I was reviewing the list of Companions and was concerned about whether or not Cait can be integrated into my Settlement.

According to the notes, if you don't indulge her with a steady supply of violence, she leaves the team.

But it also said that she could be reformed.

If I make the time and effort, can she be made into a happy committed member of the team?

Or will curtailing her bad habits just result in her walking out of the group?

I've been hanging with Cait a lot, she's very focused on you rather than a "group". When Garvey offered me to lead the Minutemen Cait wanted me to decline, saying she would prefer just going at it together. She's not the best team player I think but I decided to just dump the Minutemen etc and go through the game with Cait. That being said she will probably calm down a bit once you've maxed your relationship, though I doubt she will ever really change her mind on the Minutemen etc.

You may find this helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiQBXCIWCmE

She prefers more action and thus prefers the BoS. Join them and don't do all your quests for 'free' (because you're just such a nice guy) and you should be fine.

I didn't watch all of the video because I want to see the conversations for myself, but it looks like you have to talk to Cait often and be as supporting as possible (positive responses, left or down) to keep her as a team player.

Do you just need to initiate conversations or do you have to keep taking her out to play in the field?

I tend to randomly pick a companion depending on who I think is fun or appropriate for the mission, so I don't use the same one consistently.

There are a couple of complications:

The first is I decided the Minutemen are worth keeping as allies, so she may not like that.

But if she doesn't let her distrust of them interfere with the team dynamic, I could live with that.

The second is I haven't decided if I want the Brotherhood of Steele as allies, because their interests conflict with those of the Railroad, who I'd prefer as allies.

I haven't discovered if there is a way to settle their differences through negotiation yet.

Based on this I would leave Cait for another play-through. This is more in line with how Piper would want you to be.

Basically you are not going to make Cait a good person. You can help her. You can romance her. But Cait is Cait, take her or leave her.

She is imo hands down the most awesome NPC in Fallout 4 and possibly in a Beth title to date. I love it when a companion has a strong will and doesn't just follow meekly. I love Dean Domino in FNV's Dead Money for the same reason.

You've had her on as a companion, yeah? Any tips? Cool stuff I could do or check out with her along?

Like I've said don't volunteer to do everything for free, ask for some caps if the option is given. She also likes watching you lockpick. And as I said she seems to approve of the BoS so joining them increases her affection.

Can you secure Cait's allegiance without doing anything relating to the Brotherhood of Steel?

I somehow managed to win Piper's loyalty just through picking a lot of locks and resolving her personal conflict about Nat.

Given that she wasn't accompanying me much , it was surprising to see this achieved so easily.

Which makes me hopeful that I can use a similar workaround for Cait, just find something that appeals to her and do it a lot.

She also apparently likes to see you naked. In the times I've walked by her sans clothing, I've gotten a notification saying 'Cait Liked That'.

I maxed my affection for her by just lockpicking and asking for more caps in missions. Havent even gotten to the point of joining a faction and im maybe 40 hours in.

So aside from maxing her affection, can you change her at all? Like her personality? I like her the way she is just wondering what you guys are talking about

I know what I'm going to try next.

She's a tough girl and likes tough people. I don't think that changes even after she's cleaned up, so her personality should remain the same.

She also likes to BE naked. When I travel with her disrobed I get random "Cait liked that" notifications.

How can you take her clothes off? I've not seen the NPC's default clothing in their inventory when trading.

Drink Alcohol for approval and pick whatever locks are leftover after courting Piper.

Then she asks for your help getting clean.

I argue my Sole Survivor knew Cait only gets comfortable with people after getting drunk with them a few (dozen) times.

Order a NPC into your power armor, trade with them to take their cloths then order them out of the armor.

After doing that once, you can re-nakedify them by simply equipping the Chain Collar. For some reason the collar attaches to their wrist, looks kinda cool.

Is there a way to get her to actually drink with you, or do you just drink a bottle in front of her?

Sadly, you just drink the bottle and Cait makes some comments, some of which sound like you're sharing it.

It should be noted, also, Cait's belligerence changes when you clean her up.

It turns out taking Psycho recreationally impacts a person's personality as well as their judgement.

After you clean her up, it becomes harder to get approval because you can't just do chems and/or drink with her.

However, I had a lot of fun doing the more morally ambiguous mercenary quests and hitting people up for money as well as lockpicking.

Her romance is also really sweet, especially if you are polyamorous with Piper. Got a few fun comments they're both happy to be with you (man or woman) and each other.

Cait and Curie don't much care for each other lol

Where do you see the level of affection?

As far as I can tell, she stops taking chems/disapproves of using them, that's the only noticable change.

Since I not going to recruit her yet, I don't have any personal experience of how her outlook changes.

I'm not a chem user, so I'm going to have to use other methods to win her approval.

There are a number of locks I've been unable to pick (lockpicking perk is low level), so I think at some point, I need to revisit everywhere I've been with Cait and pick the locks I couldn't open.

I'm not in the habit of taking money to help people out.

Also, there is the added complication that I'll have done every mission I can with Codsworth and Curie to earn their favor, which won't leave much for Cait to help with.

The only way I know of to check affection is to initiate conversation and ask their opinion of your relationship with them.

I don't think there is a visual indication anywhere.

There might be a console command to display it, but I don't know if there is one or what it is.