Since the 1.2 patch Boone does not behave "properly" in combat. Here is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JfVqD-KpV4 It runs 1min. & 15sec. (first 7 seconds & last 15 seconds are easiest to see because it's daylight in the game). This isn't just about aesthetic's of him being a 'statue-robot' anymore, Boone is actually "broken." The glitchy combat behavior is consistent and happens with any ranged weapon you give him (not just his default). For testing purposes I removed all pc mods and started a fresh game to make sure mods/corrupt saves wasn't the issue. It's not, he still does it.

From what I can tell, the glitch appears to be two-fold: instead of firing an entire ammo clip with rifle at his shoulder, he will often fire from the hip. :unsure: Then when he does do a "complete" reload animation, when done reloading he puts away his weapon (mid-combat), stands still for a second, and then unholsters his weapon to start combat/firing again. Obviously, against Gecko's and such this is not a game breaker/big deal but I suspect against stronger enemies this could be a more serious companion-combat disadvantage. I have not observed the other companions having this issue, although I have not thoroughly tested for that, so perhaps it does affect other companions at least now and then.

I can continue to try to figure out if I can fix him via the Geck, but if you make another patch, it would be appreciated if at least this aspect of 'broken Boone' could be fixed.

Edited:mistaken, he's not reloading after every shot, that's just his rifle-action motion. glitch itself remains.

You say it happens with ranged weapons?

In the companion wheel, is he set to be close to you or to keep his distance from you?

He's set to be aggressive and 'close' to me, as I almost always have had him set, since I started playing the game weeks ago.

Try setting him to be far away from you. The AI may have been tweaked in the new patch, and the AI may be having a conflict trying to run the "far away" behavior package at the same time as the "close to you" behavior package.. I don't know this for sure, as I yet to download any patches... it is just what it looks like to me.

I'd be more willing to entertain this as a theory if Arcade & Raul behaved the same way. They do not.
I will try the distance setting in a moment, however, to see if it does have an effect. Will report back.

Nope...no difference with him set to follow farther away.

Edit: Further reflection... It does seem somewhat consistent (but not always) where he'll fire from the hip when enemies get in melee range...so perhaps that was supposed to be some kind of AI tweaking (he can't use the scope at close range?). Which again, wouldn't bother me on it's own. It's the constantly putting his weapon away after reloading.

Maybe he's supposed to be switching to a melee weapon when they get in range, now, but isn't, and it's causing confusion?....

I looked at the video. Yeah, he looks messed up to me. Looks like he is pulling bullets out of his pocket or where ever, loading his gun, and then holstering it. Then he only shoots once and the process starts all over again. Looks very inefficient for someone who is supposed to be a special forces type Sniper.

he just hasn't been the same since the patch. *sigh* I miss the old Boone and that includes all the comments he made too.

I posted in the Steam Fallout forum, asking there if others had noticed this issue. So far one person replied and said that Boone has always been like that for them, so apparently this isn't a truly "new" thing? That person also said the other companions behave normally, it's only Boone.

I'm guessing, then, that (for me at least) this is like the hand-loader GUI freeze bug. I didn't have that one initially, then 1.1 gave it to me and 1.2 has made that go away again. But now I (and some others) have the Boone re-holster bug, which I didn't ever have before. Perhaps in patch 1.3 - if there is one - Boone shall return to what I consider normal. :rolleyes:

In case helps any, my basic system stats are: Win7-64, 6GB RAM, i7-920, GeForce-275, SB X-Fi Extreme Audio, all drivers updated to most recent possible, nothing OC'd, etc.


I wish they were able to lessen the frequency of comments, rather than have to get rid of them entirely. Or maybe it is possible to do that and they just chose not to. Sigh.

I would make a small mod that made his weapons playable - both ranged and melee, take them away and give him something else, without a scope. Just to see.

I'm very new to the GECK stuff + I'm not very script-programming inclined...I'm trying/researching, but my frustration level is rising to a point I think I need to stop a while before I break something. Wish I had a GECK-expert buddy...

I downloaded the GECK this morning and it's so huge. I tried some filters and found the stats and traits for Boone and looked for anything on the combat problem and also the Boone NOT headtracking problem (he won't look at you). I can see a checkbox where the devs can designate No Headtracking but didn't find one that was checked. I'll keep looking but if we knew where to look or how to filter a search, it would help so much. I only just downloaded it and don't know what I'm doing and at this point, I'm afraid to touch something.

I just checked my Boone and he is set for ranged but insisted on using his knife even when enemies are a distance away. Even on deathclaws! He'll take out his rifle and shoot it then put it back in between. Something's up with mine for sure

This is a game I started prior to the patch, not sure if that has anything to do with it at all. I guess I could start a new game and use console commands to catch up and see if that changes anything

Update - I started a new game, used console to move to boone and did his quest and went to ceaser's camp (with console all in a span of like 5 minutes). Oh and I put god mode on. Anyways, he's acting normal

Don't worry, it won't let you save over the game files. You can only save to a 'plugin' file (esp I think is the extension). Geck's pretty cool although there is a learning curve definitely but you can just use it for simple adjustments like character faces for example and you have more options that the in game face creator.

Thank you. At this point, all I want to do is put Boone back to how he was, nothing more. I'll have lots of time to learn later. Can I just change his SPECIAL back to pre-patch numbers and do you know where the option is for his head-tracking? The thing that makes him look at you like all the other companions. He stopped looking and it seems to be broken even in a new game. Thanks again!

The only head tracking option I know if if you select the actor (caucasian male>craigboone) and then under animation there is a check box for "no rotating to head track". I would assume that it the setting but it's not checked for Boone so I'm not sure...

One more thing, these settings in the .ini appear to be new:

[HeadTracking]
fUpdateDelayNewTargetSecondsMax=10.0000
fUpdateDelayNewTargetSecondsMin=6.0000
fUpdateDelaySecondsMax=1.5000
fUpdateDelaySecondsMin=1.0000
iUpdateActorsPerFrame=1
bDisableHeadTracking=0

I'm not sure what they mean either.. wait 6 seconds maybe? These are hidden .ini settings, you have to delete your .ini while playing and dump the settings from the console to see them

Unwinding, I noticed that wasn't checked too. So far it's a real mystery because it's only Boone with the headtracking problem. The other companions look at you normally. I wish we could figure it out. Thanks again.

Added: Also, there are some occasions when you can bump into him and keep bumping him and keep pushing him and pushing him and then he looks at you. He looks at you normally, follows you with his eyes if you walk around him. (Novac) And then you go down the road or through a door and he's a zombie again. How can that be explained?! AI is freaky.

That ini stuff was interesting. I didn't have to delete the file, just set it to be not read-only and the command saved it with the 'hidden' stuff. Probably not going to be something related to only Boone, tho. I think there must be some hidden "condition" variable in a hidden script or some such that makes them set/cycle thru various action options, and for some reason Boone's isn't working in this one case. Just a guess tho.

I still find it odd that checking all those fallout behavior options at least seems to increase the likelihood that he'll head-track, even if it doesn't fix it 100%. It doesn't make any real sense.

What I'd really like is to know how to re-insert the conditions that makes him say some of his snarky lines, as well as fix the reholster glitch. The latter is very annoying during actual combat/gameplay...

EDIT: btw, in terms of headtracking, if he is doing it at first, he seems to stop doing it after a combat is over. Sometimes other triggers as well, but for me, after-combat is an always-stops trigger.

I can also confirm Boone is broken as mentioned above.

Just noticed this....wish a new game had worked for me. I did the same thing, new game, but didn't use the console...just rushed to Novac at lvl1. He was still combat-borked. Sigh.

Lastest bit:I removed his beret to ensure/reset his crit-chance to where it should be (heh) and for a brief moment he was acting almost normal in combat, firing from the shoulder and not holstering. But after a few kills he went back to holstering in mid-combat. I also tried removing the new alterations/blocks to his load stat conditions that JES put in his script, just to eliminate that remote possibility, but that had no noticeable effect on the glitch. Didn't really expect it to...ah well, time for some late lunch.

I didn't spend a lot of time to notice he was still messed up. Oh well... Time for a new companion for me anyways. Only so much "your mine"....holster.... "your mine"....holster..machete I can take

I thought I found something but maybe not. I used the tilde, went into the Console, pointed at Boone and used the command ShowHeadTrackTarget. It said Boone is set to not look at anyone. WTH. So I used it on ED-E too and it said the same thing but he does look. I also tested Veronica and Arcade and it says they're set not to look at anyone but they do. There's something in some script somewhere that's broken Boone and the other companions are not using that script. I wish we could find it.

I noticed that in the console as well....but I think that command is to check on another thing you can do with another console command. That is, you can use the console to force a tracktarget, and then use that to make sure it's working. But....maybe I'm wrong. I often am, heh. I'd have to look at that console commands list again.


Yeah, exactly. I mean, I may not love it but I can learn to live with no head-tracking and less voice lines...but the holster combat thing is another matter. Arcade may have to become my fave companion until the next patch, or someone else figures out a mod-fix for this. At the moment I can't even figure out how to save a script file in the GECK. It keeps asking me 'do you want to save' and I say yes, but it doesn't save/do anything. :/

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Btw, if anyone else is bothered by Boone's no-head-tracking thing, you can try downloading this semi-fix of mine:
http://crimsonkeep.com/downloads/temp/ZombieBooneFix1.esp

It's a very minor thing/change (checked some boxes in Boone's Follow AI Packages) and doesn't cure that issue entirely - there will still be moments/minutes where he stops tracking - but it does improve the ratio of his head-tracking by quite a bit, so he shouldn't seem nearly as zombie-ish, at least. Note that I don't know why it works, and it's just a temp measure. And doesn't help those on consoles, obviously. (edit)Also, it means he'll largely only head-track your character. He still doesn't seem to head-track nearby npc's...just you.

According to the GECK, Boone's intelligence is 3. Maybe they changed how companion AI works when they re-did companions and he is behaving that way because he is "dumb" ? That's a wild guess, doesn't explain head tracking.

Haha! His low INT explains a lot of his behavior, actually. *snicker*

Regarding post-patch .ini changes ...

The new patch did not edit/up-date any of my .ini files. I checked the file dates and they are all still from back in Nov when I last ran the Steam files confirmation utility. Also, I have some custom .ini settings for DarnUI, and weather/lighting mods that are still as they should be.

If you ran the Steam files confirmation utility after patching, then you will have new .ini files...

Cheers