Companion weapons

[travel]

As a general rule is there a companion who packs some decent firepower without having to micro manage too much with weapons and ammo? I see them pick up weapons on time. Never use nades

[Grendalcat]

I like Danse and his automatic laser rifle. He is somewhat effective in combat.

Also I don't recommend giving companions grenades or Fat Men.

[Kiez]

Originally posted by travel:

As a general rule is there a companion who packs some decent firepower without having to micro manage too much with weapons and ammo? I see them pick up weapons on time. Never use nades

For me at least,depends on the difficulty you play.
For example,companions on Very Hard are pretty useless,especially with the default weapons.
The best companions you can count that they will do decent damage and actually hit something with the default weapons are Deacon and McCready, both having sniper rifles.
Usually giving them 200 bullets for a calliber that is easy to find while looting will do the trick.

If you want to equip them with something make sure you give them legendary weapons that do overtime damage or double the damage. Also giving them ballistic weave clothing will make them the best bullet sponges in the Commonwealth. Btw,if you dont use nades,make sure you give at least one of them to the companion you have,they can use it endlessly (do not give them mines if you dont want to explode while a pack of ghouls is in front of you)

Thats all the advice i can give, i usually use every companion till i max affinity then change to another. they are better for carryweight than anything else.

[matt]

With high charisma, you can take a perk that disables friendly fire. That open up a lot more possibilities, such as Spray 'n' Pray, grenades, etc. I usually hand off my grenades to a companion. If you give your companion an explosive weapon, you should probably be aware that this can cause problems, even if you're immune. Sometimes my companions get into firefights with the BOS because someone (probably my companion) used a grenade nearby. But who cares about killing a few brainwashed BOS zealots, right? I'm gonna blow up their airship soon, anyway.

I once killed a legendary raider and found a Fat Man on his corpse. Too heavy -- I'm a low-strength build in survival. Then Deacon rushes forward and equips it. I had to laugh. Dude, I don't think that's going to end well for you.

[travel]

Havent met deacon or macready yet i think. I keep dragging nick around trying to get his quest. But even ADA is better in combat with her base equips. is there a way t to fast track nicks quest, honestly id like to drop him hes pretty meh

[Kiez]

Originally posted by travel:

Havent met deacon or macready yet i think. I keep dragging nick around trying to get his quest. But even ADA is better in combat with her base equips. is there a way t to fast track nicks quest, honestly id like to drop him hes pretty meh

Yeah, Automatron is another story, if you want to be more efficient in general combat than obtaining companion perks, Melee Assaultron Ada is the best,it shreds everything to pieces, you migh aswell keep her for the rest of the game.

[Iron Knights]

Give them VATS power armor and sniper rifles, they'll become instantly effective to the max.. Combat starts, Combat finishes... but I just put the scope on to find a.... Damn !!!
As for robots, auto laser & space laser or sniper laser, good combo as long as they have a good melee. If you mod a Mr. Handy you can give him 2 Nuka World Arms in addition to the thruster arms, which you can put 2 lasers on, AND you can keep the 3 eyes for HP & resistance.

[travel]

Well companion perks and unique weapons. Im litterally holding up the main quest to run around diamond city waiting for this clown to trigger,

[Chaosium]

Porter Gage, he has a handmade rifle as base weapon and thing doesn't mess around

[Iron Knights]

"Handmade Rifle" aka AK-47 made in factories by the millions, I don't know if to laugh anymore.
So instead of the M-16 they give you this WWI french, water cooled, MG looking piece of iron.
I wonder who at Bethesda is designing the weapons (*cough* Russian).

[AlexMBrennan]

Sentry frame automatrons get free dual mininuke launchers which are pretty good. Only downside is that it can be a bit tricky to find the corpses afterwards.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by travel:

Havent met deacon or macready yet i think. I keep dragging nick around trying to get his quest. But even ADA is better in combat with her base equips. is there a way t to fast track nicks quest, honestly id like to drop him hes pretty meh

If you don't mind using the console the following should do the trick:

prid 2f25
setav ca_affinity 749

After than just do anything that nick likes (like hacking a terminal) or wait a bit and the quest should trigger.

Edit : If setav isn't working try modav or forceav.

[The Inept European]

I'm never convinced that the companions have any practical affinity for different types of weapon. Sniper vs melee vs pistol etc. I know there are some skills or perks attached to the companion actors but does anyone know for sure they have any in game effect?

I generally give companions the best melee weapon I have. Then I never need to worry about ammo management and they generally make effective tank screens to tie up the enemies and hold them back by meleeing while I fire (or melee) myself.

The game mode does make a difference. Eg in Survival different laws of physics apply to companions as they give and take 1:1 damage. This makes them much tankier than you and relatively much more effective than you with the same weapon.

If it was not a total ballache to get them to switch weapons in combat, I would say give them a laser weapon so that (like settlers) they can show you where their targets are with laser tracer. Since they will spot targets you don't notice. Then switch to melee. But trying to interact with them during combat will just get you killed. Don't know why Bethesda thought it impossible to shout commands to a companion rather than having to rummage around their underwear in order to give them any direction (other than Hide/Don't Hide stay in my general area, attack what's hostile to me).

[The Inept European]

One thing that's a no-brainer is to always give them your second-best armour. That way they stay in the fight longer. The only downside is it eats into their carrying capacity (except if it's PA). I'm not sure if armour weight affects their stealth like it does yours? Most of them have perfect Stealth anyway.

One of the many drawbacks of Codsworth being that you can't give him weapons or armour, and I think he's the one with the lowest Stealth? (But still has not bad Stealth)