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.
Assault
There are a total of 51 different Assault encounter types and 27 Assault spawn locations.
Map of all Assault spawn locations
Useful or Interesting encounters
For a full list of encounters, please refer to the list here.
Settler and Raider Rep farming
There are a few ways to farm for Settler and Raider reputation, however, these are time-locked, so if you don't feel like waiting for the dailys to reset or an event to pop, you can farm Assault random encounter locations. Each successful encounter rewards 100 reputation each.
A successful encounter is killing whatever is attacking the Settlers or Raiders. At least one Settler or Raider needs to be alive at the end and you need to interact and speak with the surviving NPC for the reputation to be applied.
Sheepsquatch vs Super Mutants
For those needing Sheepsquatch meat or photos for atom and scoreboard challenges.
Only appears in Ash Heap, Savage Divide, The Mire, and the Cranberry Bog.
Sheepsquatch vs Mole Miners
For those needing Sheepsquatch meat or photos for atom and scoreboard challenges.
Only appears in Ash Heap, Savage Divide, The Mire, and the Cranberry Bog.
Sheepsquatch vs Scorched
For those needing Sheepsquatch meat or photos for atom and scoreboard challenges.
Only appears in Ash Heap, Savage Divide, The Mire, and the Cranberry Bog.
Deathclaw vs Super Mutants
For those needing Deathclaw meat.
All regions
Deathclaw vs Ants
For those needing Deathclaw and Ant meat.
All regions
Deathclaw vs Raiders
For those needing Deathclaw meat.
Only appears in Ash Heap, Savage Divide, The Mire, and the Cranberry Bog.
Wolves vs Megasloth
For those needing Megasloth meat.
All regions
Scorched Megasloth vs Super Mutants
For those needing Megasloth meat or a photo of a Scorched Megasloth for atom and scoreboard challenges.
Only appears in Savage Divide, The Mire, and the Cranberry Bog.
Ants vs Settlers
For those needing Ant meat.
All regions
Wendigo Colossus (Baby Earl)
Thanks to Thaang for this information.
To activate Baby Earl, you will need to nuke Assault spawn locations in the Savage Divide, The Mire, and Cranberry Bog.
This map shows two recommended nuke placement locations.
These are recommended as you can cover two Assault spawn locations with one nuke.
Once the nuke has landed, fast-travel to the first location and check to see if Baby Earl has spawned. If he hasn't, then kill and loot all of whatever has spawned, and then run over to the second location and check to see if he has spawned there. If there is no Baby Earl in sight then kill and loot all. Wait 18 mins for the locations to reset and then visit each location again. There is a 10% chance for a baby Earl to spawn.
Easiest locations to server hop
Toxic Valley
Graninger Farm
Forest
Marigold Pavilion
Salt and Pepper on the table downstairs and a potential Bobblehead and Magazine spawn upstairs between the beds.
Slocum's Joe
From the spawn in location, run straight over to the car park of the main building.
Ash Heap
Welch
Fast Travel to Welch Train Station. From the spawn-in point, turn South and walk forward until you get to the Overseer's Husband's family home.
Hornwright Estate
From the fast travel point, turn South, jump over the digger, and run forward until you get to the road. Face East and follow the road. Go past the fence of tires and the tree laying across the road. The spawn location is in the carpark of the first house on your left.
Savage Divide
Scenic Overlook
From the spawn-in point, turn South and follow the road down. Stay on the right-hand side of the road until you see a truck on your left and a large billboard on your right. The encounter location is at the base of the billboard, between the bus and the tent.
Investigator's Cabin
From the fast travel point, run over to the cabin and stand on the roof. Turn and face East and walk straight down the hill until you see a green roof.
Rare baseball bat spawn location.
National Radio Astronomy Research Center
From the spawn in location, face NE and follow the road down. Jump over the tree laying in the middle of the road and continue following the road down. Look North when you get to the Police Car for a fun little scene. Keep running down the road for a little while longer and the spawn location is at the back of the grey truck trailer.
Hopewell Cave
From the fast travel point, turn right and follow the road down until you see the orange shipping container on your left.
The Mire
Excelsior Model Home
Braxson's Quality Medical Supplies
Cranberry Bog
NAR Repair Yard
Overgrown Sundew Grove
Enter the Grove and head towards the house in the middle.
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