I have a few issues with the new companion that aren’t necessarily bugs but I think that they are important to bring up:
The thing gives me a heart attack every 30 seconds. It sounds just like a regular runner and keeps teleporting in front of me. If the companion had a somewhat pitched different sound set and also gave a visual indicator of when it was teleporting (or if I had to manually teleport it to me) that would likely help significantly.
It’s very dumb. If I’m running away from a fight it keeps teleporting to me, then running back, further drawing aggro as I’m trying to get away. It targets things I’m not attacking, bringing more enemies into a fight than I want. When I go into a house it keeps running around outside making me think I’m getting attacked. The companion needs the following controls:
a) Attack Target. This includes structures in FNIX Outposts. For the RPG it needs a melee option so I don’t blow myself up.
b) Heel. Follow me closely, do not attack anything.
c) Stay. Stop moving until I call you. This needs to function past teleport range, as it’s too small to make proper tactical choices with this option.
d) Distract. Engage the enemies but focus on dodging attacks and only attack to keep aggro.
2a) There are likely a few more useful commands but I’m struggling to think of them atm. Please do not attach these to a handheld item, I already struggle to have enough quick slots I do not need another. My suggestion: Emote Button → Shift Mode Select to Companion Commands → Mouse Select or Numeric Select on a visible wheel. This way it should also have a counterpart to controllers (although please let us bind a direct key to this wheel, we have a full keyboard, let us use it)
The light of the companion keeps glaring up the sights on the Scope and Binocs so I can’t see through them.
The armor is not worth the cost. Either boost it or make it cost significantly less (half at least). I had a single Hunter take my 2-star armor from 70 points to 0, and then delete the full health bar in about 1.5 seconds. Wish I could tell you what attack or model did it, bc they ran off into the woods where I couldn’t see or help them and then promptly died.
Give us an Assault Rifle and Sniper Rifle option for the weapon. SMG and Shotgun are too short range to be effective.
All being said, I think the companion is exceptionally useful (at least the RPG version is, the smg and shotgun versions didn’t seem to do any damage before destruction) and I like the direction y’all are taking the game. Just needs some additions to make it better.
Id honestly love to replace the emote wheel (I for one don’t use any of them atleast not regularly enough to justify keeping that feature and losing something else) and have that as quick commands like attack and stay, etc. I think you have a good point here with this post,… and definetly on the tone change of friendly vs typical enemy. I didn’t make it out of the bunker yard before the first heart attack
I’ve not had chance to play since it first released but I’m pretty sure when I tried it that replacing the armour repairs the companion to full health.
This way, you don’t even need to use repair kits and you can do it at any point; you don’t need to wait until it’s downed.
Yeah, I guess that’s one way to do it. I try not to use fast travel, so I need repair kits if I want my buddy to travel on foot with me. I am kind of attached to it already. He such a good boy.
I wanted to call him Pavlov, but I ended up with Cyber.
You can Harold, he just wont listen. For now, if you really want him to stay just pick him up. I like to let him do his thing. His uncontrolled behavior is a pleasure. Maybe the devs tweak it out of him, but that would be a rainy day for me, because then we get a less lively docile machine without any of the wonderful shenanigans he displays now. Sometimes, I just let him lead the way. I prefer his spotter behavior over Medic or scavenger. So he spots 'em and I have his back. We’re a great team.
It only sounds like a runner if you use the FNIX Runner Voice. Otherwise, learn to differentiate your runner’s bubble mechanical voice from the semi mechanical dog vocalizations of the enemy Runners. I’m running with the Digi-Dog voice and I can tell the difference, and Digi-Dog is closer to Runner than the stock voice is.
I affectionately refer to my runner as Backpack (a Brutus and Pixie reference, if you get it) because I pick him up and carry him with me to escape combat. You should try it. It’s not hard, and if you’re losing the firefight, you’ve probably get the weight limit space to carry his 2.5kg (seriously, guys?) butt.
Like every other light source. Weird.
Resource sink. It will either be balanced or we’ll adjust to it and call it fine in a few months after we get used to it. What I’d like to see is a way to look at the Companion, in or out of configuration, and see what level armor they have on them, like I can tell what grade scope I’m using by how cracked the screen gets when I scope through it.
Runners don’t have Assault Rifles or Sniper options. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the Companion Hunter DLC. Now I’m just giving the players things to froth over and the devs things to worry about. You’re ALL welcome.
I have something that occured to me yesterday (again…), the Pet Runner AI is totally dumb when it comes to damage done by (static) fires…
During a fight at a barn a Tank shot some volleys of rockets and the fuse box of the barn exploded and went on fire. My little machanical friend was running around as usual and fired all over the place, attracting other Tanks and Hunters from far away to the fight…
So we waited for them to come closer and I noticed an “Aiaiai” sound from my electrical dog and her health points dropping slowly but steady…
All that because she was standing next to the burning fuse box and was damaged over time…
Two days before the same thing happened while she was standing next to a burning car.
So it would be nice if the AI could get a fine tuning to avoid such situations and to get a better self-preservation.
Then some better enemy or threat awareness. It happened more than once that the little dumba…s was standing with the back to a big threat right in front of us and fired upon targets on the “horizon” I didn’t even notice… Maybe some command like “take on my target” vs “fire at will” !?
Plus at least a command to recall our little friend when it’s too far away and running to an e.g. unwanted fight.
Since we can command it to do tricks, we need commands so it is a better companion.
HEAL=stay behind and next to owner and then follows from there. Useful for stealth missions. Also useful to bring pet to owner for pet access.
STAY= just stays where you gave it the command. Will come to owner with HEAL command or owner leaves the pets FOV.
Both commands cause the pet to not fire till the machines go into combat mode.
Since I like playing with the spotter mode, would also like one extra command for each pet mode.
Where the spotter would have a scout command. Where the pet runs ahead of the owner by a set distance, doesn’t have to be very far. If it spots a target, it stops, scans and mark targets as it sweeps across it’s FOV. Kind of like a radar sweep and shows a blip as the beam sweeps by. The targets only stay marked a second or so as the sweep continues. Once it “sees” all targets in its FOV, the command is cancelled and it gets close to the owner again.
The spotter mode came in handy when we were in a hilly area. All the machines were not in my LOS but the pet was marking them and I would fire at them as I could see them.
My pet has its uses and would like to see them become more useful in future updates.
Does your runner like to shoot the flares you throw? Like every other runner in the world? Mine likes to do that. I’m using stick flares, at least he’s shooting missiles at the right target. And sometimes he likes to push you out of cover, maybe he thinks you character is shy and dont wanna play with the other machines.
For now, if you really want him to stay just pick him up. I like to let him do his thing. His uncontrolled behavior is a pleasure. Maybe the devs tweak it out of him, but that would be a rainy day for me, because then we get a less lively docile machine without any of the wonderful shenanigans he displays now. Sometimes, I just let him lead the way. I prefer his spotter behavior over Medic or scavenger. So he spots 'em and I have his back. We’re a great team.