So I’m pretty new to this whole having an npc companion thing but they seem to have a little trouble with the whole surviving thing. I managed to stop her from jumping out of a building to fisticuff 15 zombies after dropping her suitcase and all her loot but even the best of my attempts to keep her safe she still ended up with two broken legs and I wasn’t too much better off after having to dive into acid because she insisted on standing in it to punch a spitter. Is there also a way to have her not drop all our loot every time she see’s a zombie?
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Just set the npc’s engagement rule to “fight unless your life depends on it” or “attack enemies within reach”, these rules will not make your npcs suicidal, especially if you tend to loot buildings.
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Think of yourself as the hammer for their anvil, in a big fight it’s YOUR job to kill the zombies with special attacks, let your grunts deal with their grunts while you handle the specials. It’s also worth taking them somewhere somewhat safer/more managable to let them grind up some basic combat skills if they don’t have them. As an example after gearing my NPC up and reading her some combat books I took her to a beehive, I’d let her have one on ones while I killed everything that tried to gang up on her. It didn’t take too long to get her to 5 dodge and you can continue the education system by using the time in between fights while they heal up to read more books to them. Just don’t take them anywhere where intelligent pathfinding is required unless you want them running into a turret room of something stupid like that.
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As another aside, how do i heal my npc’s broken legs. I made her giant butt some XL leg splints, but she keeps occasionally dropping them and when I tell her to use the splints the examine wounds screen doesn’t change.
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Curious about this too, I haven’t had a NPC break a limb before. They are all still alive and health, they flatout died, we all died together or they got instagibed by turrets. Maybe take her somewhere quiet like a LMOE shelter or something, put the splints on there and just wait out the healing so they don’t have to fight? or try that bonesetting computer you find in labs (if that works on NPCS)
I have them equip the splints with the Use command and then tell them to guard, only telling them to follow when it’s time to sleep and setting them back to guard immediately upon waking. Don’t worry about the examine wounds screen, worry about whether or not the splints are being equipped. If they are, they’ll do their job eventually, given that the NPC in question does nothing to further damage the limbs. Stuff like walking.
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Sadly, bonesetting procedures doesn’t work on npcs 
Well, that’s unfortuante.
Setting them to only attack enemies they can reach without moving, as mentioned above, will fix most suicidal AI problems.
Other tips: armor them up, armor is better than dodge most of the time.
Another, try to have a vehicle nearby, a bike or even a wreck will do. You can force them to disengage by hopping in/on the vehicle, they’ll beeline to a seat, ignoring their pursuers. This works even if there’s no seat, they’ll chase after you on a wheelchair.
Don’t ignore their pain/thirst/cold/etc status, it will slow them down and get them killed. Feed them, clothe them, stuff painkillers or in a pinch, liquor down their throat to numb the pain.
We really, really need a “DISENGAGE NOW” command to give to NPCs.
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