Alright,

MacCready left his ailing son to "find a cure" or find money for a cure? Did he already condemn him (son) to death or maybe it is just the time (wasteland). Alright, lets say it was altruistic in idea but poorly executed. We find the cure and he personally goes back and sees that his son... oh, wait... He doesn't? He entrusts a caravan to deliver it? No comment on how he will just stay until you find your son or nothing. So weird. And his greedy and moral grey tendencies are due to not having a role model of virtue. But then why does he show remorse when he killed for "a drink." I don't get his character... I want to say he is a sociopath but he does have emotions over the loss of his wife and maybe his sick son? I understand Bethesda trying to make a dike character, but his whole sob story makes him seem genuine and then he is back to dike... Reminds me of "Gentlemen" who tell a sob story, sleep with some lady, and walks away the next day.

Then this brings me to Cait... Talk about a mental episode I had with her last night. I was walking to a "help a settlement" (shocker, right?) and right outside of Warick Farm she stops me and tells me her story about being abused by her parents and then sold to slavers. I don't know if I want to go into the rest just to save some spoilers but ends up getting retribution and feels horrible afterwards. So bad things happen and she becomes harden, right? WELL, I had to go rescue a lady that was kidnapped by raiders and Cait DISLIKED that... I did a double take and a reload just to see it correctly. I mean you just told me you hated being treated and "used" at the slave camps and Combat Zone but I am going to rescue some lady from the same and YOU DISLIKED THAT?

In life, I am generally extremely nice and polite. I agree that it is hard to see through my bias against "evil" and "chaotic" people. But common.. these two make no sense. I guess I just need to find an "unpleasant" (a word that starts with the letter "a" and has two "s's" to show me the ways of these people.

yeah, I do not get some of these characters. Some seem like one way, but they do/approve of the exact opposite. Bethesda just never had been good at companions (they either have no story, or are total steryotype of jerk with a heart of gold or some other piece of garbage).

Well they might be horrible people or (hey I might be stretching it heheh Dont bite my head off)

Could be macready's son got left in Little lamplight, Which he can not enter being well grown, because someone had to find a cure, so do you give up your son, so he can live, or live with him the short time he has??

And in Caits case...... Who helped her?? NOBODY maybe she is secretly mad because of that, or disgusted by them being so weak to be taken in the first place. Even at full friend/respect level she really has a hard time grasping why anyone would stick there neck out for someone without a payoff

Maybe (I would say I pulled it out of thin air, but what the heck)

Cait and MacCready are a lot more fun to use than other characters. It's not that they don't want you to help people, they want you to help people if you get paid for it. Helping people out for free is just foolish and a waste of time. If you're too nice in the Commonwealth, people will used you and throw you away. Both of them have been betrayed by people in the past. They both stated that when you talk to them. MacCready stated he doesn't trust anyone anymore and Cait stated if you keep helping people that if you're too nice, you're just letting people taking advantage of you. They just don't like doing charity works. I can't hate MacCready and Cait because they're the only one who see how evil the RR is and are very happy to see them being destroyed. . Joking asides, yeah, they're not really the people you want to bring around if you do charity works, but it's really fun to bring them around to insult people. They love chiming in and say some pretty horrible stuffs as well. Both have some pretty snarky things to say if you side with the Institute and destroy the RR and the BoS. Cait is just like to watch the world burn kind of person.

Alright. I can understand Bethesda trying to make a morally dark character. I do get that. But her story and her retonement against drugs just makes her hodgepodge character wise. She wants to watch me burn down things trying to get her happy in real life... I understand the charity work but with the kidnap girl.. is there even a why to derive money? I get the do things for free is folly and that is why I assume the caps I make from the settlement are a tax to pay for ammo and supplies for the minutemen. She drives me nuts and I dread trying to make Strong friends with me. I might just have to be like Fallout 3 and you cannot be friends with everybody.

I see the as more practical than morally dark, especially MacCready. He doesn't care about strangers. He only cares about people who are close to him. After siding with the Institute, they both comment to the same effect that as long as it makes you happy instead of berating you like everyone else. They're the best for siding with the Institute and the BoS simply because everyone else are against those factions, it just offers you more variety. Personally for me, Cait and MacCready are always the one I max out first because they love when you ask for money, and love action like stealing and pickpocketing. It gets to the point that they are the only ones who can steal for you, and they won't turn on you if you attack innocent people, Except the place they were recruited from of course. They do have their own moral like MacCready has a kid and cries if you bring him to places with kid items, which is why he will get mad if you take advantage of children like keeping the cure for yourself or Cait with drugs. She would hate it if you give drugs to Mama Murphy. As I said, they're more selfish than anything. They are for when you want to be selfish and keep things to yourself like stealing, pickpocketing, violent actions, threatening to get what you want. They don't judge you for killing innocents.

As for the kidnapped girl, her philosophy would be to let her die, why risk your life for someone when there is nothing in it for you? There are always new settlers to replace the one being killed or kidnapped, I assume would be her logic. No one helped her in the past, so she has the instinct of survival of the fittest. You need to get yourself out of troubles, if not, then you die like the rest.

I guess I can understand that. And it is true they don't fit we me personally but it is interesting to see the difference in personalities. However, I am still on my first play-through and trying to get everything out of the game (Like I did in Mass effect... make my first run the real run). I finally got MacCready friendly and dumped him and working on Cait. Trying to get stories out of them. In the meantime building all the settlements which is taking me days to find the wood I need. One foundation takes 12 wood! One whole building worth of scavenging.. Plus trying to get to Med School has made my schedule rough... Aka the last three days I have gotten like 8 hours of sleep total.

But what I tried to get out of all of that mumble is I haven't seen the outcomes and the endings so I may understand a little more. Just in my last game night with Cait drove me up the wall

Hell I love her (Yes I know she is not real, but then again the best girls never are opps did i type that) and she drives me nuts...... Every time I pick up crap, so snarky...... Look my Irish Princess did I not Build you an entire house, modded you armor, build you an ass kicking gun... out of tin cans and pencils... and you are still given me lip. Heheh still better than pipers "whats that for" every time I pick up soap, SHe was So cute till then..

(also How can you dislike someone who likes it when you run about naked, I just pretend Cait is soft and leathery underneath her steel shell, she talks mean and gets the pouts when helping people but soon as I pick a lock or run about town in my undies were good again as it should be)

Strong on the other hand..... Complete lost cause for me and how I play

Yes, i love Cait too.

At the moment we are both only using Combat knives.

I also love her moves of body slams, tearing the foes new ones and wiping the floor with them afterwards.

When I accidentally knife her in the back when she runs in front of me she is quite forgiving."[censored]e", is all she says.

It's weird weird how she always talks about beating up guys asking her for six when she flirts with everyone and their mother.

I simply chalked it up as bad writing to keep companions with you.

Cait... yeah she is a hard one and I actually find her fun. Before she gets the cure. After that, I couldn't figure out why she didn't just leave. she began to hate everything I did after that.

MacCready doesn't leave with the cure for his son. Why not? Well... maybe his son does not actually exist. Maybe it was for someone else or to pay off something that happened in DC. Either way he has to stay with you. otherwise who else would you have that generally likes you no matter what you do?

Same with Piper. You can convince her not to abandon her sister and what does she do? Continue to abandon her sister. She can't even be told to go back home. Instead gets your settlement list as a replacement location. (I send her to Covenant heh... synth loving girl like her fits right in) But again if like MacCready, she suddenly could no longer be a follower? How upset would people be?

And then there is Hancock. Never again to set foot in Goodneighbor as mayor since you can't send him there upon dismissal.

Hancock has a good reason. He intentionally wants to run away. He was just using you as an excuse. It was the same with Piper, I guess it would be cool if you could send them back to place of origin. It was take too long if MacCready was to be gone. At least, it would take around several months to walk back and forth, so it would make it more logical in term of game logic for MacCready to send the cure back to his son. You're right, he and Cait are the only BoS and Institute companions outside of faction exclusive groups. If he were to be gone for a few months, it would affect your game, and it would be annoying for people who want to focus on gameplay instead of story, especially if they use MacCready often. I usually use MacCready very often since we have the same idea when it comes to doing quests and asking for reward, as well as defending me when I accidentally shoot a settler while helping them instead trying to kill me like Piper.

Any of your companions would leave once their affinity is low enough though. Once they leave forever, you can kill any of them.

I dont know if this is a fluke or something But my Piper does indeed go home.... I think it has to do with dismissing her and not choosing to send her anywhere. (like instead of chosing with the x button, I hit 0 instead err Playstation)

Only if you've never sent her to a settlement before. Once you do the game she gets some kind of flag so that "cancel" sends her back there. "Cancel" effectively is "last recorded location", so if you never sent them anywhere they do go home.

I'm a cop in RL, and one thing I know is that brutality breeds brutality (regarding Cait).

Regarding Cait- Well, you have to think of it like this:

- Who helped her in her darkest hour? Who busted ass trying to save her from a hellish life of abuse and slavery? NO ONE! So she had to learn to be a cold, emotionless, borderline cruel person to survive. To her, you helping that kidnapped settler tells her two things:

--> You're too weak, letting the Commonwealth use you like a rag. This is a literal 'survival of the fittest' world. If you're too weak either mentally or physically, you will not survive.

--> it reminds her of how no one came for her, so she's angry about that. Here you are busting ass to get to this settler, so she's thinking to herself, 'Where was he/she when I needed it?'

Regarding MacCready- Consider this: this was a man who spent his childhood growing up in a dark cave as it's own personal mayor, then running with Caravans, Gunners, etc. He obviously has a few screws loose in his head on the perception of what's right and wrong. To him, sure, it seems like a perfect idea to not personally go back to his son with the cure, but rather give it to the caravans and hope they can get there without dying along the way. Also, consider how many people he's likely pissed off over the years, he probably doesn't trust himself to do it because he'd be the prime target the whole way through and, more importantly, he'd be taking his enemies right to where his son is. That's the last thing I imagine he'd want. Sending off an unnamed caravans instead would seem like the lesser of two evils as far as he'd be concerned.

Plus, for in-game purposes, it makes sense. People who are OCD about having all the companions, or those who prefer to kick ass with MacCready are probably not going to like having to wait however many in-game weeks for him to make the journey to the Capital Wasteland and back. Us going with him in a sort of Fade To Black- Presto, we're in the Capital Wasteland! Now we're not! would've made things look kind of awkward, especially if it's just to give the cure to one NPC.