You've finally cleared out the raiders at Starlight Drive-In. You're ready to build a massive fortress, but there’s a problem. You have zero wood. You have zero steel. All your junk is sitting three miles away in a rusty workbench at Sanctuary Hills. This is where most players realize that supply lines Fallout 4 isn’t just some optional perk—it’s the entire backbone of the game. Without them, you’re basically playing a walking simulator where you carry desk fans across a radioactive wasteland one at a time. It’s tedious. It’s annoying. Honestly, it’s enough to make some people quit the settlement system entirely.
But once you get how the logistics actually work, the game changes. You stop being a scavenger and start being a governor.
The Local Leader Requirement: Why You Can't Link Anything Yet
Before you can even think about moving a single piece of duct tape between settlements, you need the Local Leader perk. It’s under the Charisma tree. Specifically, you need Charisma 6. If you dumped all your points into Strength and Luck, you’re going to have to level up a few times or start popping Grape Mentats like candy just to get that stat up.
Rank 1 of Local Leader is the golden ticket. Once you have it, you can enter workshop mode, highlight a generic settler, and hit the "Supply Line" button (R1/RB/Q depending on your platform).
Don't use named characters. Seriously. Don't send Marcy Long or Sturges on a supply line. It’s tempting to send Marcy into the fog of the Glowing Sea just so you don't have to hear her complain, but named NPCs often have scripts that break if they're assigned to caravan duty. Stick to the "Settler" NPCs that show up after you turn on a radio beacon.
How the Shared Inventory Actually Works (And Doesn't)
There’s a huge misconception about what supply lines Fallout 4 actually shares. People think if they put a legendary shotgun in the Sanctuary workbench, they can pull it out at The Castle.
Nope.
Supply lines share resources for crafting and building only. If you have 500 wood in Sanctuary and 0 in Red Rocket, but they are linked, you can build a massive wooden wall at Red Rocket. The game "sees" the wood. But if you open the actual inventory of the Red Rocket workbench, it will look empty. It’s a virtual pool.
This applies to:
- Building materials (Wood, Steel, Glass).
- Weapon and armor mods.
- Cooking ingredients (Tato, Mutfruit, Dirty Water).
- Chemistry supplies.
If you’re a power armor fan, this is a lifesaver. You can repair your T-60 anywhere on the map as long as your main hub has the aluminum and circuitry. But remember: you cannot move physical items through the "cloud." If you want that specific Gatling Laser, you have to go get it.
The "Spiderweb" vs. The "Hub" Strategy
Don't just link every settlement to every other settlement. It creates a chaotic mess on your map and makes it impossible to track where your people are.
Most experts, including the folks who have spent thousands of hours on the Fallout 4 forums, suggest one of two ways. First, the Hub and Spoke. You pick one central spot—Starlight Drive-In is great because it’s huge and flat—and you send a runner from every other settlement to that spot. It’s clean. It’s organized.
The second way is the Daisy Chain. You link Sanctuary to Red Rocket, Red Rocket to Abernathy Farm, Abernathy to Sunshine Tidings, and so on. This creates a circle or a long line. The advantage here is that you don't have 30 brahmin crowding the entrance of a single settlement. If you've ever tried to walk through a door in Fallout 4 only to find a two-headed cow blocking the way, you know why this matters.
The game doesn't care how long the chain is. If Sanctuary is linked to Red Rocket, and Red Rocket is linked to the Drive-In, Sanctuary and the Drive-In share resources. The connection is transitive.
Provisioners: The Immortal Postmen of the Commonwealth
Once you assign a settler to a supply line, their name changes to "Provisioner." They get a pack brahmin. They start walking.
Here is something kind of cool: Provisioners are "protected" NPCs. This means that while they can be knocked down by raiders or super mutants, they won't actually die unless you are the one who shoots them. They are essentially immortal tanks wandering the wasteland.
Because they wander dangerous roads, you should gear them up. Don't just let them walk around in rags with a pipe pistol. Give them:
- Mining Helmets: The light actually works, making it easy to spot your trade routes at night.
- High-End Armor: Heavy Combat Armor or even a spare set of Power Armor (though they don't need fusion cores to use it once assigned).
- Automatic Weapons: A basic submachine gun or a combat rifle makes them much more effective at clearing out random encounters.
Provisioners act as a weird kind of mobile security force. If you’re getting shot at by Gunners and a Provisioner happens to be walking by, they will jump into the fight. Having a well-armed network of supply lines Fallout 4 provisioners basically turns the roads of the Commonwealth into a much safer place for you to travel.
Dealing with the Brahmin Problem
Brahmin are the bane of every settlement builder. They get stuck on roofs. They teleport into bedrooms. They block stairways.
If you have too many supply lines coming into one small settlement (like Hangman’s Alley), you will have five or six cows at any given time taking up space. To fix this, build a Brahmin Feed Trough. It looks like a bathtub. You’ll find it under the "Resources > Miscellaneous" tab in the building menu. Place it in a far corner of the settlement. The cows will congregate there, keeping your main walking paths clear.
Troubleshooting Broken Links
Sometimes you'll look at your map (press 'C' or the indicated button to show supply lines) and see a gap. Why?
Usually, it’s because a settlement’s population dropped to zero. If a settlement gets attacked and you don't defend it, and the only person living there was your provisioner, the link might break. Or, more likely, you accidentally reassigned the provisioner to a gardening job while they were stopping for a drink at the bar.
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If you lose track of a provisioner, you can't just "summon" them. You have to wait. Or, use the Vault-Tec Population Management System (from the Vault-Tec Workshop DLC). This terminal lets you unassign everyone from their jobs at once, which resets the provisioners and sends them back to the settlement they originally came from.
Actionable Next Steps for a Better Economy
To get your Commonwealth empire running correctly right now, follow these steps:
- Audit your Charisma: Check if you're at 6. If not, grab the bobblehead from Parsons State Insane Asylum or just spend your next few perk points.
- Clear a Central Hub: Use Starlight Drive-In or The Castle. These have enough room for the brahmin traffic.
- Standardize your Provisioners: Give every provisioner a specific outfit—like a Postman Uniform or a Vault Suit—so you can recognize them from a distance.
- The "Junk Dump": Go to your most cluttered settlement, grab everything, and dump it into the workbench. Now, link that settlement to your main base. You’ll immediately see your available resources skyrocket in the building menu.
- Focus on "The Triangle": Start by linking Sanctuary, Red Rocket, and Abernathy Farm. This gives you a solid base of operations in the northwest corner of the map where you can safely experiment with the mechanics.
Setting up your supply lines Fallout 4 network takes about an hour of legwork, but it saves you dozens of hours of inventory management later. It’s the difference between struggling to survive and actually rebuilding the world. Get those caravans moving.