Sigh... I get really tired of FO3`s default companion AI. It makes escourt missions really. I guess most of you will know this scenario anyway...


Escourting Red and Shorty from GermanTown . I really, really want them to survive. I have a nice sniper rifle to scout the area and a hulking M60 (from the xcalibr Mod) and plenty of ammo to deal with any Super Mutants.

We creep past the first lot of Super Mutants... halfway to Big Town. Uh,oh a chapel up ahead. Brisa and I checked it out and freed a prisoner, but saw no muties. But what if more have occupied it while we were rescuing the others?
I tell Shorty and Red to stop, but left them weapons as defence. I started towards the chapel with Brisa when suddenly we`re attacked by a nearby mutie I never saw.

We kill him, but this sets off a bunch of muties in the chapel- a lot.

No problems, while Brisa shoots I set up the M60. I start raking the attacking muties with heavy firepower. They drop like skittles. Even those super-fast muties can`t get near enough before going down.
Then I suddenly see Shorty run into my field of fire to attack a mutie with his bare hands. "NO!" I scream in my mind. I aim and managed to shoot the Super mutant in the head- dead. Shorty then runs off round the corner, kamikaze style to take on whatever`s round there.

A second later: Shorty has Died!

I actually thumped the table in annoyance.

AGH. I had the area covered, why oh why couldn`t he have stayed back? I suppose he was shooting and ran out of ammo which meant `suicide- time!`


Sigh....

LMAO! Yeah, stupid companions. I told Jericho to wait, far from the action, just inside the Dunwich building. I moved forward only to be attacked by two Reavers. I paralyzed one of them, and was fending the other off, fueled by Buffout, Med X and Psycho, and he just couldn't wait, and went after them with the Dismemberer. Needless to say he died.... and he was carrying a lot of good stuff too. Sigh....

On the other hand, I've found that Dogmeat, if you use that one speech option where you tell him, "Stay! Dogmeat stay!" during combat, he actually will, even though he doesn't want to. I had hacked a turret terminal, and was letting the turret do the killing for me, and he was really freaking out, as all the action was just outside this one door.

Stupid AI is why I fast travel any of those I can. Another upside of that is I've never heard Sticky's inane banter. Until I saw the "Annoying Man" videos on Youtube I never knew that he spoke like that.

I like to take Sticky, Red and Shorty back to Megaton, arm them with Outcast Power Armor and heavy weapons, then take them on a tour of the CW. Sticky actually is reasonably good with a Gatling Laser. Once I get bored of wandering around and killing things with them I take thier heavy weapons, give them CARs and drop them off at Big Town.

Shield Watcher, I LOVE your thread title! :celebration:

I went in a straight line to Big Town last time I did it.
They are insane! They go in kamikaze style with bare hands into huge enemies.

I have the trophy now, so if they die next time it does not matter as much.

But I will try to save them next time.

Escort missions are annoying.

Good thing there is only 2 in the game.

Jericho walks into mines a lot. After the fifth time he died from standing on a mine I left him dead.

But Dogmeat is sensible and I don't think he will die anyway much, He is strong.

Fawkes is so strong you don't need to worry about him charging into battle.

A enemy would have to be huge to damage or kill him.

This made me laugh. :laugh:

I agree the AI is pretty bad at times as companion often do the most idiotic things. Rather than being my followers, I find I spent more time chasing after them trying to keep them alive after they have spotted an enemy.

Oh, and don't take them anywhere near a Behemoth. :rolleyes:

I have one of my own. Li and her merry group in Taft Tunnels.

There I am, slaughtering Encalve with near impunity. I'm in VATS with a gauss rifle racking up headshots, when what should happen? Garza decides that that moment would be perfect for a completely unarmed and incapable civilian to run out into the middle of the firefight.

Crossing my line of fire just as VATS shot #2 goes off. Suddenly chunks go everywhere and I lose karma. I was tempted for a moment to go back to the save I'd made thirty seconds before, but said screw it. Let that be an object lesson to that idiot Li and the rest of them. When someone with guns tells you to stay back and keep your dammed heads down, do so.

I decided to walk Sticky to Big Town this time to hear his dialogue (never heard it before). He was making up a story about a robot (I think - I got to the point of tuning him out - fast travel from now on) and he stopped in the middle of it, stood there for about ten seconds, and then walked off to the North. He would not respond when I tried to talk to him, just kept walking North. So I let him go. Maybe I'll run into him later.

Maybe in NV but in the CW he ain't lasting an hour

I did this same quest last night, and nearly the exact same happened with Garza! Except I was not the one that shot him, the Enclave did.

Well, I know a lot of people Fast travel it, but you miss out a lot doing that and there are so many great random things that can happen while running across the Wasteland.

Like the other day, we came across Raiders attacking something in the distance, couldn`t see what it was, but it was in a shed. I got my sniper rifle out and shot all the Raiders dead. We ran up to the shed and found a dead Scavenger trader. The really sad thing was he had an alsation dog that was still alive. It just walked about the spot or sat there. i couldn`t take it with me (the game wouldn`t let me) or anything. So I just had to leave it by its dead master and go.


That was quite sad. But also really immersive.

Oh I agree with you about all the random happenings! Boy, npcs really tear into each other!