With thanks to Garust, Lady Emma, Eli - The Thing, Cassi, Mette, Sanne, Jamie MachinegunGOGO, and Thaang.
There are 6 types of random encounters in-game and each encounter type has its own set of spawn locations.
Enemy, NPC, Settler or, Raider vs Enemy, NPC, Settler or, Raider. Can be useful for farming meat for Carnivore food buffs.
Traveling Merchants.
Corpses containing plans and Mr. Squeeze who sells the Lemonade and Hard Lemonade plans.
Tamable pets, set scenes with an NPC and the Insult Bot.
Travel
An NPC that moves back and forth along a small route, generally vendors of some kind.
Whitesprings Assault
Enemy vs Whitespring Robots.
Special Mention Encounters
Skyline Valley
It takes 18 minutes for a random encounter location to refresh once all players have left the cell.
There is a condition set on all encounter spawn locations “Do all before repeating”. This means that as long as you stay on the same server and do not refresh or rebuild it, each location will go through the entire spawn list before starting at the top again.
Some encounters have region checks and won't spawn in certain areas.
Some encounters will only spawn in cells that have been nuked. If you want a better chance at finding these encounters, go to a private custom server and turn ON "Nuked Flora & Creatures". This will make the server think that you just dropped a nuke and will activate the additional encounters.
Some encounters have a space check. For example, if there is not enough room for a mega sloth vs super mutants to run through their animations, they will not spawn in certain locations.
These encounters include:
Sheepsquatch vs Super Mutants
Sheepsquatch vs Scorched
Sheepsquatch vs Mole Miners
Gulpers vs Scorched
Fog Crawlers vs Scorched
Anglers vs Super Mutants
Gulpers vs Super Mutants
Scorched Megasloth vs Super Mutants
Sentry Bot vs Super Mutants
RadScorpions vs Super Mutants
Yao Guai vs Honey Beasts
Scorched Baseball vs Yao Guai
Deathclaw vs Super Mutants
Deathclaw vs Ants
Super Mutants vs Deathclaw
Yao Guai vs Super Mutants
Wolves vs Megasloth
Ogua vs Blood Eagles
Ogua vs Settlers
Ogua vs Cultists
Ogua vs Super Mutants
Ogua vs Scorched
Blue Devil vs Blood Eagles
Blue Devil vs Settlers
Blue Devil vs Cultists
Blue Devil vs Super Mutants
Blue Devil vs Scorched
Crashed vertibird with feral ghoul crew
Deathclaw vs Merchant Caravan
Deathclaw nest vs Scorched
Deathclaw nest vs Super Mutants
Mama's Rage
Supermutant Defectors
Glowing Deathclaw vs Sentry Bot
Random Ogua
Random Blue Devil
Ogua vs Blue Devil
Wendigo Colossus Assault
Deathclaw vs Raiders
Radscorpion vs Raiders
Cryptid Storyteller
All encounters have a 100% chance to spawn, however, there may be a delay of up to 1 min before something will spawn. If you are checking encounters on public servers and nothing spawns then it's possible that another player has walked through the cell and activated the spawn so that location will be on cool down.
Camp
There are a total of 37 different Camp encounter types and 49 Camp spawn locations.
If you are farming these locations for the Travelling Vendors or Wandering Storyteller, check your HUD as you get closer to the location, as they show as a non-hostile yellow dot.
Map of all Camp spawn locations
Useful or Interesting encounters
For a full list of encounters, please refer to the list here.
Traveling Vendors
There are two ways that you can farm these NPCs for their inventory. Both ways require someone else to hold the NPC for you.
Bring one toon in, check the NPCs inventory, leave the server, switch to another toon, check the NPCs inventory, rinse, and repeat.
OR
Bring your toon in, check the NPCs' inventory, leave the server, wait 8 minutes, and then bring that same toon in and re-check the NPCs' inventory and their items for sale should have refreshed.
Armour Trader
Sells non-legendary armour and underarmour.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Clinic Trader
Sells Disease Cure and Healing Salve recipes based on the region that you find them in. For example, if you find the trader in the Cranberry Bog then they will spawn the Healing Salve and Disease Cure Cranberry Bog recipes.
A player under level 25 will have a 100% chance for the healing salve plans to spawn and a player over the level of 25 will have a 50% chance for the healing salve plans to spawn.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Chem Trader
Sells chems, chem recipes, and junk.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Clothing Trader
Sells the same apparel as the Vendor Responder Bot.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Food Trader
Sells cooked dishes and raw ingredients.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Miscellaneous Trader
Sells a mix of everything from common clothes, food, drink, ammo, and junk.
Vendor also sells holiday wrapping paper, mole miner pails, and mystery candy when the events are running/active.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Weapons Trader
Sells all the bow and compound bow plans and mods without a rep check.
A full list of inventory and % drop rate can be found here.
Wandering Cryptid Storyteller
*Cryptid Stories - Flatwoods Monster
*Cryptid Stories - Snallygaster
*Cryptid Stories - Sheepsquatch
Fancy Glasses
Can be displayed
Super Mutants admiring a Floater
You will need to sneak up to really appreciate this encounter because as soon as they see you, they will attack you. Also, suggest turning your sound up or turning sub-titles on.
Felton Reed
Aspiring BOS Scribe asking for tech-related junk
Easiest locations to server hop
Toxic Valley
Woods Estate
From the spawn-in point, turn NE and walk forward. You should be able to see a patch of alive trees in the distance. Keep walking forward towards the trees and stop at the tent.
Forest
Anchor Farm
From the fast travel point, turn NW and follow the road down. Walk past the orange truck/ute on your left and the 90 sign on your right. At the 90 sign, turn West and walk forward.
Overlook Cabin
From the spawn-in point, turn around until you face East. Walk/jump up the hill until you see the tent.
Ash Heap
Camden Park
From the fast travel point, turn and face West. Run forward and follow the river along on the left-hand side, keep following the river around until you see the tent.
There is also a potential rare baseball bat spawn here.
Mount Blair Trainyard
From the fast travel point, turn and face South. Walk over and stop on the train tracks in front of you. Turn West and follow the train tracks until you see the top of a green tent on your right. The spawn is at the tent.
Savage Divide South
Blackwater Mine
From the spawn-in point, turn SE and look up the mountain. The spawn location is under the billboard in the distance.
Yellow Sandy's Still
Head towards the icon.
Savage Divide North
Metal Dome
From the fast travel point, run straight forward and follow the path/cliff face around on the left. Keep following the cliff face around for a little, until you see a picnic table and some tents on your right.
Sacrament
From the spawn in location, turn East and walk straight until you get to the trees at the top of the small hill in front of you. At the top, turn North and walk forward, veering to the right so you end up at the top of the mountain.
The Mire
Gnarled Shallows
From the spawn-in point, run straight toward the map icon/large tree in the middle of the water. Once you get to the tree, turn and follow the river North. Stick to the left side of the river bank and keep following it. Look to your left as you are following the river bank up and you will see the top of a tent.
Keep following the river bank up for a fixed spawn of 3 to 4 more Anglers.
Tanagra Town
There is a fixed spawn for a Mega Sloth at the base of the tree.
From the fast travel point, walk forward until you are standing on the edge of the hole that the tree is in. Follow the edge around until you see some buildings. The camp encounter is out the front of the shed, closest to the bus stop.
Cranberry Bog
Forward Station Alpha
From the spawn-in point, turn and line up between East and Superior Sunset Farm map marker. Run forward until you drop down into one of the trenches. Follow the trench down and the encounter location will be on your left.
Lost Home
Head towards the icon.
There is a bobblehead in the blue container, on the roof, in front of the two chairs on the roof plus salt, pepper, and spices.
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