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The artillery piece is a constructible settlement object featured in Fallout 4.

Characteristics[]

The artillery piece is a mortar that consecutively fires highly damaging shells with a high level of precision and accuracy. Each piece of artillery will fire five shells, so building multiple mortars will increase the number of shells fired from one settlement. Its ammunition is unlimited, and its maximum range is approximately a five-sector radius, as viewed on the Pip-Boy's world map. It becomes active only after a settler is assigned to operate it.

Artillery strikes are called down by throwing an artillery smoke grenade into a target area that is within range of active artillery. Fire mission progress may be monitored on Radio Freedom.

If multiple settlements with active artillery are within range of a target, all of them may engage, significantly increasing the number of shells striking the target. After a strike, there is a delay of one in-game hour (which equates to three real-time minutes) before another strike can be initiated.

Crafting[]

The artillery piece can be built after recovering the artillery schematic.

Materials:Requirements:Produces:
Gears (6)
Oil (4)
Screws (4)
Steel (16)
Wood (4)
Range
Level
Artillery piece (1)

Notes[]

  • To maximize artillery coverage of the Commonwealth, they can be placed at each allied settlement.
  • Artillery will not fire on a friendly settlement. Radio Freedom will advise when this is the case.
  • Each gun fires five shots during a fire mission, but the shells always fall at the same rate. Additional artillery pieces extend the duration of the fire mission.
  • The shell explosions benefit from the Demolition Expert perk.
  • When calling artillery in the downtown area, the inbound shells may simply hit a building instead of the designated target. Likewise, attempting to shell a deep area such as Thicket Excavations will see the shells hitting the quarry walls or impacting the surrounding hills, with only a few shells reaching the target area.
  • Conversely, outbound shells will not hit a settlement's structures when they are fired from that settlement. This allows artillery to still add to settlement defense ratings and provide its normal fire support despite being installed in a protected or covered area like the Castle bastion or armory.
  • Artillery makes use of the in-game timescale, so the lower the timescale, the longer it takes for each shell of artillery to land (default timescale is 20 and each shell takes 4 seconds to land at that timescale).
  • If a settler assigned to the artillery piece is unable to make their way towards the mortar or is otherwise trapped by object placement, the mortar may begin to turn by itself.
  • Artillery pieces cannot be built on the Island and in Nuka-World, nor do the Minutemen have any sort of jurisdiction there. This renders artillery smoke grenades useless in those regions.
  • Paladin Danse dislikes it when the Sole Survivor builds artillery.
  • Raiders from Nuka-World will not fire the mortar, but will still give the six additional points to defense and show the resource as assigned.
  • It is possible to initiate an artillery strike against a friendly settlement by placing the artillery signal grenade close to, but just outside, the horizontal or vertical boundary of the settlement.
  • Based on the appearance of the system of gears, turning the side wheel clockwise would lower the mortar and counter-clock wise would elevate it. However, in in-game visuals, the mortars only traverse and do not elevate.

Behind the scenes[]

Originally, there were two artillery pieces. The laser cannon, which can be seen in the concept art, never made it into the game.

Bugs[]

  • Playstation 4Playstation 4 Xbox OneXbox One Sometimes when calling in a strike, the sound of the mortar coming in can be heard, but no explosion will follow.[verified]
  • PCPC Multiple artillery pieces in one settlement causes bugs with their proper firing, particularly if the game cell containing the artillery is currently loaded. The more of them you have, the worse they work. For example, two pieces can take more time to start firing than one or fire the same quantity of shots. The main reason - they run consecutively, not simultaneously. After they start, the artillery slowly rotates, then fires. Then the second artillery begins to rotate, and this animation takes more time than delay time between shots of one piece, while the first one freezes for the time of this animation.[verified]
  • PCPC After a fire mission request, it can happen that only 1 or 2 rounds arrive at the target area. Sometimes nothing hits the target area.[verified]
  • PCPC Stealth Boys don't protect the player character from being detected by the enemy if an artillery round hits an enemy. The player character gets detected instantly.[verified]

Gallery[]

See also[]

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