Enemies are Smarter Than Companions

[Fkemman11]

Didn't know about the robot thing but it makes sense to be seen as a bigger threat. Maybe this has something to do with preventing companion aggro in some situations. During the quest confidence man I always have to take away my companions weapons if they have any because if I don't they just shoot those two bullies instead of fighting with them. When they don't have weapons they just stand there and watch me fight them.

 

I've had the same problem a few times. I think you are right that Beth programmed some sort of combat inhibiter for certain circumstances and that mods are probably messing it up. I got to Kellogg last night and before I could even speak -Heather and Mccready were destroying the synths in the room! Well Kellogg cuts off mid-sentence and starts shooting. Luckily this did not break any thing. In a way it made sense for Heather. But I do not want to spoil.

 

I would strip down to vanilla companion AI if it didn't ruin so many other things the mods do. So I'm stuck with erratic behavior it seems. :rolleyes:

[Moraelin]

Well, that's one reason I'm fond of that hot ass... err... I mean, thruster. Doesn't klank around all the time.

[Moraelin]

BTW, I guess if not expecting them to sneak is a factor, you can also try Strong. That dude definitely doesn't sneak like puny human :wink:

[llamaRCA]

 

@Fkemman11 - Are you modding the companions in some way or using a mod that does? I've traveled with Danse for hundreds of hours and I would never describe his combat behavior in that way. He attacks all of the things all of the time. He uses cover heavily, etc. I have to sneak and keep him back to keep him out of a confrontation. If I exercise no intervention he rushes in and shoots at everything.

 

The behavior you're describing can be created in the CK, but the vanillas aren't set up that way by default (well, let me qualify that. It isn't done in any of their follow/combat packages that I can see).

 

I use More Better Companions and the War Never Changes mod along with a few others that change AI behavior. More Better Companions is supposed to help your followers be more effective by switching to another weapon if they run out of ammo or actually look for another if they are around (sometimes find them carrying 4-5 weapons). War Never Changes resets the health and damage values of humans and creatures ect making humans, including PC, much weaker. No more face-tanking a nuke. As to the rest of the AI package, I cant say for sure. It has something to do with their recognition of enemies. They are slow in that regard.

Heather seems to be the exception in this- though she is still plagued with other common follower misgivings. For instance she still gives me away while sneaking. Can't complain to much about anything else. Did you make a custom combat AI for her llama? :smile:

 

 

 

We have very blunt controls for adjusting the companion combat AI. I wish Bethesda would just fix the companion AI and have no idea why they don't. We don't do much and can improve it quite a bit, but it's sitting on top of their hardcoded combat behavior so we can only do so much and they could just fix it 0.o makes me crazy that they don't.

 

RE: sneaking Heather giving you away

I play a sneaky sniper and have spent hours with her following me while doing that. I always have her in enhanced sneak which controls the problem because she stays behind the player (no sandboxing during sneak like the vanillas do) so, unless you have perks for zero detection, you should be seen first if you come up onto enemies while sneaking if you use enhanced sneak. The vanilla combat styles aren't so well controlled because they're the vanilla ones.

 

And, yeah, I've changed a fair amount with her AI, but it's kind of the routine stuff I do. Lower the likelihood of combat engagement, etc.

[PoorlyAged]

OP, my experience with companions is completely different.

 

I find that I constantly have to backtrack to extricate my companions from a fight which I had been hoping to avoid. But they caught glimpse of some ne'er do well and off they went to waste my hard earned Stimpaks. Hell, I like Dogmeat; but even he runs off to take on some nasty that happened to stick it's head into his line of sight. It get's so bad that I once deliberately shot Nick just to get his mechanical backside out of the way so I could shoot the people that HE annoyed in the first place.

 

And I do not have any mods that affect companions. I play a pretty much vanilla game with the exception of my own mods.

Edited April 17, 2017 by PoorlyAged

[Fkemman11]

@ PoorlyAged. Oh they do the same thing for me when they DO spot an enemy. Have run off many times chasing a Radstag, only to stir up trouble with some DeathClaws or SMutes over the hill. It would be funny to watch if not for needing to stimpack them several times like you say. I actually try to have a companion or two that don't require me healing them. They just do not get up until things cool down. But if I have the regulars and they run off after something, then I will be needing to restock stims after. I think it would be funny as hell to see them chase something over a hill only to come running back again once they meet something much tougher. :laugh:

You see raiders doing that but not companions.

Worse are settlers that run out of the settlement (and away from turrets that might help them) to fight something and almost immediately die. But that is another story. I seem to remember a mod for Sky that more accurately simulated animal behavior. It was SkyTEST. Another was Run For Cover or something that made civilians run away during attacks, Vampire attacks to be specific. But then authors had a more functional script extender to do some of this with. It will be interesting to see what can be done to change AI behavior in the future. That is assuming anyone is still working on things for FO4 by that time. :smile:

[Moraelin]

@llamaRCA

Oh gods, sandboxing while sneaking. You just had to remind me. Now I have PTSD-style flashbacks :wink:

 

No, really, I'm trying to sneak past the a-hole with the fatman in Lexington, and... well, you get the idea... I barely had the time to sprint away before my idiot companion headbutted the nuke.

 

I have NO idea who at Beth thought THAT would be a good idea.

 

 

On a stonking stupidity scale, it's second only to them wanting to have a chat while sneaking and/or in combat. Forcing me to stand up too in the process.

 

I lockpick into one of those warehouses in Goodneighbour, there's Triggermen everywhere, and apparently McCready is so impressed with my lockpicking the door, that he decides that RIGHT NAO is the moment to ask me if I'm impressed yet. Yeah, buddy, I'm impressed. I didn't have you pegged as the intellectual type anyway, but deciding to stop sneaking and talk while those guys are actively looking for us... yeah, I dub thee living proof that the IQ curve goes waaay to the left too :wink:

 

Or I'm trying to sneak up on the boosted raiders at the creamery, I'm crouched right outside the back door with my trusty Messer (made just for personal use), and I MIGHT have *ahem* sampled the stuff I bought from Wolfgang before the fight. (Hey, it's... err... medical Jet. I've got a condition;)) Which of course is Hancock's cue to stand up and try to tell me the story of his life after DC. FFS, Hancock, I'm stoned like a biblical hooker; I can't even understand what you're saying :tongue: Gets two bullets in the head before he gets the hint.

 

Or I'm trying to sneak through the hospital to rescue my trusty sidekick Rhett Rheinhart... err... I mean Kent, of course, and I might have chugged a bottle of Bobrov's Best Medicine (hey, told you I have a medical condition; it's called getting sober;)) And of course, that's Cait's cue that RIGHT NAO she needs to tell me the sad story of her childhood. Lemme tell ya, all those raiders almost put an even sadder ending to that story...

 

Etc.

[llamaRCA]

@llamaRCA

Oh gods, sandboxing while sneaking. You just had to remind me. Now I have PTSD-style flashbacks :wink:

ikr? The sandboxing during sneak is a terrible design and drives me batty.

 

The pointless comments are bad too. And the force greets! Seriously, force greets are the worst thing ever. If I want to talk to a companion I'll do it. Having them interupt me randomly is such a bad idea. It's so easy for that design to go wrong and for them to do it at the worst possible moment. Dialogue for a game like this is hard to get just right. No matter how hard you try they manage to say something stupid at some point. But you want to build them to minimize that stupidity, not build them in such a way that it's constantly on display.

 

 

 

@Fkemman11 - You have some weird stuff going on in your game. The synths with Kellogg shouldn't aggro and provoke an attack from your companions until you finish the conversation with Kellogg. Something's not right there, but I don't think it's a companion issue.

[Fkemman11]

@ llamaRCA Oh. I know its something on my end and not a companion mod. Never said that. Like I said could probably track it down to one of my others. But that means gutting my load order again and no. I really enjoy Heather's "determination" and just attacking in that situation sort of made sense. I won't ask what was supposed to happen with her. Just use my imagination. I mean if I had wanted to talk to the a-hole I would have done the scene over. Seemed more fitting to shoot on site without giving him the time of day! Don't you think?

 

Oh. And sort of a funny sidenote. Heather does sandbox in strange places. She did so in the main entrance to Fallon's Dept. Store. I'm sneaking in and trying to get downstairs when she pops up and points to some meatbags and said "Muties are disgusting". ALERT. Humans. ALERT. I just looked at her puzzled thinking "Damn Heather- I thought you didn't do that!!". :ohdear:

Thankfully that was the only time. Could be a glitch on my end but Heather is loaded last in order. The others though will flat out get you killed over and over with their mistakes. So I am just laughing about the one with her. :tongue:

[Moraelin]

Well, it IS a bad idea, but they could have at least applied some MINIMAL thinking to it, if they absolutely have to do it that way. Like, I dunno, only initiate conversations in safe places. I mean, DC, Goodneighbour, your settlements, and only after making sure there are no hostiles nearby or imminent attacks scheduled. The game is already divided into cells, so wth, they'd just need flag some as conversation-safe.

 

And surely it must have come up during their internal testing, since some of the stuff that bumps you above the next affinity notch is SPECIFICALLY stuff you'd do during or before a fight. Except for maybe a few die-hard roleplayers, nobody takes drugs while they're safe in their DC home. You take some Jet or Buffout specifically during or right before a fight. It's almost guaranteed to trigger Cait or Hancock in exactly the wrong places.