I have two issues:

1) Despite setting ED-E to passive and telling Arcade to wait to attack anything until I attack it, it seems that both my companions are a bit neurotic. When I'm anywhere that there is the slightest chance of a conflict, they both proceed to seek out the hostile and attack them mercilessly. This is all fine and dandy when it's a giant ant or a gecko, but when it's a camp full of hostile giant radscorps or a basemant full of Nightkin, it's a little annoying.

Is anyone else getting this?

TL:DR version: companions aren't passive when I select passive. I want them to be passive. Help me make them passive.


2) Companions don't successfully zone between some areas. I see the 103824 threads about missing ED-E and others. I assume some of it is the godawful path finding over anything that isn't a glass surface (i.e. rubble, rocks, cliffs, crevices, rebar sticking out of the ground, dead bodies, edges of lake, edges of structures, edges of furniture, edges). But I'm specifically talking about companions being directly behind you PRIOR to opening a door ('zoning') and being nowhere after you zone. I can still select them with the 'prid ###' 'moveto player' console mumbo-jumbo but this gets old.

So far its happened on the transition OUT of the "boulder city ruins" or something named like that (where Khans have NCR hostages) into the regular Boulder City, and when going from the regular southern Freeside doors to inside Freeside. Both of these instances were 100% repeatable, and the console was my only recourse.

Now, I know that my companions are zoning with me because prid selects them. Its just that they're zoning either into geometry, under the world, or onto a bar stool somewhere and they won't reappear unless I use console magic.

Again, is anyone else getting this? Any idea why, or how I can fix it?

Yep, ED-E won't be passive and Boone won't be passive, but Veronica will be passive. That's all I've used so far.

Too bad Veronica is bugged with something else even more infuriating; SHE DOESN'T LEVEL.

The only way to fix it is mods. I highly doubt Obsidian will even attempt to make companions better. Which isn't good since companions were hyped as a main feature to enjoy compared to Fallout 3. Look to the community to fix all of.... this.

-EDIT= Set ED-E to melee and she is passive. Only thing is, she is all the way passive. i.e. she does nothing but become cannon fodder.

ED-E and Veronica did this to me in vault 34. Yes, both are set to passive yet they attack as soon as anything targets me. I suspect that's how it's supposed to work since they are protecting you. Unfortunately, it seems like we have a lot of "psychic" hostiles (reminds me of the "psychic" guards in Oblivion) since they seem to be targeting me from other levels in spite of the fact that I'm sneaking a level or two above them.

I did have the "zoning" issue as well. I've even seen their green markers on my compass but I couldn't see them physically. Leaving and/or returning brought them back into view.

Since I'm playing in hardcoe mode I'm not using the console for anything (until I unlock the achievement, that is). But until there is a fix on the pathfinding and collision, the console is probably the easiest way to go. I had to use it a lot in FO3 for the same reason.