Happiness, Income & other values relating to Settlement Building

Fallout 4 – Happiness, Income & other values relating to Settlement building.

Introduction

It is not well explained how Happiness works in Settlement building. The relevant tooltips of Stores for example, state generally if they provide income and/ or Happiness but no figure like with Defense items.

I wanted to check the files directly to find out what values are actually included for the various crafted items to get a better idea of what exactly does count towards the Happiness total.

NOTE: The values are not specific percentages but a set value. It’s currently unknown what the actual target total is but it gives some idea for comparison of the stores in deciding which are better value in terms of resources required and cap cost. Some stores require additional perks to craft in addition to Local Leader Rank 2.

The actual names used such as ‘Bar’ may vary depending on game localization. Yet to be confirmed. But the three stages of crafting should remain consistent.

The following stores contribute purely towards the settlement Happiness total.

Bonus Happiness

WorkshopBar

• Drink Stand 15
• Bar 20
• Restaurant 40

WorkshopStoreClinic

• First Aid Station 10
• Clinic 20
• Surgery Center 30

Others

NPC

Junkyard Dog 10

Obtained from random encounter with Gene, also provides 5 Defense.

Bonus Happiness & Vendor Income (Happiness/Vendor Income)

The following stores contribute towards both happiness and provide an income.

WorkshopStoreClothing

• Clothing Stand 8/1
• Clothing Shop 10/2
• Clothing Emporium 10/3

WorkshopStoreMisc

• Trading Stand 10/2
• Trading Shop 10/3
• Trading Emporium 15/4

Vendor Income

The following stores give NO Bonus Happiness but do provide an income as Vendor Income

WorkshopStoreArmor

• Armor Stand 2
• Armor Shop 3
• Armor Emporium 6

WorkshopStoreWeapon

• Weapons Stand 2
• Weapons Shop 3
• Weapons Emporium 6

Misc. Other Stores/ Crafting Stations. Can be in existing settlement locations i.e. the Castle.

WorkshopBar03NoEditDinerCounter “Restaurant”

• Restaurant (Diner Counter) 40/3

WorkshopRatingScavengeGeneral (presumably comparative to Settler unassigned scavenging 1?)

• Scavenging Station 2

Defense

Workshop structures providing Defense.

Safety “Defense” [AVIF:00000333] appears to be a straight Defense value i.e. same number you see in the item tooltip. Not included are crafted weapons such as turrets or traps.

• Artillery Piece 6 (from the Castle quest?)
• Guard Post 2 (smaller structure)
• Guard Tower 2 (larger structure)

Details

To do this I looked through the Fallout4.esm using FO4Edit and found the following which appear to relate to this;

These are the relevant values (via help command in console)

WorkshopRatingHappiness "Happiness" [AVIF:00129157]
WorkshopRatingHappinessModifier [AVIF:00127237]
WorkshopRatingHappinessTarget [AVIF:00127238]
WorkshopRatingBonusHappiness "Bonus Happiness" [AVIF:0012722C]
WorkshopRatingTotalBonusHappiness [AVIF:00127242]

It was not clear exactly what relationship these values have to the actual Happiness level indicated in the game but it’s likely to be towards overall WorkshopRatingHappinessTarget.

The files also provide values for vendor income which are included below. Again they are not specific cap values but are useful for comparing the different stores. This may also be altered by perks and the specialist store NPCs but I have not included that data just the basic figures.

I included the Defense values for constructed structures (not turrets etc.) while doing this.

Finally, if you are fortunate to come across Gene with his Junkyard dog for sale, this can be purchased for 250 caps and sent to any settlement where it provides a boost not just to Happiness but also Defense (details below). There may be other NPCs which do the same but there are a lot to look through.

PC console command:

To check the Bonus Happiness value of an NPC or item, target it (or use the appropriate PRID) then enter in console;

getav WorkshopRatingBonusHappiness

Notes

• From reports so far it appears that there is a cap of around 80% with Rank 1 of Local Leader to Happiness in a settlement. Rank 2 allows you to build stores and workstations at workshop settlements which will enable the player to reach to 100% (and the Benevolent Leader achievement) That is why you may see an exclamation mark next to a settlement even though all seems fine. The happiness will hover within a few points of this percentage until you unlock Rank 2 and craft some stores etc.
• All beds provide a value of 1 towards the Bed count. The different types of bed including Sleeping Bag are treated the same for Bed count and add no Happiness.
• Despite there being some mention of decorations helping settler Happiness, there doesn’t appear to be any attributed bonus on workshop constructed items such as televisions, rugs etc. it may be that this is handled in some different way but it is not apparent how, if it is.
• Uncertain if these values stack i.e. if building multiple versions of the same store increase Happiness or whether it needs to be different versions.
• Nukapedia page has caps values for each of the stores here.

Finally, the text from the in-game Help files relating to settlement Happiness.

Help: Your settlements require a variety of resources to function: food, water, shelter. If all your citizens’ needs are met, it will increase the settlement’s Happiness.

The higher a settlement’s overall Happiness, the more productive your settlers will be. If Happiness goes too low, you may lose control of a settlement.

The workshop interface displays the current Happiness of your settlement. It can go up or down depending on what resources are available for the settlers who live there.

The basics that each settler requires to be happy are:

Beds Each settler needs a bed: a bed under a roof is even better. The interface will show BEDS in red if there isn’t currently one bed for each settler.

Food and Water Each settler needs one food and one water per day to be happy. This food and water can come from current production, resources stored in the workshop’s inventory, or from other workshop settlements linked with Supply Lines (see the “Workshop – Settlements” entry for more info on supply lines).

Defense The higher your settlement’s overall defense value, the happier your settlers will be.

Some objects actually produce Happiness. This contributes to the total Happiness of the settlement. Settlers can also become unhappy due to events such as Raider attacks, kidnappings, etc.

Note that Happiness, unlike other reported values, doesn’t change instantly; it moves up or down over time, based on the current state of the settlement. So if you provide needed food and water to an unhappy settlement, you won’t see the Happiness rating change immediately, but you will see it increase over time.

In the same way, if, for example, a Raider attack destroys all of a settlement’s crops or water supplies, they won’t become instantly unhappy. You’ll have time to correct the problem before your settlers become dangerously unhappy.

Warning The people of <Alias=MessageLocationAlias> are very unhappy. You may lose control of the settlement if things do not improve.

Original Link – Continuation of discussion