How does Milo's ability work?

[Stinkehund]

We picked up Milo as a hitchhiker and i said something about a stat getting put to 1 if it hits zero. So hey, an extra-live of sorts or so we thought.
Then we had an event that put us at -2 of a stat and we lost - does the ability only work if you hit exactly zero?

[LaChouette]

The ability definitely works even if it should bring you lower. I actually use it to gain stats (since you do get the +X stats anyway).

Did you have a conversation with Milo the week before you got that event? Are you sure there was no other event that week that brought you down to 0 before that one?

[Candidate Guillot]

Was this the week after you had just picked them up? The hitchhiker's ability doesn't activate when you pick them up, you have to have a conversation with them first. So you can only activate a hitchhiker's ability the pitstop after you pick them up (in singleplayer at least, I haven't testet it in multiplayer).

[Stinkehund]

Originally posted by Candidate Lynch:

Was this the week after you had just picked them up? The hitchhiker's ability doesn't activate when you pick them up, you have to have a conversation with them first. So you can only activate a hitchhiker's ability the pitstop after you pick them up (in singleplayer at least, I haven't testet it in multiplayer).

Ah, thank you. We didn't talk to them after the pick-up; that might be it then.

[jgtogi]

3 weeks in and I died from event damage. It might just a bug with events in general.

[Candidate Guillot]

I should maybe clarify that when you have a conversation with a hitchhiker (or Scott or Polly), you activate their ability UNTIL THE NEXT PITSTOP. Once you enter the next pitstop, their ability turns off. You can reactivate it by having another conversation with the hitchhiker which will turn it on again until the next pitstop. And when you have had a deep conversation with them, you cannot activate their ability again no matter how much you try to talk to them. So hitchhiker abilities are always temporary, you do not activate them once and then they stay active for the rest of the run. If you switch to a different hitchhiker, you can then activate their ability once you have a conversation with them and so on.