In regard to the crafter thralls disappearing when living settlements is enabled, I believe I understand the issue and have a work-around (other than disabling the feature):
I believe the thralls glitch when a thrall seeks a “need” station that is not available. To prevent a glitch, a base MUST have 1 bed, 1 chair/bench spot, a Thrall Pot/campfire/bonfire (handles 6 thralls) spot, and a workstation for each thrall that is placed.
I used a smaller base on a private server, and I was able to set up 4 beds, 2 log benches (4 seat spots), and a thrall pot. I placed just 4 thralls, and I did not have a single glitch during several hours of gameplay. I also placed a 1 thrall in a couple outposts, each with 1 bed, 1 chair, a thrall pot and a relevant workstation. The thralls both remained stable at those outposts as well.
In an earlier test, I placed a single thrall (armorer) at level 11. It soon glitched, and I believe it was due to the fact that I did not have access to a chair (it had the rest of its needs available). From this experience, I do not believe it is possible for a new character to keep a crafting thrall prior to level 17 in the vanilla game unless a chair is otherwise looted or spawned beforehand.
Personally, if this continues to work, I kind of like the idea that crafter thralls are limited, and a player has to choose his/her followers carefully (or build a massive base with a designated barracks).
Also, note that thrall posts on thrall pots are behind the thrall pot in the default orientation when placing it. Rotate the thrall pot 180 degrees if placing it next to a wall.
I welcome others to test and confirm.
It doesn’t work. At least not forever. I have beds, chairs, benches, thrall pot, and campfire. I even give my thralls new clothes. Everything a thrall could ask for. For a couple days after AoH it worked just fine. But then they started to wander away. Eventually I lost all but 2 t4 crafter thralls before they turned off living settlements on officials.
Funcom just really needs to fix it so we don’t have to keep looking for a work around to a bug that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
They didn’t turn off living settlements on official server’s, where did you hear that? I’m on two officials 3515 and 8060. That’s both maps and they are definitely turned on. As for the post… Brian that doesn’t work. All mine have all that and more. I still loose bench thrall’s. I don’t have my good ones down, I’ve been putting down crappy extras. Mine even have their own rooms, with chairs and beds. Also I have dining rooms and you name it. I built an entire town basically for the workers. All needs are met yet they still run away.
yes they did, if you put a thrall on a workstation, he doesn’t wander off anymore
Mine do. I was just on last night.
They were doing their same old same old. Sleeping in beds, fake eating. Was on official 8060 last night.
did you manually stop their animation before reassigning them?
OK, I had a crafter teleport on me this evening. The issue seems much less prevalent, but it’s still there.