Danse, he's intended to be the tank. His armor soaks up all the damage you can throw at him, and his gun is powerful enough to swipe everyone out by himself. He's also pretty big so pretty much block up all the bullet for you.

This. Moreover, they are almost as much a liability as an asset. Dogmeat I can live with. He doesn't judge, he doesn't ramble nonsense, and as long as I anticipate that I'm going to want to sneak up ahead, and get crouched BEFORE the actual need to sneak, he is good about getting around behind me and staying there. I often tell him to stay where he is to deal with bad guys and then come back to have him carry stuff.

I was going to do a playthrough with Cait as a bad guy and got her 'on staff.'Yeah sure, she is cute for a skank, but Atom the prattling. The down side of lots of voiced character is that, so far, no studio I've encountered has given each actor enough varied lines to make their repertoire seem 'fresh' and only slighly repetetive. Instead they pretty soon come to feel like repetetitive chatty Cathy dolls.

I did enjoy some of the NPCs in Skyrim, they just seemed like they were 'interesting' even with their deficiencies, and in a game where melee is so much more prevalent their behavioral tendencies were not so aggravating.

For all companions the best solution is to put them in power armor and hand them a super sledge with the stunner.

Power armor provides 11 strength, which confers a 60% damage bonus to melee

The stunner causes enemies to fall over where the companion won't try to block them and will just keep hitting them

and the frame provides 80 armor by itself, raider torso provides a bit more and is only steel to fix. and a armored trilby adds a solid 110.

The power armor stops companion animations, like taking cover, and vaulting objects, which helps them actually run in and kill things reliably.

NO AMMO LIMITS

Strong is also good because he is tough without needing armor and gear, as well as having great natural strength for melee damage bonus. He also can carry the most, and looks great in super mutant armor.

Currie and Codsworth are ok, they don't have animations constantly screwing with them, but are not particularly powerful either

Dogmeat is terrible, always doing animations, and not being particularly useful without wasting way too many perk points on him, and does not have durability upgrades.

For my sneaky main character they're pretty invaluable as a decoy. I don't rely on them for damage.

I use Piper, and she is very effective.


I switch her off between an assault rifle and a combat rifle, both set for semi-auto fire ... never give them automatic weapons no matter how much they beg you!


The first two levels of Inspirational perk will have four total effects. You will end up both invulnerable to the other's attacks (Spray and Pray). Plus the companion's offense and defense increases.


When we are clearing a challenging room "from the hip", she gets about a third of the bad guys if I let her. (If I really need the XP, I will soften things up with my .50 cal rifle first. )

Their AI is not programmed with opinions to their armor or weapons which they neither fix themselves, they are more like instruments. The dog makes annoying sounds and there's no way to kick it or shoot one of Cosworth's eyes off for fun. They are not really companions, more like morons.

When changing moron the goner has to express disappointment of some sort like for example MacCready, it's bad entertainment. It would have been funnier with something like for example the TV serie CSI Las Vegas entertainment, where it's not displayed as a disappointment when shifting skills for special tasks. In the game the synth detective have for example better computer skills.

They are effective morons, because they can be told to stay and face a super mutant suicider and not die ...

if you change their equipment most can be effective...if you dont, only danse is kinda useful...

i gave strong a big hammer and super mutant armor and hes going to town on ghouls one shotting them (and most humans) - its kinda fun to watch

Your companion will only be as good as you make them. If they have no decent armor or weapons, they are wiped out almost instantly. You're not the only one that has to keep up with the armor and weapons and their upgrades.

Absolutely useless, as far as combat is concerned. I had McGready fight a frigging bloatfly for minutes. At the end I had to shoot it. Also their AI stands for Absent Intelligence. Constantly running into my line of fire, just when I finally got my sniper shot lined up. They have to be essential. Otherwise you would run out of companions pretty quickly.

As has been said, they are only useful to draw some aggro. Although, even that is up for debate, since enemies seem to make a beeline for the player and only get stopped short if there isn't any way round the companion.

Companions ? I just use them as shields. That's all they are good at. Especially now when I've started a melee char and I'm weak at first levels.

At my previous sniper build they were just blowing my cover and aggroing all the enemies on me, even in hidden mode, blocking all the doorways and always standing in my way. Oh, maybe not always, I mean when I actually needed to talk to them to investigate areas or carry my stuff they were nowhere to be found.

So yeah, AI really stands for Absent Intelligence. Sure, you can command them to stay somewhere but it's really a hassle since you have to frequently toggle between stay and follow commands.

Oh and I love lone wanderer bonuses, one more reason to ditch companions when I get to about lvl ~15 and I'm strong enough on my own.

Just read on a forum that armor has no influence on a compagnion,

experienced that Hancock was more effective with a laserrifle instead of his shot-gun...

Not true in my experience. Armour does influence companions. It does all NPCs so there's no reason why it would not companions.

Companions are as effective as you make them as others said (with equipment). Of course they are still run by the same AI which runs your enemies so they will newer be as effective as player. Also it helps a lot if you actually start using commands on them. You can't expect them to telepathically know what you just intend to do. So if you want them to do something, or not to do something else, give them command. Unfortunately command interface svcks, you have to point and click at them every time you want issue command. In the middle of the combat you often don't even know where your companion is. Therefore I tend to select my companion before I enter (or expect to enter) combat without deselecting them. That way you can issue commands instantly. It does screw your pointer to some extend, replacing it with command one but if you use scopes it's not an issue.

I really hope command interface could be modded in a way that you could select or issue commands via hotkey directly. Although I fear that won't be possible.

Extends their longevity, before they go down. Weapons, not so much so. I handed McGready a legendary sniper rifle with loads of ammo. He's supposed to be a sniper, but the above described bloatfly disaster doesn't speak in his favor.

Is that a surprise? I would newer use sniper rifle against attacking bloatfly. It svcks.

In general, sniper rifle is not best choice for companion. AI does not get sneak bonus damage and generally rarely engages targets at long range. Sniper rifle have poor DPS (damage per second) output and as a result svck at the close to mid range fight, which is what your companion will be engaged in about 90% of the time.

Give your companions something with decent DPS output. AI versus AI, DPS is what decides outcome most of the time. Plus armor and hit points.

In my personal observation (which included some companion tests with various weapons against group of raiders and then group of ghouls) NPCs do best with automatic weapons. Of course in case of companions ammo is of concern, so you might not want to give them automatic weapon. Still, something with decent DPS, large magazine and good accuracy at short to mid ranges is way to go. AI svcks at long ranges with any weapon.

Modded laser rifle, 10mm pistol, battle rifle are good choices for companions. If ammo is not issue, give them automatic version.

One thing that I can't figure out yet is how often and in what situation AI use hip fire. Since there is no difference in animation, there is no way to tell. Knowing that would help customizing companion weapons.

BTW: don't forget to give your companions bunch of stimpacks.

They use them under their own steam?

Yes. All humanoid NPCs does (including your settlers and enemies). Robotic NPCs and animals does not. So no point to give stimpacks to Dogmeat or Codsworth.

Does it work?

Edit: You'll be missing some companion quests ...

It does. BTW Dogmeat does not count as a companion for the purpose of this perk. So you can keep him around and still enjoy effects of the perk.

I thought a companions job was to stand around and look pretty.

I gave Curie a sequin dress, because she looks cute wering it, and a gamma pistol. She's no less effective than the guys in combat armor.

Impressed so far compared to past attempts, the pathing issue is still annoying but the teleport system is an ok work around for that.

Been running with Piper, she uses cover and picks up weapons along with ammunition when she needs it (or gets gifted ammo when she first picks up a better gun ?). I gave here some stims and she self medicates when she needs it. She's rolling with an explosive .44 and pimped out laser rifle that she luckily found early on which even in the late game is still more effective than any I've found so far. (dunno if the damage numbers look higher in her inventory because she has some energy weapon bonus my character doesn't use ?).

She holds her own in most fire fights and that's with no armour expect a BOS bomber jacket. She's saved my [censored] a few times too, particularly like her added bash and dodge animations in close quarters. Sneak mode feels better too, less running off to ruin it in most cases.

Only real issue are the boss enemies where she's just bait while I find a vantage spot. Command system feels better too, I like being able to call her over from a distance.

This makes sense, combat, assault rifles or laser rifles should work well, wonder how scopes works for them? I only use it on sniper weapon as its too hard to use at medium ranges but don't think that affect npc?

Kneecapper effect should be perfect as its not dps dependent. Double damage against unhurt enemies are better for yourself as you do more damage.

I find them to be most effective if your just leave everything they are carrying at defaults. They guzzle ammo and can't seem to hit the broad side of a glowing skyscraqer in the dark at twenty feet. Some of them do better with melee combat. Honestly, I just stick with Dogmeat. His ability to tie up enemies with his bite-and-shake attack is worth more than 2.5 Danses.

I found Strong could be excellent with the missile launcher, but when taking the Castle from the mirelurks (particularly the Mirelurk Queen), I took it off him. He seemed too slow or timid with it. I put power armour on Piper and another (a companion who cannot enter Diamond City with being attacked, who gave me back the 250 cap cost of his recruitment), which made pretty good. They only pause for a bit if wounded. The only issue is that Piper at least can turn hostile if I decide to mount a one man (and a woman) rebellion in Diamond City (it was more just messing than a planned direction to take my game) or turn on some annoying people. Anyhow, I've found any companion with power armour or who can take power armour useful in combat. Strong is good with melee combat (and is the one companion I've send back to a settlement I can find). I might see if using him again at level 41 will change my largely positive opinion of him I formed at level 18. Codsworth is the same. I found him good, but I was only using him at a low level. If I can find him again, it would be nice to see if he still adds that bit of kinetic energy to the combat.