Fallout 2 companions

[[File:FO2 Companions.jpg|thumb|right|280px| Left to Right- 11/14 companions from Fallout 2

Top: Marcus, Myron, Skynet, Goris

Middle: Sulik, Vic, John Cassidy, Lenny

Bottom: K-9, Dogmeat, Robodog]]

Permanent companions
Permanent companions usually have prerequisites and may not join your party unless certain conditions are met; these vary between potential companion NPCs and often there are multiple possible ways to obtain them as a party member. The game will not allow having more than a certain number of active party members; this limit is half the player character's Charisma, rounded down. For example, a Charisma level of 4 allows taking 2 companions. With the perk Magnetic Personality the Chosen One is allowed one additional companion over the current limit.

Companion controls
Once a non-player character is recruited, their dialogue menu changes to a list of tactical and combat-oriented options. New from Fallout is a "Combat Control" button in dialogue, which allows manual change of an non-player character's armor, weapon, distance and tactics.

The picture to the right is the in-game dialogue box for controlling companions. For permanent companions, the options are shown as follows:

Use Best Weapon
 * At first, this seems to do nothing, because the companion originally only carry their default weapon. However, they can be gifted a better weapon (and ammunition, for guns), then the non-player character will make use of that weapon instead. Alternatively, the companion can pick up weapons found on the ground.

Use Best Armor
 * This control acts the same as the one above; equip the companion with better armor in place of their default one (if they had one), granting them the corresponding bonus to Armor Class (and Strength in case of any power armor).

Disposition
 * Berserk - The companion will always attack, never fleeing from battle, no matter the level their health drops to.
 * Aggressive - The companion will attack while their health is in an acceptably decent range. If it falls too low, they will ultimately flee from combat.
 * Defensive - The companion will be more mindful of their health, running when they are injured, even if just slightly.
 * Coward - The companion will always run from a battle they think they cannot handle, regardless of the opponents.
 * Custom - There are six options with 5 sub-options that can be chosen concerning the non-player character's disposition. The possible options for each is listed below.

Usable weapons
The kinds of weapons a companion can use is not determined by the weapon's type but rather by the in-game model the weapon utilizes when used. A companion can use weapons that their character model has animation sprites for. The types of weapon models are:

Active skills
If a companion has a higher active tag skill than the Chosen One, whenever they use that skill on something, the companion lends them a hand by running in and using the corresponding skill on the object themselves. This way, a skill check will be done against their skill level, which allows the Chosen One to do things they would otherwise be not qualified to.

Statistics
Companions' combat characteristics at the last stage:

Temporary companions
Like permanent companions, there are a few conditions that must be met to have temporary companions join the Chosen One's party.

Companion controls
Temporary companions cannot be controlled in any way.

Bugs
Companions who are supposed to have six stages cannot ever reach Stage 6, as their progression is divided into seven stages. For example, Goris is supposed to have six stages (protos 319 through 324), but the character the player interacts with and recruits is none of these protos, but a separate, "base" Goris (proto 153). Each record in the file is capped at 200 bytes of length, which only accommodates five records. Anything exceeding that length is truncated and ignored by the engine.