Human Raider

Human Raiders are one of the raid loadouts that can attack a settlement. They are the most straightforward raider type: they are similar to Settlers, wear gear at about the same level as the players and nearby settlement equipment, and do not have any special item drop pool beyond the normal raid rewards. They are part of the broader raider system, where different raid types can spawn with different themes, weapons, and rare drops, but Human Raiders are the baseline comparison for the others.

Raiders appear from a specific direction, spend a short time preparing, and then advance into the settlement in waves. Their attacks are visible on the world map, which makes it easier to tell where the threat is coming from. The total number of raiders depends on how many settlers live in the settlement being attacked, with a minimum of 20 raiders and no hard upper limit. They tend to move toward the center of the settlement and the occupied rooms of settlers, breaking doors if needed and focusing on settlers who are not distracted by other targets.

Human Raiders scale from the best gear the player or settlement has access to. That includes crafted or found gear that has never been equipped, as well as gear stored in settlement chests, even if it belongs to another player. Their strength is also affected by the outcome of previous raids: if raiders have been doing well, the next raid gains more damage, while repeated failures reduce it. This adjustment happens gradually and is capped between 50% and 125%.

Several factors determine how often raids happen. The baseline raid cooldown is between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, and each raid increases the next maximum cooldown by 30 minutes, up to 5 hours. Completing settlement boss quests lowers that maximum cooldown by 30 minutes again, but it never goes below the base 2.5 hours. Placing Challenger Banners makes raids come more frequently, because each banner reduces the time to the next raid by 1 second every second; with enough banners, raids can happen every night.

When fighting Human Raiders, the usual rewards are random coins, and they can sometimes drop their weapon or pieces of armor. If they lose enough fighters, they may decide to leave early rather than continue the assault. Once they begin to retreat, they may still stop to loot before fleeing from the edge of the zone. If they successfully escape, they steal some goods from the settlement.

• On Classic difficulty or below, settlers defeated during a raid are only knocked down and can be revived with a Revival Potion.
• On higher difficulties, settlers who die during a raid do not respawn, although the same type has a very high chance to appear again soon for recruitment.
• Walls alone do not stop raiders. If they cannot find a route, they will break through, so planned entrances are useful for funneling them.
• Gathering settlers and ordering them to follow you is one of the best defenses, since Human Raiders are vulnerable to concentrated damage.
• Ranged and magic weapons are especially effective, and traps or kill mazes can still severely weaken them even at higher levels.