In terms of combat skills. I tend to give my companions the big heavy duty weapons, so I can focus and narrow my skills and different weaponry and let my companion use the other weaponry types that I haven't mastered.

However, in Fallout 3 if I gave Charon a grenade he'd rarely use it or throw it at his or my feet. If I gave Butch a rocket launcher the same would apply, or he would use it on a Radscorpian but never a Deathclaw. Etc,

Im just hoping that if I give my companions the expensive big ass and big boom weapons they'll use them with common sense. Am I making sense here?

No they won't be tweaked, the thing with companions is they have strengths and weaknesses too, so if you give a scrawny doctor a fat man he won't know how to use it

No they won't be tweaked, the thing with companions is they have strengths and weaknesses too, so if you give a scrawny doctor a fat man he won't know how to use it
EDIT: Sorry for double post, my bad

Its cool.

They've said before that companions have their own strengths and weaknesses, and wield certain weapons more effectively than others. Veronica is mainly unarmed, who's default weapon is a power fist, Boone is a long range sniper, so he's obviously better with using scoped rifles. Raul uses revolvers, Cass uses shotguns and rifles, Arcade uses energy weapons, and Lily uses melee weapons (as far as I can remember).

So it wouldn't make much sense to give, say, a minigun to Raul, a plasma caster to Boone, and a flamer to Veronica. Instead, you'd try and equip them with weapons they'd wield more effectively, like giving Veronica unique power/ballistic fists, giving Raul a better revolver, Boone better rifles, etc. etc.

Of course, it probably wouldn't hurt to give them a backup weapon, in case they end up running out of ammo, or what they're using just isn't effective.

companion wheel

...?
What about it.

I think companions will be the biggest problem with hardcoe mode for me. I like having to care about sleep, water, food etc., but having my companions permanently die on me is unacceptable. So I can't use my companions through most of the difficult missions because they will just be a pain to protect, which makes me almost want to play on normal.

Yeah, I'll probably leave them at home too if they cant handle combat. I'll be using stealth too so...yeah,

Hrm with regards to the 'common' sense part, unfortionately the thought processes which are regarded as 'Common' Sense are now extinct and have been replaced with the rarer varient of 'Uncommon' Sense, being that it's no longer common.

Back to the main point/topic at hand, I think it might possibly be a case of they're scripted to 'prefer' certain weaponry types as in if you give let us say Boone a hmm stonking Plasma Caster, he might ignore it and continue to use his trusty Sniper Rifle but if you give him a better Sniper Rifle he may very well use that one instead of his 'default' one.

Fond memories of when I handed a mod Clover a new weapon when she whined
about wanting a better gun one too many times.

Clover with a fat man was [censored] glorious.

Girl had no sense at all.

:goodjob:

Ok I kind of get what OP means, even somone like jericho never used rockets properly but he used most big guns just rocket he tended not to use often yes it had ammo . Also the companions you named are not specilist in them Guns/Grenades, best bet to use someone who actually got traning in big guns but still don't expect them to use thing perfectly lol remeber jericho blowing up a stupid mole rat regardless having a minigun at hand.

Does anyone know if companions are romanceable or if there will be any romantic type dialogue with companions?

Hope not. I cant bring a wife and kids up in such harsh times.

I wouldn't put too much faith into it. It's a possibility, but even if there is something like that, don't expect ME2 quality options.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1098302-fallout-new-vegas-fan-interview/

Nope