Covenant

Covenant is a location and possible Commonwealth settlement in 2287.

Background
A small village boasting pre-War architecture founded by a group of settlers who've made the site their home. The friendly inhabitants of the settlement are responsible for the overall pristine condition of the town's infrastructure. They attempt to attract traders to the settlement to keep it running and allow it to grow.

Sometime following the Broken Mask incident, Doctor Roslyn Chambers and her scientific team arrived at Covenant with the intention to turn the settlement into a refuge for people who have suffered at the hands of the Institute's synths. She convinced the residents of the town to help with her work and subsequently set up a lab with her personnel inside a utility area in the nearby sewers, locally known as the Compound. From there, Chambers and her scientists attempt to discover and flush out the secret Institute agents widely feared and despised by the inhabitants of the Commonwealth.

Following the doctor's arrival, the town of Covenant's reputation and splendor were tainted by the development of a strong anti-synth sentiment within the community, and it became a trap for outsiders unlucky enough to become part of Chambers' experiments.

The settlers support the Compound's mission of validating a psychological assessment that is meant to identify synths. This assessment is called the SAFE test and is the focus of a continuous experiment whereby visitors to Covenant are screened and are possibly later kidnapped, interrogated, and killed in order to discover how effective the SAFE test is at identifying synths. Those who the SAFE test designates "probable synths" are also subject to interrogation and torture in an attempt to further refine their assessment.

Any belongings, goods, or junk left behind by kidnapped travelers are looted by Dr. Chambers' men and turned over to Penny for sale. Despite these ill-gotten gains, the low prices deliberately set in order to attract travelers mean her shop is unable to make an overall profit. As a result, the town has a deficit of 250 caps.

Layout
Covenant is a small settlement along the eastern shore of Mystic Lake, inhabited by ten people, a Mister Handy named Deezer and a house cat named Dora. There is a large wall surrounding the whole settlement with nine heavy machine gun turrets on small wooden platforms. Inside the wall are four houses and a small garden. The houses are intact as if they had barely been touched by the Great War. The Sole Survivor may comment on this by saying that all the buildings look almost pre-War.

There is a workbench in a shack near the garden. Three of the buildings will be locked at various times, but the inhabitants will occasionally go in and out the doors of every building and they can then be followed without needing to resort to lockpicking. They do not leave the room while they are aware the Sole Survivor is inside, but they may still close the door behind them and lock the Sole Survivor in if the player character is hidden.

The guesthouse (last house on the left when entering from the main gate) contains a bed that can be freely used by the player. The containers in this house can be used for storage without the items becoming owned by the settlement and the items in this house can be freely taken even if one is not allied to the settlement. There are a few other unowned junk items up for grabs, mostly around the backs and sides of the houses, and some near the workshop. The cabinet under the toolbox in the workshop shack can also be freely used as a container. There is a farm plot with 7 corn, 5 tato, and several mutfruit (including an owned wild mutfruit), which are cultivated by the settlers and will respawn. Apart from the "owned" wild mutfruit these can be freely harvested by the player. There is a water pump beside the main gate.

Notable loot

 * Justice - A unique combat shotgun that can be bought from Penny Fitzgerald.
 * Destroyer's helmet - Also sold by Penny.
 * Penny's ledger note - Found on the safe in Penny's shop.
 * Covenant shop key - Carried by Penny and Patricia Montgomery, and found inside Penny's cash register.
 * SAFE report - Found on the desk in the office building.
 * Covenant office key - Carried by Jacob Orden and Brian Fitzgerald, and found in a desk inside the office.
 * Raider report and another copy of the SAFE report - Found in a wall/floor safe hidden behind a crate in the office building.
 * Two Covenant reminder notes - One in the first house on the left, the other in a bin at Penny Fitzgerald's place. Will prompt the Sole Survivor to make a comment.
 * Covenant house key - Carried by most inhabitants, and found on Jacob's nightstand next to his bed.
 * Jacob's password - A note in his house, on the nightstand next to his bed. Gives access to his office terminal.
 * Map to Compound - Carried by Ted Huntley.
 * Join the Railroad holotape - Found in the trash can next to the door in the house with the three beds and radio.
 * Caravan details - Given to the player character by Honest Dan during Human Error.
 * An overdue book - Found in a toilet behind the shop.
 * A leveled suit of power armor - Found northwest of Covenant in the lake near the tail of the crashed Vertibird.

Related quest

 * Human Error

Companion comments

 * When at this location companions make comments, which are activated at the gate exterior.

Appearances
Covenant appears only in Fallout 4.

Bugs
Covenant is a particularly buggy location, in many cases due to internal logic errors in how the settlement, and its related quests, were designed and coded.


 * If the game does not completely load upon approaching Covenant and the player character walks through the doorway before the doors load in, the town will be hostile.
 * After completing the quest by killing Dr. Roslyn Chambers while Honest Dan is with the player character, one can repeatedly receive the reward of 300 caps by walking away and restarting the dialogue with him.
 * If one first discovers Covenant after completing Nuclear Family or any variant of The Nuclear Option, the settlement will act as if the player character has already completed the "SAFE" test and welcomes them with open arms. Any quests that are associated with Covenant are not able to be completed.
 * When approaching Covenant for the first time, if the Sole Survivor speaks with Swanson and agrees to take the test they will be asked to take a seat. If the player character does not sit down straight away, once they return to the seat, it is possible Swanson will not be present in his normal position seated at the desk. If the player character then sits down the SAFE Test will begin but because Swanson is not present and one will hear him ask the first question but will not be able to answer, leaving the player character stuck in the chair.
 * Having Tesla coils installed in a suit of power armor will randomly zap NPCs in the town, causing them to turn aggressive. It can happen during conversations.
 * The reason for this is that resident NPCs are frequently (but randomly) flagged as hostile. This can be seen in VATS. Despite being flagged as hostile they are not aggressive to the player character unless attacked.
 * If the original inhabitants of Covenant have been killed, any remaining turrets in Covenant will be hostile towards new turrets, the player character and hostiles.
 * The turrets can be removed permanently by selecting them with the console opened, using and then . The latter command permanently removes the selected object from the game for this savegame, so care should be taken that the turret was in fact selected.
 * The smoking ruins can also be removed in console by selecting them and then using and then . Therefore it might not be necessary to remove the original turrets until they are actually destroyed. The platform remains to place a newly constructed turret.
 * After completing the Human Error quest and acquiring Covenant as a settlement, all of the items and beds inside will still be marked as owned, making all settlers immediately hostile if anything is taken. This happens regardless of which path is taken in the quest. If the settlers become hostile, the town happiness rating will quickly erode to zero. Even new settlers summoned by a recruitment beacon after killing all the old settlers will arrive already hostile.
 * These items may be picked up by entering workshop mode and then selecting the "Store" option. Items will be transferred to the workbench and will not be marked as stolen. This also works for containers, both locked and unlocked.
 * The beds may be removed by placing a floor, moving the bed onto the floor and then scrapping the floor.
 * On PC, ownership of these items can manually be transferred by selecting each item individually and then using command . This does not work for beds, but does.
 * The corpses of Covenant residents never disappear and periodically respawn their inventory.
 * Covenant may un-ally itself, meaning the workshop and its contents become inaccessible, supply lines are voided and settlers can no longer be interacted with. Companions sent to Covenant may disappear.
 * If the player character searches Stockton's Caravan before they get the lemonade from Deezer, they will not be able to progress the story through Honest Dan.
 * The root cause of some of the turret problems is that the Covenant turrets are incorrectly assigned to the Compound faction, CovenantHQSecurityFaction, not to the Covenant settlement faction, CovenantFaction. This means when the player character and companions (including Honest Dan) return to Covenant from fighting in the Compound, the turrets will be hostile to the them even if they sided with Chambers in the end. If the turrets target the player character, Covenant residents who have the "helps allies" trait will also attack them, and if one fights back that will trigger hostility of all Covenant residents (except Deezer and Dora).
 * Due to this bug, if one makes no decision in the dialogue with Dr. Chambers (avoiding or escaping the dialogue), Honest Dan will join the player character next time they go to Covenant and will immediately attack the turrets, usually triggering an all out battle.
 * If a companion is dismissed at Covenant, after having been in conflict with the Compound, the turrets and the companion will fight until the turrets are destroyed. Swanson will join in as he "helps allies" and is allied to the turret's faction (though not part of it himself). If Swanson is attacked, the whole town will join in. Neither the companion nor Swanson can be permanently killed, and will constantly get up in this battle.
 * If a radiant quest of the "Defend (Name of Location)" type occurs at Covenant, the NPC audio dialogs for the settlers may not play.