Seriously, I gave her this badass modded assault rifle, and she just turns her nose up at it consistently. Pulls out her little pea shooter pistol instead, no matter how many times I equip the rifle. She's great, but this is pretty annoying. Fights require more firepower than a glorified BB gun. Anyone else have this problem?

Did you give her bullets?

Yeah. I'm thinking somehow she's losing the ammo I give her.

1) Go into her Inventory ("Trade with you...")

2) Highlight the weapon you want her to use. That causes her to equip the weapon.

3) Take from her ALL of her other weapons. She WILL use that weapon because it is the ONLY one available to her.

I've tried, believe me. The problem is the pistol she uses for some reason doesn't show up in her inventory. I can't take away what apparently is not there. It's driving me crazy. Not sure if it's a glitch or not.

If you give a companion a weapon and specifically equip it you also have to give them enough ammo so that they can waste it while they accompany you.

They will go through a 1000 rounds and more in no time.

So if you want them to use that gun you have to give them heaps of ammo and also press the appropriate key/button on your gaming device whilst looking at their inventory that equips that weapon.

If you do that and it doesn't work then it's a bug.

I usually give them a couple of good guns that use different ammo types and the associated ammo, buying them more to keep them stocked.

I make sure not to use the same calibre weapons that they use.

Also to save on ammo you might consider equipping them with a modded legendary melee weapon.

If you give them a couple of guns they usually swap them to suit the conditions or fall back to the lesser of the two when one runs out of ammo.

Then finally when all the ammo is gone they revert to their default gun.

If you also give them a good melee weapon but don't specifically equip it they will sometimes use that in close quarters.

If you dismiss them to a settlement they will still use an equipped weapon if they have at least one round but will stop consuming ammo until you take them with you again.

You can't get rid of her default pistol, and she'll use it as a backup when she runs out of ammo for whatever weapons you give her. And companions require ammo for any weapon other than their default. They'll also occasionally pick up weapons and ammo on their own.

Hunh. I've noticed that whatever their skin armor is that they are wearing doesn't show in the list. But when you T them to don some other armor, what they had been wearing appears in the list. Watch for that.

Each Companion (excluding Dogmeat and Codsworth) have a weapon that they have when they join you. For THAT weapon and that weapon only, they have infinite ammo, even if that ammo doesn't list. When you switch them to some other weapon, they will expend ammo for that weapon the same way you do. That is, one shot = 1 bullet (or whatever).

Damn, I didn't realize that. I thought it was like with settlers, where you only have to give them a single round of ammo. I guess that's only when you dismiss your companion. That's kind of hilarious, actually. I've been bringing Piper along expecting her to tear through enemies with a supplied rifle with a single bullet. Guess I'll have to start dipping into my 100,000+ .45 ammo stockpile.

Yes 100,000 rounds should be enough for a few sorties around the commonwealth.

The trouble with companions is they don't conserve stuff like we do.

For instance if you give them a stealthboy they will use it at the slightest hint of trouble, even when confronting a fly.

At the moment my companion and I are using melee with me falling back to ranged weapons when she goes down and we're severely outnumbered.

But I can't get out of the habit of bartering ammo when I see it even though I hardly use any ammo these days.

I guess melee is the best option then. I'm very conservative with my ammo consumption, and It would drive me crazy for a companion to just burn through it all. It's all good, I guess. I'm excited to see Piper use a deathclaw gauntlet.

Yes that is what happened to me once with Piper's original red trench coat. This might be to prevent anybody else but the original companion from wearing their original attire.

I think it's mostly just there to prevent us from stripping any NPC naked. You can equip something else on your companions (and any Intimidated NPCs), and their original attire will appear in their inventory for you to grab - but whatever they're wearing won't appear. Until you equip something else.

That's odd since one time i accidently stripped Piper naked when switching her clothes and realised i had not done so.

Was she in Power Armor? That's one way to get around it. You could also equip her in a full-layer outfit and then equip a hat, or a leather chest piece or something. There's ways around it.

No i never equip Piper with power armor. Just the thought makes me smile with the funny image it brings up.

Yes it was probably equipping her with a full layer outfit or the other types of attire you mentioned since i had a bunch of stuff i was trying on her to see how it would look on her. Pretty amazing how a change of clothes can give off a totally different image. One minute she's a serious reporter next she looks like some cow girl from a black and white western.

Characters where up to three layers of attire: 1) skin armor, like Road Leathers, or normal clothes, 2) outer armor (which comes in up to 5 pieces), and 3) Power armor exoskeleton (to which may be attached up to 6 pieces of PA). If you have a character don at least one piece of outer armor that is NOT compatible with the clothing underneath, the clothing gets removed and moved into Inventory. For example, any chest piece is incompatible with heavier-weight (3 or 4 pounds like a trench coat) of basic clothing.

she needs plenty of ammo, i give her a combat rifle since i use ammo for the assault rifle and i make sure she has 1000 rounds at all times more or less.

don't give her an automartic weapon, its a waste of ammo, i give her a modded semi auto rifle and she doesn't need 10,000 rounds, if you give her a semit automatic weapon 500 or 1000 rounds should last a while, i give her 1000 or more and i don't need to be constantly giving her ammo, in the course of time as i collect more, but little bits here and there' my stockpile of what she needs piles and she ends up with 2 or 3 thousand rounds eventually cause i collect it faster than she uses it even without me spending a lot of time trying to get the ammo, i just piles up on its own almost, i buy 50 rnds here and there, level 1 of scrounger perk and i end up with ammo for her and i give cait a modded laser riflem i use plasma and 5.56 rnds so there is no confilct with the ammo situation, cait uses fusion cells and piper uses .45 cal ammo. and neither of them ever run out and thats without me trying hard, if you build tons of purifers caps is never an issue.

I think the worst thing I equipped a companion with was a legendary gatling laser and 20 fusion cores as ammo.

A gunner had been using it against my character at Quincy doing a lot of damage to me in a cross fire situation, to the point where I had to retreat temporarily, circle around and ambush them.

I thought the companion would put it to good use but they weren't as accurate as the gunner.

Unfortunately when I took the gun and cores off the companion I had 20 partially used cores as, unbeknownst to me at the time, the game always loads a full one when equipping the weapon.

Partially used cores in my inventory is what drives me crazy so I sold them and gave the gun to a settler.

Also using guns on the hardest difficulties results in greater ammo use and i tend to go on long excursions around favourite hunting grounds.

One favourite is on the Western part near the border of the glowing sea.

First the raiders, then the Mirelurk, then the big Wasteland creatures near the edge of the sea, then the mutant Warlords, then the random encounters, finishing up with the gunners camp in the area before heading back to Graygarden.

Are you giving her ammo for the gun? Keep in mind that you have to give them a full supply of ammo. With settlers you can just give them 1 bullet and they'll have infinite ammo. This isn't the case with active companions. They go through ammo just like you do.

That won't work. You can't take a companions default weapon from them because it doesn't appear in their inventory.

If they're wearing an outfit that doesn't allow armor pieces to be worn over the top, and you equip them with a piece of armor, it will remove whatever garments they're wearing to equip the armor.

This happens with all companions and settlers. You can't see the base layer outfit that they're wearing in their inventory. If you trade them a different outfit and equip it, the item that you're equipping will disappear from their inventory, and the outfit that you're removing will appear in their inventory. I think it's basically just there to help prevent people from accidentally stripping them down to their underwear.

Exactly as long as you give them semi automatic weapons youll be able to collect the ammo faster than they burn trough it, but giving em full auto weapons is a complete waste of ammo since they will burn trough insane amounts of ammo in no time.

I always equip my companion with the Furious Power Fist and watch them go to town beating opponents to a pulp.