I was travelling with Strong, and I dropped a bunch of items on the ground to scrap (armors/clothing, mostly, but I figured I'd take care of some weapons while I was at it). I accidentally dropped a Laser Rifle (clicking too quickly).


Well...


Strong comes sauntering up and grabs the rifle. I was like, "Hey! What in the sam hill do you think you're doin', you...sam hill!?" But Strong was all like, "Milk and love, baby!"

I decided to let this go. After leaving and wandering...I don't know...north?...we encountered a few raiders, and Strong was all like -- PEW PEW PEW.

Sure enough, he just fired like crazy. I checked his inventory afterwards, and sure enough, again, there were 14 Fusion Cells in his inventory. The ONLY things I ever gave to Strong were a super-sledge and some armor. I NEVER gave him fusion cells.

I think...

If an NPC picks a weapon up off the ground on their own...they get infinite ammo for it! (This is vanilla v1.1.30 -- the only mod I'm using is Darker NIghts.)

EDIT: It was not a legendary weapon. Just a lightly modded automatic laser rifle.

Some companions will randomly pick up ammo. Preston and MacCready both do this. I think how it works is that they'll pick up a gun if they already have the corresponding ammo for it.

I know they pick up stuff on their own.

This. I have seen them loot dead bodies and take weapons and ammo.

NPC's (not only followers) do that when they are in combat and don't have useable weapons (that how it happens that settlers "steal" stuff). Still I doubt that followers have infinite ammo in this case. Will try that.

I often tell my followers to loot a corpse, especially if I am already maxed on carry weight. They end up getting all sorts of ammo in their inventories. I don't think I have noticed them pick up a weapon, but maybe that is because I am constantly giving them stuff to carry and if they did pick one up I might have thought they were just using stuff I gave to them (or told them to pick up).

Enemies might also pick up better weapons. a bit earlier an supermutant dropped an minigun and another mutant picked it up as he did not have anything ranged.

Worst was then I sniped an raider boss with an fatman only to have another raider pick it up and kill me then I moved in.

Maccready just picked up an gaus rifle, probably from an dead BoS knight. Never realized how huge it is

yeah enemies will pick up better weapons from fallen brethren

companions will pick up weapons and ammo too and will use if better

when on that first railroad mish with deacon he picked up an institute pistol which is way worse than his default hunting rifle in terms of damage but is far superior for CQB, so there might be other determining factors not just damage.

also on my new character the very first combat shotgun that i got was actually found by preston somewhere i have no idea where he got it from, he had no ammo for it and never used or even equipped it.

i just found it on him when i went into his inventory to give him some [censored] when i was overloaded.

when i did a quick "kill everyone at sanctuary to see if any synths" one of the settlers was setting me on fire and when i checked his inventory (looking for synth components) he had a legendary incendiary pipe rifle of mine i had stashed in container with other legendaries. When i reloaded after checking for synths i went to him to get it back/put it back and he didnt have it, he had just grabbed it during the fight.

makes perfect sense for enemies to pick up fallen weapons that are better and i like that

it also makes perfect sense for companions/settlers to, but wish they wouldnt as it is annoying. One time on my first character i was doing a weapons and armour overhaul of my settlers and when checking on Juan (who had a fully modded combat shotgun) i found 4x combat rifles in his inventory that he had just grabbed from my containers and no ammo. what was he doing lol?

also as with preston above and the combat shotgun, god knows how long he had that for, was useless to him, and i could have used it.

Yeah, happened to me too. Cait picked up a plasma blaster somewhere that I had apparently missed and was blasting away. I damned near killed her cause I thought I was under attack, but then I turn around (she was actually behind me for once) and see here pew pewing some baddies. I promptly confiscated it of course.

more weird the gaus rifle often looks like this. http://i.imgur.com/am4CoWp.jpg

The point of what I am saying is that Strong did not run out of ammo -- he must have fired 50 times during the fight. I know, during my last playthrough, that if I manually equip a follower with a weapon and tell them to use it, I also need to keep giving them ammo. And their aim is so piss poor that it's just a wast of ammo. I am also, 100% sure Strong had no fusion cells before the fight with the raiders -- certainly not enough for the number of times he fired. There's no chance he managed to find that many over the 10 minutes we were roaming through barren wasteland leading up to the fight.

I just put a minigun on the ground and waited, but he didn't touch it. I told him to pick it up, which he did, but no 5mm ammo appeared in his inventory. He used the Laser Rifle and the Super Sledge again during the next fight. I can live with that, but I'm afraid to touch anything in his inventory now. Don't know if any of this was supposed to happen.

good question for official manual! and no, it isn't explained in the in-game manual..