Tips to make companions stop attacking or not start fights

[dylandylandylan]

Is there anything I can do to make a companion stop attacking or not engage with enemies? It's been the bane of my survival playthrough. Passing through certain areas, they want to attack every enemy in sight, and will run after them or seek them out.
Currently, I run away and then teleport my companion to me, and then repeat until they permanently lose the enemy, but this is annoying to do.
Also unclear on whether you can really get a companion to stay in a spot -- I feel like mine don't, and they re-engage or wander away, especially if there's any active combat nearby. I use the "go here" command, so I'm assuming that's the one to make them stay somewhere, but it doesn't seem to work that well.

[sdack]

When you tell a companion to stay will they stay there, unless you fast travel, enter a building with an inside area, or switch inside areas (i.e. with an elevator).

Only robots will stop fighting and not engage when you tell them to stay. This may be good or bad depending on what one expects.

The "Stay" order does not always work perfectly, simply because it takes a second for a companion to comply. It can happen that one has to tell them twice.

Perhaps you want to put points into Lone Wanderer and get rid of your companion if these are too much of a problem.

[Chaosium]

Companions don't engage combat first, only retaliate when they or you are attacked, and in combat, you have little to no control on them.

Using companions in survival is a no-go anyway, they'll never make up for the loss of Lone wanderer

[therussmeister]

Originally posted by Chaosium:

Companions don't engage combat first, only retaliate when they or you are attacked

Maybe not in your world, but they sure do in mine. Annoying as heck. And random. They'll go after a radstag that's 50 yards away, but if a ghoul rushes me from behind, they'll just stand there until I start fighting back.

[Elbmek]

I lost track at how many times Piper ran of front of me when blasting an enemy. Damned annoying. I try not to have any companions now.

[no1schmo]

I think different companions have different AIs in this department. Some are more aggressive than others, and some are better at stealth than others. Some mods exist to make the more controllable, but I haven't fooled around much with companion mods.

[Bealla Donna]

Originally posted by therussmeister:

Originally posted by Chaosium:

Companions don't engage combat first, only retaliate when they or you are attacked

Maybe not in your world, but they sure do in mine. Annoying as heck. And random. They'll go after a radstag that's 50 yards away, but if a ghoul rushes me from behind, they'll just stand there until I start fighting back.

Yeah that's not true at all, literally 90% of my fights were started unwarranted by Nick.

[The Inept European]

They're a lot less likely to go hostile if you are crouching. But even if you tell them to Stay, they will move if combat starts. And as noted, if an enemy fires at them or you, they will enter combat, and thus they will move.

[sdack]

Originally posted by Bealla Donna:

Yeah that's not true at all, literally 90% of my fights were started unwarranted by Nick.

That wonderful moment when all one does is to step through an open door ... and then a companion decides to go the long way around and all hell breaks loose.

[wtiger27]

Companions can be very useful early in the game, esp. Cogsworth. He is simply much more effective than the player is in the low levels. Does a lot more damage then the player does.

But what you are describing OP is a common issue with companions. They can block you at times, when you are trying to move to a certain spot in a hurry, blow your stealth, etc.

I only use companions early in the game when I am trying to get some of their max affinity bonuses. Namely, Cogsworth, Piper and Deacon. All 3 of those buffs from them can help you later in the high levels. Curie's also can help at times and has saved my char's life several times on Very Hard play.

After I get those, Lone Wanderer is much better for a lot of reasons. More damage done and less dealt to you, weight carry and no issues we are discussing. Those are just too good not to get the max perks of Lone Wanderer.

[Bealla Donna]

Originally posted by sdack:

Originally posted by Bealla Donna:

Yeah that's not true at all, literally 90% of my fights were started unwarranted by Nick.

That wonderful moment when all one does is to step through an open door ... and then a companion decides to go the long way around and all hell breaks loose.

Lmao right
My Nick REALLY hates Radstags
for some reason, almost always goes to attack them when all they do is run away.

[dylandylandylan]

Ah OK, so this kind of confirms what I thought which is that we really can't control the companions.

I have Nick as a companion 90% of the time (and want to continue if possible, companions are a big part of the draw for me.) Now that I've leveled up quite a bit and have better weapons etc. I don't mind as much that he wants to fight every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ along the way, but early on it was pretty frustrating. Early survival game for me was a lot of hiding and sneaking.

If anyone knows mods that work well for commanding companions better, that would be awesome. I'm hoping the next FO game allows more complex commands for companions and being able to fine tune their attack parameters. For example, in The Outer Worlds, you can equip both melee and ranged weapons on companions, adjust their aggressiveness and threat level, etc. That would be great if you like ranged combat like me and you want your companion to be the one attacked so you can pick off the enemies surrounding them, etc.

[wtiger27]

Originally posted by zeraph.moore:

For example, in The Outer Worlds, you can equip both melee and ranged weapons on companions, adjust their aggressiveness and threat level, etc. That would be great if you like ranged combat like me and you want your companion to be the one attacked so you can pick off the enemies surrounding them, etc.

You can equip companions in Fallout 4 with melee and range weapons. And you can tell them to move to a spot, stay and attack a target, unlock a terminal or lock if they have that skill, etc. And have you used Danse as a companion yet? He will draw attention and so will Curie.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by zeraph.moore:

I have Nick as a companion 90% of the time (and want to continue if possible, companions are a big part of the draw for me.) Now that I've leveled up quite a bit and have better weapons etc. I don't mind as much that he wants to fight every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ along the way, but early on it was pretty frustrating. Early survival game for me was a lot of hiding and sneaking.

His general behaviour is not as annoying as the final part of his personal quest, where he insists on running ahead of you into every trap and enemy ambush, instead of allowing you to take the lead as normal.

[Jo]

Nick and Piper were the worst companions for me, like others have said Piper used to annoy the heck out of me when I was trying to sneak/snipe an enemy and she'd run out all guns ablazing. Nick wasn't the best shot even when I gave him a modded up pistol.

The only companions I enjoyed running with were Danse, Dogmeat (got me out of some sticky situations by pinning down enemies), Hancock and MacCready (Codsworth was surprisingly useful too). Cait I never used that much and Curie not at all.

Best companions (for efficiency) are the automatrons tbh.

[dylandylandylan]

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