I only just figured out that you could put points into the layers under the top layer, so all my points so far have gone into SPECIAL.
I'm doing pretty good. I can take on just about anything.
I had amassed over x250 10mm rounds before I attacked a tower full of super mutants,
but before I got to the top I heard the dreaded - click click click.

Shotty time.

I also wore my power armour for that one.
So it does tell you when one of your bases is being attacked, but it's not very obvious.
It just comes up in the top left of the screen in small writing.
I was heading to a place near the Bluff settlement, North East of Sanctuary, when it said it was being attacked.
I headed there with Cait. We ran into 3 super mutant scouts with a human slave (a settler) on the way.
Killed them and then heard gunfire as we headed to the settlement.
It was being attacked by a bunch of human raiders.
We helped the raiders attack the settlement, and then me and Cait raped all the farmers and stole their tomatoes.
It was great!