You will not lose the route, but the robot will be gone, or dead on the ground. But the route will remain, like the robot was not killed. An invisible provisioner, that keeps your settlements connected. Got to love it. 🤗🤗🤗

I usually put the tank tracks on my robots. they are pretty fast and it makes sense. plus it's pretty fun to see them zip by.

I just tell my people to get over it, no ghoul racism and no robot prejudice, codsworth is family fuck anyone's prejudice.

I hope you see this. You always apologize for bad frames, it's OK. It's...OK *virtual hug* your videos are great and I subbed instantly, and I also started playing again. 600 hours in and I never beat it, I just like to wander around.

This was a big game changer for me, thank you

Tried this last night. Upgraded about 7 robots. I don’t use mods I’m a PS4 gamer. Many of my robots have now reset and are now naked Protectron shells with no weapons despite previously having Gatling Lazer guns 😭

LOL...why do people record these videos at night when you can't see anything. Seems like such an easy thing to just wait until daylight...but oh well.

That's Coun'TY' Crossing ;P Though aye! Robot provisioners, damn good idea sir as well as the naming of them :)

another glitch I often find is that the robot settlers will often leave their jobs and I'll have to frustratingly re-assign them

one bonus is that with sim settlement's industial city addon you don't even need to build the robots since there are speical plots in game that do that job for you.

My dream is to have all my provisioners as geared up Sentry robots so when I see them in the wild being attacked I can just chuckle and move on.

Hahaha I just started watching some of your videos while building up my vault-88. This is exactly what I've been building robots for. I've even been naming them the same way. P.S. your videos have been quite informative.

I decided to have a shot of bourbon each time you said " mechanist lair".Can anyone give me a ride ? Lol.Love your vids!

My use of automatrons, since I don't prioritize happiness, is for every ~5 humanoid settlers, I assign an automatron with strong armor and weapons as a protector, which I don't assign so it roam all over the settlement. My most popular robot guardian is robobrain with sentry legs, voltaic armor, Cyclops helm and gatling laser guns.

I just started a new play and I was pondering on how I should do the provision side of things... Going to try this.

I use them almost entirely for provision runs. Use them for gardening and defense too.

Prior to watching this video, I have already set up several Assautron Invader provisioners that run supply routes from sanctuary to settlements, which then run supplies to the mechanist's lair

That robot glitch where all their stuff goes is permanent. My castle settlement with over 20 robots was completely filled with them. I had outfitted all those robots. I cried. Even if I went to previous saves they weren't outfitted. So many materials wasted. :(

I wound up doing a variation on this tactic where I have 2 hubs, Mechanist's layer and Greygarden. I figure it's not worth moving all of those robots, and it makes sense that the two major hubs would be a major food production facility and a factory.

3:20 That robot looks like it's having a great time!

They also don’t get tired or sick and have infinite energy basically so it’s lore accurate to give them the hardest job

My latest playthrough I did Nuka-World before the other questlines. When I got back to the commonwealth and started building settlements I was lvl 60+ and I felt that my colonists were a bit too squishy to travel between settlements. But my robots, with science maxed out, are armed with gatling lasers and nuka quantum launchers, and they are just cutting everything they encounter out there to bits. I follow them sometimes to pick up the loot from the dead enemies they leave behind. I have four settlements with only robot inhabitants as hubs for the trade network. (Red Rocket, Graygarden, Mechanists lair and Jamaica Plain.)