Companion Denies XP from Machine Kills

Support and Bug Reports
1

While testing the game’s marking mechanics, I noticed something odd about the amount of XP that was awarded when fighting machines with the companion: sometimes the XP was either incredibly low or completely non-existent. So, after some further testing, I discovered that there are indeed some oddities with how XP is awarded whilst running the companion.

CompanionXP

Note: Partial XP is equivalent to ‘Escaped Combat’ XP. An unassisted kill with the shotgun sometimes provided XP and other times it didn’t. It didn’t seem to matter whether the player was injured or not by the attacking machine.

MachineXP

As the above tables show, both the SMG and shotgun can effectively limit or deny XP if the companion last-hits machines. This occurs even if the player has dealt up to 99% of the damage to them! In addition, machine marking bonuses provided by the Veteran Guerrilla skill or the companion’s Spotter Module are nullified. All the more reason to keep the companion packed away, sadly.

Thankfully the rocket launcher doesn’t have the same shortcomings. It awards full XP no matter what the player does. It also awards bonus XP provided by the Veteran Guerrilla skill or the companion’s Spotter Module when destroying marked machines. Not bad!

CONCLUSION
If you’ve paid for the Companion Accessories Pack and you want the most out of it, then equip the rocket launcher when deploying your companion. If you don’t have the DLC, but still aim to maximise your XP gains then make sure you land the final shot on machines.

In all fairness, it would be great if the other weapons provided the same benefits as the rocket launcher, as there aren’t too many reasons to deploy the companion at this stage -other than its free 32 extra inventory storage- due to its many other issues (i.e. pathing, lack of evasiveness, low responsiveness, etc). I want to love the little guy, but he’s often more of a burden than an aid.

2

By any chance did you notice how these tests affect the threat points of a region? And, when playing co-op, how does other players destroying machines affect your own points?

I see the runner as a tool, taking advantage of the things you mentioned, [quote=“Heinskitz, post:1, topic:47794”]
(i.e. pathing, lack of evasiveness, low responsiveness, etc).
[/quote].

With machines targeting my runner, gives me a chance to target them. In combat, most players ignore their runner and let it fight it’s own battle. Make better use of the runner.

3

Can’t say that I did. Most of my mates who’ve played GenZero have moved on to other things, so I play and test things solo almost exclusively these days.

I was mainly focussed on the interaction between the companion and XP rewards. My final comments are more of an aside. Certainly, if you find value in running the companion then I hope this post has been helpful to you and others in getting the most out of it. :smile:

1 Like
4

Just suggesting an add to your stat sheets. Be nice to know if the runner also affects the region stats in the same conditions you studied to get these stats.

I like reading stats, I just don’t like doing them. :slightly_smiling_face:

5

That’d be interesting. There’s a few other things I wanted to check with the companion as well, such as whether or not kill target objectives are tallied correctly if the machines are killed by the companion:

  • Daily eliminate tasks (tanks, harvesters, etc.)
  • Numerous augmentation objectives

This is because I found that bosses killed by the Portable Homing Turret don’t count towards the Final Shot and Rapid Reload augmentations, so I wonder if the companion has the same issue.

6

didn’t know that, I always run with companion, so companion bullets cut some of the points, :pensive: it makes sense now, and why taken me so long to get the max score, I should have hit the 9999 score by now, but apparently the companion is cutting my score by 80%, owell