Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 10

UI Design

• Reworked layout and added transparency
• Added icons for several buttons
• Added companion portraits and swapped patch textures
• UI colors based on player's faction (you can manually choose the UI color in MCM)
• Added tooltips to icon-only buttons
• Rearranged some things
• Fixed textures for DX < 11

New UI Buttons

• Reload: forces companion(s) to reload all weapons they're carrying (pressing again will cancel)
• Weapon Type: forces companions to use their best weapon or a specific weapon type (pistol, shotgun, rifle, sniper)
• Headlamp: forces companions to turn their headlamps on/off or to use the normal vanilla or mod-based logic (tested with mods 126 and 328)

New "Look at Point" keybind

• Forces companions to look in the direction of the selected point
• Idle companions will look in one direction after a few seconds instead of always staring at the player
• Look behavior for following companions has been tweaked to accommodate this new keybind

General AI Improvements

• Custom cover system that identifies 5 different cover heights
  • Seeks out cover that's suitable to shoot behind in combat
  • Seeks out cover that's suitable to hide behind when reloading or hurt
• Augmented companion sight with raycasting to help see through otherwise transparent obstacles like anomalies
• Custom grenade-dodging behavior that doesn't interrupt combat
• Companions are more cautious when significantly hurt
• Companions can use hearing to locate the enemy
• Companions always see enemies within 2m
• Compaions react to hits and change position
• Companions automatically switch their lights on and off when the player does

New Reloading Behavior

• Companions top off active weapon ammo after combat, when joining, or when loading a save (can be set to reload all weapons instead via MCM)
• Companions top off active weapon ammo in "Assault" combat before searching for an enemy

New Weapon Selection Behavior

• By default companions always use their best weapon (or weapon type selected in the UI) and never switch to other weapons during combat
• "Best" weapon is determined by:
  1. Repair kit tier (weapons without repair kits like RPGs are considered best)
  2. For weapons that use the same repair kit, the one with the highest cost is considered best

New Combat Modes
The README has been updated with more detailed descriptions of these:

• Assault: replaces "Offensive Combat"
• Guard: replaces "Defensive Combat"
• Support: stays within a set radius of the player's position
• Snipe: fights from a fixed position and only moves to dodge grenades or avoid friendly fire
• Companions alter their behavior when fighting mutants (e.g. move more)

MCM Changes

• Option to show all companion's inventory items
• Option to enable/disable switching headlamps on/off when the player does
• Option to reload all weapons when idle instead of only active one
• Option to automatically deselect companions after using "Move to Point" or "Look at Point"
• Option to automatically switch to "Wait" and "Guard Combat" after using "Move to Point"
• Option to show/hide the new "Reload" button
• Option to show/hide UI tooltips
• Option to manually select a UI color scheme
• Keybind options for "Look at Point"
• Keybind options for new combat modes
• Keybind options to force reload all weapons
• Keybind options to select a weapon type
• Keybind options to control headlamps
• Improved font size adjustments
• Reorganized some options

Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 9

Added new keybinds:

1. Companion select/deselect: select companions by pointing at them and pressing a key. Then you can give orders only to them.
2. Add waypoint at cursor: similar to "Move to Point" except it places a patrol waypoint.
3. Get out of the way: point in a direction, press a key, and any companions in the path of that direction will move aside.
4. Companion inventory: point to any companion within 8m and press a key to open their inventory.
5. Re-sync companion(s) with global state.

Replaced "Use Cover" toggle with two new commands:

1. "Find Cover": same as "Wait" + "Use Cover".
2. "Covered Formation": same as "Follow" + "Use Cover". I think it works best and makes the most sense as its own formation.

Replaced "Stay Far" toggle with Near (2.5m) / Normal (5m) / Far (10m) switch.

• Also affects "Find Cover", "Relax" (when not at a campfire), and pathfinding to a small degree (see below).

Added a simple "spatial awareness" implementation to companion AI:

• Companions detect when they're following in an open space, an enclosed space, or a cramped space.
• They won't follow the player into cramped spaces unless they are set to "Near" (e.g. they'll wait outside Sidorovich's bunker).
• When set to "Near", their pathfinding will adapt a bit to cramped spaces.

Overhaul of formations:

• Improved pathfinder: companions still prefer to stay on the same side of walls as the player, but now they can path around shorter obstacles. This should help them spread out more and clump together less while staying in the same building/room as the player.
• Follows near/normal/far distances more accurately.
• Adapts to squad size. Smaller groups spread out more, larger groups stay closer together.
• Companions automatically sprint when you sprint.

Animation tweaks:

• They stay in idle animations longer.
• They stay in alert/combat-ready animations much longer before they start to relax and drop their guard.
• Removed "look around" code that made them face different directions periodically. It disrupted animations and triggered other minor vidual issues (they do it on their own to a degree anyway).
• Switched to a better "prone" animation. It looked wonky when combined with the "look around" code, but now it might be OK.

Misc:

• Additional RU translations (thank you Adlez)
• Compatibility with other mods: when a companion is given an unexpected configuration, they fall back to the standard vanilla behaviors. This should hopefully fix e.g. the broken Duty Girl from Duty Expanded.
• Fixed broken "cycle" keybinds.
• Fixed an issue that made it possible for companions to get stuck when following in cover.
• Fixed an issue that might cause companions to prematurely shoot at an enemy without seeing them or having a line of fire.
• Added MCM options to disable auto-sneak/auto-prone/auto-sprint.
• Added optional "Unstick" button to UI to fix stuck companions (hidden by default).

Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 8

• Added Russian translation for MCM (thanks @SaloEater)
• Added hidden "Zombied" combat scheme (just for fun)

Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 7

• Reverted "Monolith" and "Camper" combat schemes to original versions.
• Re-added the combat schemes as "Offensive" and "Defensive" combat, respectively.
• Fixed the "Only Companions Can Loot and Gather Items" MCM checkbox doing the opposite of what it's label said.
• Additional Russian language translation (thank you @SaloEater).
• Ensured companions always have an initial enemy position when first entering "Offensive" or "Defensive" combat.

Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 6

• Fixed crash when starting a new game.
• Disabled "Move to Point" key when there are no companions.

Useful Idiots v0.1 Beta 5

Some things have changed under the hood, so upon first run your companion commands will be reset to basic defaults to avoid any potential issues. If companions have gathered/looted for you and the items are still in their inventory, it should be fine but you might want to check after updating the mod just to be sure. Or move all their stuff into your inventory before updating.

Changes:

• MCM integration

  • Basic starter set of options for now.
  • Options to define keybinds.

• Keybind support

  • Can assign a keybind to any command/button.
  • Can assign separate keybinds to cycle through a group and/or to select a specific item directly.
  • For standalone toggles, keybind can either toggle them on/off or only turn them on.
  • Full support for SHIFT/CTRL/ALT and PRESS/HOLD/DOUBLE-TAP modifiers.
  • The keybind to open/close the UI is still in Settings, but all others have been moved here and given equivalent defaults.

• Re-Added "Move to Point" functionality

  • Works similar to vanilla for now (but I have ideas).
  • When enabled, companions automatically switch to "Wait" and "Camper Combat".

• Re-added "Voiced Actor Expanded" support to speak individual commands

  • Mostly affects Anomaly users.

• "Fight in Cover" combat scheme has been removed.

  • Turns out this existed specifically for "Move to Point". It does basically the same thing as "Camper Combat" so there's no point in keeping both. I do plan to study it a bit more to see if there are any lessons I can use to make Camper better.

• Initial Russian Translation (Thank You @SaloEater)

• UI improvements from Beta 4 have been carried over. The fact that it was broken hopefully has not been carried over.

• Health values that determine when companions evade to recover from injuries in Monolith/Camper combat have been tweaked from 0.4/0.7 to 0.3/0.6.

Useful Idiots v1.0 Beta 4

UI Rewrite:

• customizable/extensible
• full support for language translations
• supports checkbox-style toggles
• supports icon buttons
• supports multiple buttons per row
• auto-scales to screen size (sort of -- text can't scale)
• replaced most uses of "small" font because it looks like ass on larger screens

Useful Idiots v1.0 Beta 3

• Lowered near/far distance from 6m/12m to 4m/10m.
• Increased walk/jog distance from 4m/8m to 12m/20m. These first two combined should make companions run less when they're not hurrying.
• "Relax" and "Patrol" behaviors take precedence over "Hurry". Companions won't sprint everywhere when moving around in these modes.
• Companion inventories are disabled/inaccessible the companion is more than 8m away.
• Companions that are following now favor positions that are on the same side of obstacles as the actor. This should help keep them inside of buildings, for example.
• When the actor is moving, companions that are following will only move if their new position is closer. Otherwise they will stay in place allowing you to approach and interact with them.
• Small tweak to make the "Spread" formation a little tighter
• Small tweak to make the "Bunch" formation a little bunchier

Useful Idiots v1.0 Beta 2

Fix for "He is With Me", "Companion Anti-AWOL", and possibly other issues with companions engaging/not engaging when they are supposed to.

Useful Idiots v1.0 Beta 1

Initial release.