Difference between revisions of "Companions"

Latest revision as of 05:55, 10 August 2020

Basic information about hiring Companions.

Some available companion commands not listed below:

• Attack
• Light a fire
• Fell some trees
• Stay here

This is a list of development news/patch notes on how companions can help you. Fixed typos and formatted to be easier to read:

• With a little help from companions. And the approaching release.

Unoccupied companions now spontaneously help you with many different tasks. Their labor input helps to finish the physical work in shorter time, but doesn't otherwise affect to result or quality of the task outcome. The help companions provide is imagined to be something they can do without specific tools, but the kind which makes it easier and faster to finish the work together.

For example:

When building a log wall it helps to have extra hands around for moving and setting the logs in place even if the player character would be the one who does the necessary carving.

When softening the skin with beater as a final stage of tanning process it helps to have somebody around to check, adjust or tighten the skin if necessary.

When setting and retrieving nets it helps to have somebody to row the watercraft.

The tasks where companions can currently help you are as follows:

• all the building tasks
• building trap constructions
• setting and retrieving nets
• harvesting bark
• tanning stages of cleaning, applying tanning material and final softening
• crafting rafts
• crafting leather ropes
• crafting birch-bark containers and ropes

The tasks are 10-20% faster to perform with a companion and in many cases having multiple helping pairs of hands shortens the time 5-10% more per companion. However, the benefits of helpers is capped at three (3) companions, so having more than three helpers doesn't shorten the working time any further. It depends on the task how many helpers is the optimal number, and this varies from one to three companions.

Companions do help you with these tasks completely spontaneously, without any commands, if they are free from other chores and can reach the player character. You will be notified about companions helping you with specific messages displayed right after starting the task. These messages also tell if you are being assisted with the optimal maximum number of companions for the task in question. If you receive help from some companion(s), but the task would be even easier with more helping hands the message is, for example, as follows:

"You get some help with this task from Ahti."

And if you have the optimal maximum number of helpers the message is, for example, as follows:

"Tapio, Korjus and Visa help you with this task."

• Summery summary in the midst of upcoming version hype

Companion usefulness gets boosted with several new tasks they can do on demand

New companion commands are:

• butcher and skin carcasses
• roast meat or fish
• make logs and boards

Companions skills naturally affect to outcome of the tasks so their expertise can be sometimes used to obtain higher quality goods than what the player characters could produce by themselves.

That's cool, you might think. And you also might think of few other tasks companions could do. Indeed. Same here. We actually do have a few more things regarding companions still under construction. Currently we're working on mechanisms to allow unoccupied companions automatically to help you with laborious tasks (eg. building) thus shortening the working time.

• Roast cooking for NPCs, and also as companion command

Moreover, roast cooking is also added as a new companion command. Unlike player character, companions don't leave the meat by the fire and pick it up when it's done, but they stay put by the fire while roasting is being done. Companions roast ten pieces of meat at a time, and if not given another order they try to keep on cooking until everything is roasted.