So I'm running around with Cass right now (who owns BTW if you pick her up after level 20 or so) and we run into a pack of five Super Mutant Masters. We dispatch them with no real issue but right at the end of the fight she drops her weapon and holds her chest and coughs for a second after taking a hit. I had just looked at her health in VATS a couple seconds before and she was fine. After that I assumed she had a limb and torso crippled. So I pick up her gun, give it back to her and check her out. Her overall health is down a little but not much and all her limbs are full or just missing a sliver. So then I think well maybe the gun got destroyed somehow. I go into her inventory, weapons and armor still fully repaired. This led me to a slew of questions (playing hardcoe mode):

1. What the hell happened at the end of that fight? I've never seen an NPC hold their chest and cough.
2. Do companions get crippled and do they heal their own limbs so long as they have stimpacks?
3. Does companions' gear deteriorate? We've killed endless stuff in the last few game sessions. She was taking a minigun point blank in the last fight (and taking damage) yet her armor is 100% still and her hunting shotgun, which she fires at incredible speed is too. I've had to repair my items in the time I've had her.
4. Lastly, do companions ever get over-encumbered? I swear she's got to be carrying 600lbs of stuff LOL. I kept loading her up to see when she wouldn't be able to run but it never happens.

1. That's scary. I haven't seen that yet.

2. Yes. The number of Stimpaks listed when you look at their inventory is the number you have on you. It is advised in the Guide to use them on your companion if you want to keep them around for a long time. I'm on Normal so they can't die but they can become disabled so in the middle of a fight, I do use Stimpaks on them if there's no time to wait for them to heal.

3. More slowly than ours. I have seen Boone's armor drop slightly.

4. Yes. It will say they can't carry any more though so you can't overload them. Boone squawks about how it won't be easy to cover me if he can't move his legs.

I'm sure others can add more to this.

1. It was bizarre.

2. I've loaded her up with Stimpacks too and the number does go down so she must be using them on her limbs. I've only had to heal her manually once.

3. Good to know.

4. That's good to know as well. They must be able to carry more than their Strength would normally allow though. I think her Strength is 7. Mine's 9 and I couldn't come close to carry what she's carrying I mean seriously, she has, at the moment about 15 guns, including a couple miniguns and rocket launchers (all loot to sell), my AMR, 3 suits of combat armor for repairs, all my excess ammo to breakdown for handloading. It's comical.

Companions heal automatically at the end of combat. She probably got crippled during combat, then recovered right after.

Yeah, i noticed that, Veronica in my save got mugged by loads of fire geckos and was knocked out and her health was bad, but after she came too she was all healed!

Was there radiation in the area. I had the same thing happen to Boone a few nights ago...his health was fine, gear was fine, limbs, etc..... We were in Vault 34 and then all of a sudden coughing......then a half dead vault dweller hits him 1 time and bam down goes Boone

Are you able to change what weapon your companion uses or do they level up? Im not complaining because Veronica is using the Power Fist and u gave her MASSIVE armour so she barely gets hurt

No there wasn't. I was under the impression companions didn't suffer from radiation but I could be wrong. I walked her right down into the Devil's Throat with no issue and that was after the fight with the SM Masters.




Your companions level and skills are determined by your level when you acquire them. At least I know that's the case for Cass. They do not level up with you. It's fixed at when you get them so it's worth waiting to high levels (Cass was fully powered when I was level 20) to pick them up.

Your companion will use whatever weapon does the most DAM that you give to them based on if you have them set to melee or ranged. Bear in mind though, a high DAM ranged weapon is not going to have a high actual DAM if the companion doesn't have that skill. Veronica, I believe, is unarmed oriented in her skills she will likely take an unarmed weapon over any others because the DAM of that weapon is going to be higher. Cass for instance has 100 in Guns, Melee and Sneak. Even if I gave her the best Energy weapon out there it is not going to do as much DAM as the Hunting Shotgun I currently have her carrying and she won't arm it.

You can't manually change what weapon they use; but if you put better weapons in their inventory than what their default is, they'll use that. The only thing you can do is tell them to use either ranged or melee weapons; they'll pick the best one from whichever category you choose.

This is interesting - good topic.
I have ED-E, plus Boone; then traded Boone for Raul; then traded Raul for Veronica; now I could go with (the recently unemployed) Cass.
But Veronica and I are in the middle of all this BoS stuff...?
And ED-E is mixed up in things too.
These companions are kind of unfortunate for me since I prefer to fly solo.
It's all very complicated...
I didn't kill anything for like a week, when Boone was with me - so I'm glad he's gone.
There will never be a companion with the gift of the gab like Fawkes, kept me laughing always.
(On the other hand, I almost killed Raul myself, heheh...)
Regards

So can you choose one, then do the storyline, then choose another and do that story can you only do one then thats it.

First time playing Fallout so im unsure of many things, great, great game though! Im hoping it lasts for weeks!!

They'll stumble around, cough and gasp after a fight (for example, I see it whenever Boone stupidly takes the fight to scorpions or cazadores and get's stung), but are fine afterwards.

Occasionally, they don't heal up right away, so I'll hit them with a Stimpack (including, strangely, ED-E).