Companions broken? (Survival)

[rubber_duck]

Hi there!

 

I've experienced the issue that breaks companions (vanilla and modded) and was wondering if there's a way to fix this. Here's what happens:

 

Playing on Survival, so when companion gets down the player needs to use Stimpak to revive them. If the player doesn't do that - the companion will stay down and if left behind will return to its home location.

 

The problem is that for some reason, my companions would get up (exit the bleedout state) after combat ends. To be precise, yesterday when I played the game my player and companion (Ivy) got ambushed by Combat Stalkers. Ivy did all the fighting whereas I, the player, was running towards some houses to take cover and eliminate hostiles using a sniper rifle. Ivy was down and there were still 2 hostiles left. I successfully eliminated them and right after I eliminated the last of them - Ivy got up on her own (I didn't need to use a Stimpak on her).

 

Now here's the fun part:

Right after she got up her AI started behaving... weirdly. For starters I couldn't command her to follow (Follow/Stay - it was 'stuck' in Stay). Then when I entered the sneak mode - she wouldn't. I engaged in dialogue with her, hoping that would solve the issue, but it didn't. What it did instead was sent her back to her home location.

 

After she left, I immediately teleported her back and made her active follower again. That seems to have fixed the issue and she behaves normally.

 

Even though I experienced the issue with Ivy, this issue isn't only affecting her. In fact, I experienced this issue more frequently with vanilla companions.

 

Therefore, I'm asking is there a fix for this available? I use all sorts of mods that alter the gameplay, and the only one that alters companions is Survival Configuration Menu- however it cannot be the cause as I have it properly set-up and the companion settings are on their defaults (the game's defaults, at least).

 

Anyone knows how to fix and/or prevent the said bug from happening?

 

Thanks in advance and take care!

[Sgt. Marge]

The companion getting up after combat ends happens in my game but normally they are fine if they do that (and that may be because of my settings below?)

 

I've seen something similar in my survival game with them getting "stuck" in one place, but for me they would stay in bleedout when that happens, and I can't stimpak them or command them at all.  One mod I use is "companion heal thyself" but I'm not sure how much that plays into them getting bugged like this,.  When they do, they will just sit there in bleedout and if you run real far the game will occasionally teleport them to you (or if you turn fast travel on), but they remain on the ground.  I use "survival options" so I ended up Toggling these 2 options to off but I still see it occasionally:

 

Spoiler

 

The *only* thing I ever found to fix the actor being stuck in bleedout is by taking all of their inventory items and then using either 'recycleactor' or 'resurrect' commands on them after selecting them while in the console.  If they have any slot 33 item that is hidden, or any other items in their inventory, they will be lost by doing this.  I don't know if this is the same problem you are having but just not with the pose of bleedout?  But maybe it helps someone else if it doesn't help in your case.

 

The worst is when going up on any object, whether it's a roof via ladders / ramps, or up on the highway.  Hell, I've even seen a companion spawn in mid air next to me while I was on the roof, but there was nothing underneath the companion so they fell 20 feet to the ground below.  "My leg!"  Ugh.  Of course these situations is when I see the bleedout bug most often.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Sgt. Marge

[rubber_duck]

[UPDATE #1 - Possible culprit found!]

 

It happened again, though this time I think I see the cause. It's a long post, but I'm writing everything I found out.

 

It's Flashy's Crime and Punishment! Or at least I think it is as at the time of companion 'breaking' it was the only mod that could cause it. Here's what I found out.

 

It's not like the mod (CAP) doesn't work - it's working properly and I've never experienced any crashes nor issues with it. However, it does seem to break companions.

 

I was doing a bounty quest to capture one raider boss (Ack-Ack, in particular). The way capture quests work is this:

> Go to the location

> Wound the boss (either by going in 'guns blazing' or by crafting disguise outfit, the latter will let you blend in and other raiders won't attack you on sight). Once you start shooting at the raider boss, and its HP drops below a certain threshold (0.5 in my case, configurable in MCM) they will surrender. This will also make all the other hostiles in the cell to surrender.

> Talk to the boss - from this dialogue you can rob them and ultimately, tell them to follow you in order to complete the quest. I'm using easy method of capture, meaning that once I finish the dialogue the player, raider boss and companions get immediately teleported to DC Security. When using hard method, the player has to walk the boss to DC, which in my opinion is very immersive but also pain in the neck.

> When in DC Security, talk to the female NPC (J.R.) to complete the quest and receive payment.

 

It works like this for the most part, but that's when everything is normal. However, I also run Zombie Walkers which replaces corpses and skeletons with ferals (zombies).

 

Now it gets interesting.

 

Because I set up Zombie Walkers to replace majority of the creatures (and set replacement count to 3 - max), once I entered the cell there were quite a few of them. Obviously, ferals are hostile towards player, but they are also hostile towards raiders. As I disabled a few traps and looted junk from the containers, I heard raiders and ferals fighting.

 

It was then when I got spotted and had to fight against both of them. I don't know exactly how, but I think my companion managed to headshot the raider boss* and that changed the quest. If the boss gets killed, other raiders will not surrender. I eliminated the remaining hostiles and exited the cell**.

 

* - I'm also using MAIM2, so headshots on any human/ghoul NPC immediately kills the actor.

** - When I finished killing everything in the cell, I opened CAP's MCM and used 'Cancel current bounty quest' option to fail the quest as I wanted to do it properly.

 

And then I noticed that my companion is broken. I remember clearly that everything worked properly prior to killing the boss. I reloaded the save, wounded the boss myself, captured her, went back to DC Security (teleported, actually) and completed the quest. Everything worked exactly as it should.

 

Now, I got curious and wanted to try that again. I got another capture quest and immediately went to work. This time the target was Eager Ernie.

 

I managed to wound him with one shot to the chest from my sinper rifle and went to the camp. All the hostiles were surrendered, and I used this opportunity to loot stuff. However, then I noticed that my companion is also affected by the SURRENDER - upon 'activating' them under the crosshair (like what you'd do when you wanted to give them specific orders, such as unlock safe, terminal, etc.), my companion wasn't technically following me.

 

The were following me, but one of the orders I could've given them was to follow me. I know it doesn't make sense, but hear me out.

 

No matter how many times I pressed the down-arrow key (for them to follow), they'd reply with their acknowledge line, but the dialogue option would still be Follow. What's more, if I enter the sneak mode, they wouldn't do it - they'd just stand around and follow the player, but they won't crouch down to sneak how they usually would.

 

After that, I went to Eager Ernie to rob and capture him, teleported to the DC Security, completed the quest, and my companion was back to normal.

 

X===> MY CONCLUSION <===X

 

After this monstrosity of a post, I do think Crime and Punishment is actually responsible for my companions breaking.

 

Everything I've just written is what I personally experienced, and I hope this helps someone in any way in the future. During this my active companion was Ivy (6.0), but it doesn't matter which companion you have as this issue can happen to both modded and vanilla companions. Other companions, such as Heather I can't tell for sure as she doesn't use companion slot. I might test this out with her later on.