Just a few thoughts: unkillable companions is pretty immersion breaking. So. I thought of some fun ways to get around that, other than competent AI.

Dogs.

Well, Other than just finding a new one. We could perhaps just buy/breed dogs. Maybe you could make a business out of it? Those settlements you can make? Add a training pit where you can breed/Train dogs. Maybe have a guy do that stuff for you.

Robots

Pick up all the pieces. Put them back together again (superglue and duct-tape permitting). When your robot inevitably explodes, you can pick the pieces back up (or at least the memory core/brain) and then rebuild it yourself, repair it yourself, or upload the brain into a new robot.

Hired gun dead? Hire more. Hired mutant dead? Get a hired gun and give him a bath. Slave dead? Enslave more. (randomize the names, voices and skills of these guys.

Your child that's heavily implied to be a major story character. If your son/daughter dies, just get busy and make another one. Simples! Don't have a wife/husband anymore? Make a new one (not by some [censored], shallow, poorly implemented marraige system; but rather you just make a kid, hope it's the right gender, and raise it to be your future spouse. The true wasteland way)

While I'd be happy with re-building a busted / killed robot, or hiring "another Merc" if I had just a generic no-name / no-story merc.... if it were a NAMED Merc, someone with a personality... a ~companion~.... then I would not want them to die. Likewise, I don't care if it's possible to get "another" dog ---- having MY dog get killed would be just too, too much for me to bear. If you consider it immersion-breaking, consider the dog ~unconscious~. Once the dog is "out" then your foes would have no reason to actually kill him, so they could turn to focus on YOU... if YOU die, then it hardly matters if they went over to finish off your dog. If you DON'T die, then you can just revive your pooch and patch him up and give him a biscuit.

I wholly agree with just making the dog immortal just for the sake of convenience. That's why I don't use companions in FO3 while I always do in FONV.

Yeah companions can be irritating. Especially in Skyrim where as a ranged player they ALWAYS edged themselves between you and your prey. Made you move which was cool, but how dumb are they? Which isn't cool. Immortal pet is a bit immersion killing, so I hope it at least goes unconscious (and ignored) or runs away.

That's pretty much all I have to say on this so sorry for making you read this redundant sentence.

All companions are unkillable... not just the dog. And it was the same way in FO:NV if you don't use the hardcoe mode. But really... most people would reload anyway if their companions died.

inb4 only hostile NPCs are killable

Play Fallout New Vegas on hardcoe without mods, go into Vault 34 with companions, see companion wander of by themselves, killing everything in sight (theirs not yours) watch as companion finaly gets itself killed.

Fun right? I'm sure the AI is going to be better then FO3 and NV but companions dying because of bad AI loops and doing something that is beyond your control isn't al that awesome.

That's why if I play NV I have a mod that makes them essential, they still go down in battle but they get back up after a while when out of combat.

The immortal dog doesn't bother me actually. But...

I would probably play a Fallout dog-breeding simulator.

Yeah i prefer them to be immortal too.. they still stay down until a fight is over.. just instead of losing them permanently you have the convenience of getting them back up once the fight ends.. most of the time people would reload if a companion they liked died anyways. losing your companion still matters cus once they are down all attention is on you but you no longer need to reload every time one of them dies.

Dogmeat in FO3 was basically immortal but way more of a hassle to deal with. He always died than you wait an in game week and go back to the junkyard and get him. A weak mechanic. This system is much better, as long as your companions can be knocked unconscious than its the best system possible.

...Child dies...Just make another one...

"Honey, is there any way we can just...you know...squeeze him out now? I kinda need him..."

"We just confirmed that I'm pregnant!"

"So...three days? Four?"

Make many a children across the wasteland. Insurance.

Ok, But for companions of the living kind with personalities that we can't just replicate and then slap a random generator over it...

Why not just have them get really injured (like, there's no bloody way you're moving level of injured). The player bandages them up, carries them back to a happy place, surgeons them back together (might do a frankenstien,robocop or a brain to other body if they're too bad) and then carries on with their companion on a merry way.

As pointless as it may sound, I always retrieved dog meat in fallout 3 and left him inside the house at megaton. I'm glad he was killable, and I'm glad I could make him wait there...made him feel like an in game pet, as let's be real, he wasn't too much of a powerhouse in really rough fights. An unkillabe canine companion kinda kills it for me. If you don't have to pad resources to keep your much smaller, much weaker, unarmored companion alive, it just doesn't feel like a dog following you, hell, it might as well be a low dps Fawkes!

They should've just given the dog either a deep health pool, or despawn him from a fatal encounter possibly displaying text like, "dogmeat has fled from this fight" respawning him at a checkpoint or something.

Killable companions would just mean that I would never use companions. Definitely takes the fun out of traveling the wasteland with a buddy if you're constantly babysitting a stupid ai.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who took him to Megaton. Always wanted him to have a home. Never used him in the base game. Didn't want to lose him. But once Broken Steel broke Dogmeat and made him practically immortal, I started taking him with me. Still used Stimpacks on him every time he so much as got his feelings hurt by a Radroach though.

And this.

Make the AI smart, and then will we have a problem?

Riddle me this: What do you think would take longer to do? Destupiding the AI (and there's a lot of destupiding to do) and setting up all the coding for the features you described, or tagging the companions as essential?

I wouldn't mind being able to raise dogs, but I don't like your idea regarding companions that much. Seems like a lot of hassle and would still just make me reload rather than going through with it. But raising dogs? That I would do just for the fun of it.

Companion death is why I've yet to complete a NV play through in hardcoe.

Instead of dirty dogs, how about cool cats?

Because cats are ---holes and wouldn't follow you

House says something about cats being extinct.

fallout 5 pos up on screen for no reason *in a world where dogs are few ... an they eat all of the radroaches .. you must be come ... the wastelands..... best .....DOG BREEDER*

I've only picked up Dogmeat once or twice before this latest playthrough. I got him at level 8 or so and he died in the first fight. We never made it out of sight of the Scrapyard.

Still, followers need better commands and a better AI. If I tell them ranged, they should hold a perimeter and not close the gap on the enemy. I just get Clover and make her wait until my character clears the way. That is... until we were flanked where she pulled out a nailboard and charged a group of Raiders.

I am in a minority of players that play DID. Not for any type of self promotional back patting. It's a gaming concept and I became addicted to the way it made me feel the entire time of playing and not just boss encounters.

I want every character in the game to be killable, no matter who or what they are. Yes, we mourn the favored personalities when they fall in battle. Yet, at the same time we rejoice in glory of the victorious encounters. Like the DID playstyle, it gives their life purpose and consequence.

I just don't feel like it's really them if I reload.

I absolutely hate how gaming websites around the world are treating the "immortal companions" thing as great news. It strips away most of the emotional connection you have with your companion.

I understand why some people like it, but couldn't they at least have made it a toggle*?

*I know how stupid this must sound, as I dislike people who request 'toggles' for everything just as much as the next guy

My emotional connection to a companion has nothing to do with being worried they will step on a landmine or get mauled by a deathclaw and everything to do with how the companion is written and acted. If companion mortality made you more emotionally attached to your companions, then why doesn't everyone praise the followers in Skyrim who can easily die by stepping on a trap or getting knocked off a cliff? (I just treat them as disposable and go get a new one) Why don't they dismiss the immortal companions made by BioWare because they feel nothing for them? Give me any BioWare companion over any FO3 or TES companion any day.

As far as the toggle thing, in many situations it's a really stupid and immature request such as "can there be a toggle to make all the gay characters disappear?" or "put a toggle in that gives all the women battle bikini's and size HHH briasts!" In this case however, a toggle would be simple and would make sense.