RR Companions and the Experimenal plugin 1.3

Alright, I admit it. I've sort of been holding out on you all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting on a perfectly working companion system, laughing at you all for falling for my buggy prank.

But there is a new version of the AI improvement plugin that hasn't been uploaded yet. Why? I wanted to get some play time in on it and make sure things are still actually improving.

I think they are.

I played six odd hours yesterday (really last night and this early morning), across two sessions. For the record, you'll see me reference three hour play sessions a lot. This is not a tribute to Gilligan's Island. It's just that three hours of straight play is about what my system can handle before the cache is full, and FO3 starts trying to crash on a regular basis. Which works out fine - after three hours I really need to get up and move my lazy ass around some, anyway.

During this six hours, I saw lots of combat, ran over some of the roughest terrain in the game, and actively tried to lose the companions on more than one occasion.

How many "stops" did I have with my girls?

Two.

Compare that to the unmodded companionscript, where you're doing good to make it to Megaton from Vault 1 without a stoppage.

Started in Vault 1, as I so often do. I tend to make my numbered saves after going home and unloading my lewtz.

From Vault 1, we headed north; cleaned out the Springvale School, and moved on north. Hit Enclave camp 19. Here I want to note something amazing. I had left the Enclave camp, and turned east towards the mirelurk spawning grounds. The terrain is very rough, made up largely of chunks of concrete that you can't pass without jumping onto and over the blocks. I figured this move on my part was sure to lose the companions, and I'd have to go back and get them - or that they'd pull their usual move, and swing around the long way to get to me over normal terrain.

I turned to snipe a mirelurk... and heard a call from behind me. Looked back, and they had both somehow crossed the impassable terrain, and were about to begin unloading on the two mirelurks that had noticed me taking pot-shots at their buddy.

I have no idea how the girls managed that, but I wish to hell I had been watching.

From the Mirelurk spawning grounds, we followed the south-side of the Potomac around past the Super Duper Mart, crossed to the north side of the river, and switched back, heading north. Went to Wayland, and explored Gomorrah (an underground town added by the 85 Outfits Recolor mod by BeZen - very recommended).

After checking it out, we went back topside and continued on. Hit the Pop Stop, switched tack again, and headed to Minefield to take care of that part of the Wasteland Survival Guide. From there, we headed on north, hitting locations and killing everything in our path. Before I knew it, we were only about five hundred meters from the Isolated Camp, so I decided to pop in there and pick up Mai and Sabine; since I really needed to check out the custom body texture I've been working on for them.

On leaving the Abandoned Tent, we immediately had stoppage number one.

Not unexpected, as I did violate my "no more than three companions" rule. Mai and Sabine defaulted to sandbox mode as soon as we were outside.

I'll point out here, though, that there was no hesitation in following me outside the tent through the cell-change door, for any of the four.

Tapped wait, and gave them an hour. No go. Went up, and issued an individual follow order to each, and they came on without a hitch.

Fast traveled back to Vault 1, unloaded my loot, and had Mai and Sabine stay. No slowdowns, stops, or erratic behavior whatsoever in traversing the access tunnels, or Vault 1 itself. They stayed without issue, and the new texture looks pretty cool, to boot.

With my usual two followers in tow - and several hundred pounds of loot lighter across the three of us - we left Vault 1, headed for Megaton, and finished off the Minefield part of the Wasteland survival guide.

We fast traveled back to the Abandoned Tent, and spent the night inside (I hadn't found a PA helmet yet, so no night vision - makes wandering the wastes on an overcast night dangerous). Took off the next morning, continuing north and west. Passed the Shady Toolshed, avoided the two satellite relays as I didn't feel like dealing with the Raiders at that time. Walked clear to the Northern edge of the map. I was so wrapped up in keeping an eye on my companions that I didn't pay attention to where exactly we were. Switched direction again, headed southwest. Ended up on the western edge of the Potomac, and followed it south from the northwest corner of the map.

Made it to the third relay station; the one occupied by Enclave scientists. Cleaned it out, and went south, crawling along the rocks awhile.

At this point, I was actively trying to get my companions lost. I was hopping from rock to rock, going through impassable terrain, and just generally picking the shittiest path I could find. They kept up amazingly well, and never stopped following.

Perched on a rock overlooking Bluefish Jetty, I sniped some Raiders, and decided to head down into the valley to collect my spoils.

Had stoppage number two. One of the two companions stopped. She didn't revert to sandbox; just stood there. I had her tracking entry active, and decided what the hell; I'll just go on, and see what happens. Worst that could happen is I'd have to go back and get her.

Made it to the docks, and was midway through collecting loots... two to three minutes real-time, if I had to guess, and the tracking marker on my HUD starts moving. She started following again on her own. Caught up to us, and continued on without incident.

From there we headed on south, and got onto the Rocky Overpass. Took out the Enclave camp there, and continued on the ramp for its entire length past the Abandoned Car Fort without issue.

Went around the MDPL Mass Relay Station, stopped briefly around the VAPL-58 Power Station to clean up some Protectrons, and then continued on to Arefu. Got into Evan King's house... and the game crashed.

I was over the three hour mark here, and the game had been acting buggy and slow for about twenty minutes. It was mostly my fault for pushing on, and not saving, exiting, and taking a break.

Fired the game back up immediately, took care of getting the Repair bobblehead, checked in on the residents of Arefu, and saved and called it a morning.

If you take a look at the map you see I damn near circumnavigated the northern half of the wasteland.

This is one of the best performances I've ever had from the RR system companions.

This leads us to one of the largest problems with bugfixing the mod, and companions especially. That being that many of the problems people are reporting simply don't exist in my game.

If I can't reproduce it, I can't fix it.

Incidentally, if I can't reproduce it, it also usually means that it's either a corruption in your savegame, or another mod interfering. People never like to hear that, though.