One of the many companions I'm really eager to ally with is Raul-and I'm aware he's a mechanic/skilled in repair. But I'm not aware of the specific details of his perk(I have no idea what is is), or the general advantages to having him as a companion. So, I'm not sure what kind of character I ought to be to make the most use out of him. Such as what my strengths and flaws should be.

Any and all help is appreciated. :]

As you stated, Raul offers repair services, however you still have to pay him and I am not sure if you get much, if any, of a discount. Also, he can't be your follower if you want him to repair things. You have to dismiss him back to his shack, not the Lucky 38. So, if you want to repair things cheap and whereever you are, you still need Repair Skills or Repair Kits. He does slow down how fast you damage your weapons from use, and if you mix in Bulk Ammo, you may rarely ever have to repair anything.

As for combat, he is a pistol shooter, not sure if he likes rifles or not. He is not much on Melee, but that could just be from the battles I have had did not need it. However Raul seems to go for the Melee less often than say Boone does.

TBH, I don't tailor my character for my Followers, I make my character do what I need them to do for the Role I am playing, and then have the follower along to be a bullet sponge or comic relief or to be back up in a fight. Sometimes I just let my follower take care of things as I go along. I have not seen a follower that is so well versed in anyone thing that I could have my PC gimped in that skill. Although Veronica with her devestating Unarmed attacks do offer a tactical balance to my prefered ranged weapon attacks. So, if I have her along, I ignore Unarmed for my PC.

I've been able to get Raul to use rifles just fine, Veronica on the other hand...I've had her for about 15 minutes now after completing Arcade Gannon's quest and dismissing him back to Freeside; so far I've been in three firefights and not once has she chose to fight. I sure hope she turns out to be a better companion than what she's shown so far.

Is she set to Passive or Aggressive? I have not noticed Veronica shirking from a fight in my travels (all my companions are usually set to Passive Did you tell her to use Ranged or Melee Attacks?

Guns is Raul's tagged weapon skill and thus he can use any bullet gun with equal ferocity. Basically, he's like Boone/Cass in the Guns department. But he's not skilled in Melee (not Tagged). I love not having to repair weapons when he's around. Most will degrade so slowly my stockpile of repair kits eventually feel almost pointless. Not quite, but almost.

Edit: Thus you may care less about raising the Repair skill on your own character, since you don't need to repair things as often, even if you don't use Raul as a repair merchant.

Haven't checked yet. Like I said, I only picked her up a little while ago. Will have to check that out.

EDIT: That fixed her.

Okay, thanks a lot. :] And it's not so much that I create my characters based on what companion they'll have as much as I already have multiple ones-each with different strengths and weaknesses. And I figured I ought to pair them up with the best option. I didn't realize that the skill wouldn't matter much, though.

But yeah, I appreciate the help, again. :] It'll be useful when I get him for a companion.

He loves lucky and a Cowboy repeater with hand load ammo.
However give any gun character a Riot shotgun with slugs and they kill everything quickly, Raul especially ( next to Cass. )
Companions should really be set to agressive imo, passive offers no advantage with their hinky A.I.

Veronica is fantastic with the Q 35 matter modulator plasma rifle.
She is insanely powerfull with it, but if enemies get close she tends to switch out to powerfist and die quickly.
So again set A.I to hostile + ranged.