Quads Companion

0.24.3

• Fixes from a review of the multiplayer changes, for cases where part of a companion's journal or missions could be lost: your game no longer reads its journal before your character is in the world, never saves a journal it only partly has over the one kept with your character, and keeps what is in your character's copy when an old one is joined in. A friend's game running your companion while you are away no longer starts its missions over, and what it did while you were offline is only taken off the companion once your game confirms it has it (it was sent the moment you connected, while your game was still loading). Its old journal is sent to your game alone, and less and less often if your game does not answer. Skills no longer go back after another player's game ran it, its status shows again when it comes back to your game, the party panel no longer flickers its effects off now and then, and looking for beds, chests and cooking stations is quicker.

0.24.2

• An old companion's journal now comes off it (where it made multiplayer lag) without its player walking up to it: whoever's game runs it hands the journal to its player's game, and takes it off once that game has it. While its player is offline it stays on until they are back.

0.24.1

• Multiplayer lag fixed. The game sends a creature's whole save to every player near it each time anything in it changes, and a walking companion changes many times a second: its journal, tally and missions were in that save (11-13 KB, the journal alone 7-9k characters), more than the game sends in one go, so other creatures' moves arrived seconds late. They are now kept with its player's character instead (as they already were, for when it falls) and only what is new is sent, a few bytes at a time; a player who opens its journal and does not have it is sent it once. What it does while its player is offline waits on the companion (a short note: its newest journal entries and its counts) and is handed over when they come back, even if the player whose game ran it has left by then. Old saves move over by themselves the first time its player is near it. Its skills are saved every 10 seconds or at a new level, instead of with every hit; what it is doing at most once a second (a status that flipped back and forth was sent each time); and its "still at home" mark every 30 seconds instead of 5. The party panel's news of each companion (health, place, effects) goes out once a second instead of twice, and only when something shows a change (or every 3 seconds), and the time left on its effects and meals now counts down smoothly in between. Fixed: a companion's skills could go back to what they were when another player's game had run it in between. Everyone on a server should update together: an older version shows an empty journal for companions run by a newer one.

0.24.0

• Now in your language: English, Russian, German, Chinese (Simplified), Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, French, Polish and Turkish, following the game's own Language setting. The game's own names are used for its things (items, creatures, lands, stations). The translations were made with AI: to correct a line, or add a language, put a file in BepInEx/config/translations/com.quad.aicompanion/ named after the game's name for the language (German.json...) with only the lines you change, copied from translations/English.json on GitHub. The companion's status, journal, missions and what it says are now kept as data, so each player reads them in their own language; old saves still load and show their English text. Players on a server should update together: a player on an older version sees stray characters in statuses and chat lines from a newer game. The journal's counts from before are named in your language too and join the new ones, and trees, logs and stumps go by the game's own names (a stump was called "stubbe"). Headings and status lines no longer vanish in Chinese.

0.23.0

• The companion menu (J, or E on your companion) now looks like part of the game: the crafting screen's wood, buttons and tabs, the inventory's own item slots with the game's tooltips, its scrollbar and fonts, and the game's own text box for names. Everything it did is still there, in the same tabs; health, stamina, timers and skills move as they change. E or J closes it, as well as Escape. Fixed: your companion no longer takes a Ledger Chest, the Obliterator or the Arena's chests as its own, or puts things in them or takes from them; one that already took one lets go of it the next time you're near its home, and says so (nothing in it is moved, so check an Obliterator beside its bed before you pull the lever).

0.22.2

• A clearer page: what it does, who needs it in multiplayer, which of our mods it works with, and where to report a bug. The game itself is unchanged.

0.22.1

• A new id, com.quad.aicompanion (it was com.dhack.aicompanion): your settings move over by themselves the first time it starts, and the old settings file is kept as a backup. Restart the game after this update. If an old copy is still installed beside it, this one stands down and says which file to delete, so the two never both run. The DLL now says it was made with AI, as Thunderstore asks.

Earlier

• When it falls, everything it has now goes into its tombstone, its gear too, and it puts its gear back on when it wakes if its tombstone is near (else it says where it is and goes back for it; at home it fetches it by itself). Before, the gear it wore was kept apart on your character, and was lost for good when it fell on another player's game while you were offline, or before your game saved. A companion brought back from the companions menu now finds its tombstone too (the menu says where). Multiplayer fixes: it no longer takes from or puts into a chest someone else has open, and loads what is really in a chest (or its tombstone, or its own bag) before it touches it, so items are no longer doubled or lost at shared bases; food or a potion a friend gives it with a hotbar key is no longer lost; a lost fight while you are away (WhileAway: Real) no longer makes a second copy of it; it no longer takes over other players' companions from afar. The gameplay settings (MaxCompanions, WhileAway, RespawnSeconds, BaseHealth, BaseStamina, EatBelowPercent, StartingSkill) are the server's in multiplayer. Typing its name in the menu no longer opens the map or the inventory. It sends far less over the network (its food and stamina were saved every second). Restart the game after updating: the companion is a creature the world saves, and a hot reload could let the host delete one with everything it carries; a reload now leaves it registered.

• Fix: no more stutter every 5 seconds. Looking for Claude Tools searched everything the game had loaded; it now asks BepInEx's list of mods.

• Building your plans, when it lacks what the plan needs: it works out what the next pieces of your plan still need less what is in its bag and the chests, as a goal like its gear goals: it gathers it (wood, stone, ore, resin, flint and the like, near home first and then on a trip as far as the world is loaded), smelts or makes it at a station near home (nails and the like), and asks you in chat only for what it cannot get itself ("For your plan I need 30 iron nails, and I can't get that myself"). What it gathers it keeps on it for the building instead of putting it away. When pieces cannot be built at all it says why: pieces you have not unlocked, a station (a stonecutter, say) not built near them, ground you may not build on, or nothing that will stand yet. Its menu shows what it is getting for the plan. While you are away it does the same when you come back: builds what it can pay for, gathers what is missing with its share of the time (a far trip if it must), makes what needs making, and builds what that brings, and the report says what it built and what it still lacks. Also fixed: a companion with an active duty and nothing to do for a moment threw an error (in the log every few minutes) that cut short its idle behaviour (the fire, a chair, a stroll).

• Building your plans: with BuildOrders installed, a new home duty, Build our plans (Home tab, on by default, second in the list after food), makes building your planned ghosts one of its main jobs at home. It picks the next piece that will stand with what is built (BuildOrders works that out, as for Build all), takes what it costs from its bag or your chests near home (and its own; it carries what several pieces need in one trip), walks to it with a hammer (it makes one when it can) and puts it up. It pays for it itself: nothing is taken from you. With nothing it can build it says what is missing ("needs 40 more wood"), and the next duty is worked, so with Collect wood on it fetches what the plan needs. While you are away, when you come back every duty has made progress for the time that passed: each switched-on duty gets its share of the time, in its order (food hunted and brought to your chests, wood cut, ore mined, pieces of your plan put up), then its own work with what is left; the report says what it built. Its stockpiles go into your chests first while it does its duties, with a little food kept in its own.

• Fix: looking at a companion and pressing a hotbar key with a weapon, armour or tool on it handed the whole thing over. Only food and potions go that way now (one at a time); anything else is refused with a message. Giving gear from your inventory next to it, or from its menu, is unchanged.

• Food: the companions ate far more than they needed. Calm at home it now eats only what it needs (Home tab, Its food; on): one meal going, two while it works or is hurt, none while asleep and well, and the cheapest food that will do (berries and mushrooms before your good meat). Out with you, in a fight or hurt it still eats its three best meals. Switch it off to go back to three meals all the time. It no longer goes to your chests for food slots that are "not full": only when it has under six food on it, and it takes enough to get to nine, not fifteen. It takes at most 12 food a day from your chests (Home tab, adjustable; with nothing at all on it, a few more), and the Home tab shows the meals it ate today and what it took. Home duties: the food stockpile counted what it carried, which it had taken from your chests, so it looked stocked at once; now it counts what is in the chests (and what it carries of wood and ore on the way there). Duties now put the stockpile in your chests at home by default (it works for you; what is already there counts, so with 300 wood and 100 asked for it rests), or in a chest of its own (a choice on the Home tab); they wait until there is a chest to use. The food stockpile counts good meals, not items: cooked meat is a whole meal, a berry or a mushroom about a third, raw food half, and no one food counts for more than 60% of the target, so a chest of mushrooms is never "stocked" and it keeps hunting and cooking. Hunting for food now also takes the mountain's wolves (from 90 health, nearly well) and the plains' lox (from 130 health, nearly well, with a bow). The food duty is for you: it is the first duty in the list (60 good meals), and with it on its own chests keep only 12 food for itself, the rest of what it brings goes to your chests. Called out from home with under twelve food on it, it first grabs some for the road from its own chests (or yours, within its ration, when it may take from them), then comes after you. A duty with nothing to find waits a minute, then two, up to five, instead of looking again every minute.

• Home duties: its Home tab has a short list of what it does at home, in the order you choose (Up and Down): Collect wood, Hunt and forage food, Mine stone and ore. Switch on the ones you want and set how much of each it keeps in its chest. It works the first duty that is on until its chest holds that much, carrying what it gathers to its own chest as it goes, then the next one; a duty with nothing to find near home waits a minute and it moves on. With every duty stocked it goes back to living its own life (its gear goals, repairs, the fire, a stroll). Hungry, it feeds itself first. While you are away it catches up on the duties still short. With no duty switched on it works as before (the job ticks, or its own choice). It also eats a meal again at 10% of its time left instead of 50% (setting EatBelowPercent): a meal lasts 90% of its time instead of half, so its food goes nearly twice as far. ClaudeTools companion debug shows its current duty.

• Fix: a companion whose player was not the one running it could fall and never wake again. Its player's game kept a picture of it every 5 s, and the fallen body still stood on that game for a moment after the news of its fall arrived (only the game running a body knows it died): the picture of it standing wiped out the fall. Now a companion that has fallen is never saved as standing, and waking one never makes a second if it is already up.

• A companion that was lost that way (nothing of it in the world, yet it never woke) can be brought back: the companions menu (J) asks the game hosting the world whether it is anywhere, and if not, offers Bring them back: they wake in their bed (or beside you) with their skills, looks and settings.

• Skills that never rose now train as a player's do: Run (every second of running; and a higher Run skill makes running cost less stamina), Jump (each jump), Dodge (each roll a little, a hit it rolled through a full point), Swim (every second swimming), Sneak (creeping up on a creature that has not noticed it), Cooking (putting food on and taking it off a cooking station, and its cooking while you are away), and Crafting (what it makes and upgrades, and repairs). The game only trained these for players.

• The companions menu (J) shows a companion who is not near you: where it is (how far, which way, at home or not), what it was last doing, its order and the last lines of its journal, with Call to me (it appears beside you and comes along). No more "Let it go for good" there: a companion can only be forgotten when it is truly no longer in the world, with a second click to confirm.

• Summoning no longer makes a second companion with the name of one you have: looking for yours (away out in the world), the menu offered "Summon another companion" with the name Rádvar already filled in, and made a new Rádvar from nothing. It now says it makes a new one, and asks for another name if that one is taken.

• Fix: riding along in a boat it no longer rocks or damages it. Held in place on deck it still pushed against the boat as a solid body: the boat rolled, nearly capsized, steered badly and took impact damage. A passenger now collides with nothing until it steps off.

• Fix: a bed up on chests (not on the floor) was never reached: it stood on the chests over the bed, or below it, "going to bed" all night. It now gets in when it can reach the bed as a player would: beside it within reach, from above or below, and after trying for a while from a few metres away. Getting up it steps down onto the floor beside the bed (not left standing on a bed up on chests with no way down), and one already stuck on a bed hops down.

• Fix: an errand (or something you pointed at) sent at night waited behind its bedtime: it stood by your food chest "going to bed". What you send it to do now comes first, and it goes to bed after.

• Errands: one click on its menu (Orders tab) sends it to do something now, near its home, and then it carries on with what it was doing: Put things away, Restock food, Check for better gear, Repair its gear, Repair the base, Feed the fires, Cook. It says what it is off to do, or why it cannot ("My food slots are full", "Nothing in your chests beats what I have"). Sent on an errand it may use your chests for food and gear even with those settings off. The same in chat: "Rádvar, restock", "gear up", "put away", "repair your gear", "repair the base", "feed the fires", "cook". Repair its gear fixes everything worn at all, not only what is half gone.

• Food from your chests (when allowed): it now restocks its food slots whenever they run low, also when it still has meals in it: with its bag empty of food but its belly not, it never went. It takes up to five each of its three best foods (for its three food slots), not ten of one.

• Better gear from your chests: it now picks the best item for each slot across all your chests (not the nearest chest with anything better) and goes round them one after another in the same trip, instead of one chest every five minutes: it took the bronze leggings and left the bronze helmet and tunic in the next chest, and the shield and bow in theirs.

• Better gear from your chests: living at home, when it gets back and every five minutes there, it looks through your chests for a weapon, armour, shield, bow, arrows, axe or pickaxe better than what is in its gear slots, walks to the chest, takes it and wears it, and puts the one it replaced back in that chest (and says what it swapped). Pointing it at a chest (H) does the same there, and so does its catch-up while you were away. Never its hammer, food or your materials; never a companion's chest. On by default; switch it off on its Home tab ("Takes better weapons, armour and tools from your chests").

• Fix: its own way-finding could stall the game (seconds after a reload, as it checked every chest, stake and boar it might go to): each search now has a few milliseconds, and all of them a few per frame; a search that runs out of time is taken as a yes and tried; a way not found is remembered for a minute; repairs ask only about the nearest pieces.

• Its job is kept: the patch you gave it is saved on it, so a reload, a restart or its area unloading no longer loses it (it carries on, the patch marked again). Its menu shows its current job under its name (the patch and how far along it is, what you pointed at, waiting where you told it, out with you, or its mission at home), with a progress bar and "Stop this job"; the party panel's line says how many it has done in your patch.

• Where the game finds no way (its walk map empty, in your base), whether it can reach a chest, a station or a repair it now asks its own way-finding: it thought every chest out of reach, so with a full bag it gave up on its work and asked you to send it home. It no longer picks things up once it carries as much as it can (it went on picking up stone at 332 of 300 kg).

• It chops something low (a stump, a log on the ground, a small rock) with its tool's secondary attack, the axe's overhead chop straight down, and switches to it for anything when its usual swings miss twice running.

• Fix: it chops logs lying on the ground (and stumps) again: it wanted to be nearer to a low log than its own body lets it, and it waited to be "looking at" them, which the game measures from its eyes, and from close above something low that never came; now it swings when it faces it.

• Its own way-finding for where the game's has none (in some places, a big base among them, the game's walk map comes out empty, so it found no way anywhere there and walking straight took it into the stakes): a search over the ground and floors between it and where it goes, round walls, posts, stakes and fires, through doors (a door in a wall of stakes too: it keeps its body clear of the stakes, not a metre round them), up and down stairs. ClaudeTools "companion map" draws what it sees around it (stakes, walls, doors, its way).

• It shuts the doors it opened behind itself, as you do, once it is through (not while you or anyone is about to come through after it, or in a fight there). A door that was open when it came it leaves open.

• Fix: after a fall far from home it woke in its bed, hopped to you, and the game left it at its bed, unloaded (the hop moved it but not its saved place); now it arrives beside you.

• Smarter about its chest: it keeps exactly what its next upgrades and its mission need (added up), not stacks of it (it put 50 wood and 130 stone in its chest because some of its upgrades use them). It puts in only what is still missing, a part of a stack if that is all, and the rest goes to your chests; what its chest holds beyond that it takes out down to the exact amount. Working a patch, it picks up only what that work drops (wood and resin from trees, stone from rocks), not whatever lies about.

• It fights (and chops and mines) in combos as a player does: the next blow the moment the last ends, so its weapon's chain carries on to its strong last blow (it paused a moment between blows, and the game started the chain over every time). It breaks a combo to block or roll, and keeps its weapon's special and its hit-and-run for after the last blow.

• The command key (H) reaches your companions however far they are (any the game has loaded; it said "no companion of yours near you" past 60 m). It only hunts what it can walk to (with no bow), instead of setting off after a boar across the water every 20 seconds, and reaches over to a cooking station it cannot get right up to (beside the fire).

• Missions: it sets itself a mission (its next piece of better gear) and sticks to it until it is done, instead of switching to whatever is cheapest that minute. It decides for itself to give one up and says why: when it has long waited for something only you can give and has other missions it can do itself, when it has made no headway for a long while, or when it cannot be done any more. Its Home tab shows the mission, how far along it is, what it still needs, what comes after, and the last ones done or given up; each one goes into its journal.

• Its own chests are its stock: food and raw food to cook, healing potions, arrows, and the materials the next upgrade of its gear and its goal need (twice what they need, at least 10). Everything else it finds is yours: it goes into your chests (sorted with QualityOfLife), every couple of minutes or when its bag is full, and what was in its own chests that is yours it takes out and puts into yours. With several chests, its stock goes into the one that already holds it. Working a patch you gave it, it keeps at it until its bag is full, then (near home) puts what is yours into your chests and its stock into its own, and goes back to the patch. With putting things in your chests switched off, everything goes into its own as before.

• Set its home to your base (Home tab: "Make this its home", where you stand): it stores its things, works, sorts into your chests and comes home there, wherever its bed is; its bed stays where it sleeps. "Takes food from your chests" (Home tab, off unless you turn it on) now keeps its food slots filled from your chests, and it keeps what it took; food only. Materials for its gear it only ever takes from its own chests.

• You can point it (H) at things up to 150 m away (was 50 m): it walks there for the job, the patch lasts until you have gone on (more than 60 m from where you pointed, for 20 s: a fight nearby no longer ends it, and it goes back to work after; it no longer hops back to you between pick-ups at a far patch, and it finishes the patch before going home for food unless badly hurt). Without a bow it no longer hunts necks in their pond (one after another, 20 s each), and the line over what it is working on shows from that far.

• Point it at a chest (H) and, with QualityOfLife, it goes there and sorts what it carries into the right chests around it by your chest rules (as your Stack to chests); only the rest goes into the chest you pointed at.

• Three food slots with its gear: it keeps its three best different foods there, tops them up from its bag, swaps in better food, and at home fetches more from its chests when they run low. It eats from them as you do. The gear slots' names sit faintly at the bottom of each empty slot, as in your GearSlots panel, and disappear once the slot holds something.

• Items can be taken out of its bag beside your inventory again (the game cancelled any drag that was not from your own inventory or an open chest, the moment it began), and Ctrl-click moves things between you as with a chest (gear you move to it goes into its slot). Its gear slots show beside your inventory too (Tab near it), under its bag and labelled, as your GearSlots panel: drag gear in and out; only what belongs in a slot goes in. The gear you can give it from its menu leaves out what you wear and what is in your own gear slots. Gear you give it or take from it shows in its activity log.

• It repairs your base from a hammer's reach (up to 4.5 m, standing back from stake walls), only takes a repair it can find a way to, and when one piece of a wall is out of reach it leaves that wall for a while (it tried one stake after another, for ever). At a workbench or forge it cannot get right up to (against a wall, in a cramped corner) it reaches over from a few metres after a while.

• It chops stumps: it goes right up to the stump (it measured to the stump's off-centre pivot, stood 2 m away and swung over it) and swings down on it. Mining: it measures to a rock's real surface (not the box around it), goes right up to low rocks, steps in when its swings miss a big rock (copper, boulders), and its pickaxe never digs the ground.

• Point at a tree (a rock, a bush) and its job is the patch around it: the trees about it glow, and it works through them nearest first from where it stands, picking up the wood (stone, berries) they drop; then it says it is done. Its bag full: near home it takes the load to its chest and comes back; out with you it stops and tells you. It chops small trees and saplings again: it goes up to the trunk (it measured to the edge of the whole small tree, branches and all, and swung at the air 4 m away) and swings level at it as you do.

• Its gear has a place of its own, as GearSlots gives you: two rows of named slots under its bag (weapon, spare weapon, shield, bow, arrows, axe, pickaxe, hammer; helmet, chest, legs, cape, belt). What is in them it keeps when it falls; only its bag goes into its tombstone. It moves the best of what it has into them by itself. You change its gear from its menu (Gear tab) from anywhere: click a piece to take it back, or give it one from your inventory and it goes into the right slot. Its bag (what it gathers and loots) you only change beside it, in the panel beside your inventory, which shows its bag only. What it picks up never goes into its gear slots, and it never puts its gear into your chests.

• What you point it at (the command key, H) is marked on the thing itself while it is on it: a soft pulsing glow and a line above it ("Rádvar: chopping this"): the tree, the rock, the plant, the enemy, your chest, its tombstone, the cart. Rocks and trees inside ruins and other places are found now, point at things lying on the ground (or the ground right beside them) and it picks up everything there, a light marking the spot; point at the ground and a light and "waiting here" mark where it will wait, until you call it back; and when it cannot do something it says why ("I need a pickaxe for that") instead of going to wait there. It finishes what you pointed it at before going home for food or a full bag; it only goes to wait where you point at the ground or a floor (a boulder that cannot be mined gets "That rock can't be mined").

• It no longer walks back into the fight that killed it (and its activity log no longer fills with "hunting"/"sneaking up" every frame while it stalks prey). With nothing eaten, or just up after a fall, it is careful: it only answers what comes at it or you, gives ground early, and gets back to its home or to you when hurt. Something clearly too strong for it (a bear against a stone axe and bare health) it gets clear of instead of trading blows; with a bow, fed, it shoots from a distance.

• It collects every tombstone of its around its home, one after another (it used to remember only its last one, and left the others). When it empties one (or you give it its things from one), its skull comes off everyone's map at once. Tombstones from falls out with you it leaves for you: point at one (or open it near it) and it takes its things back.

• Fixes: its bag beside your inventory shows again (it hid itself as soon as the companion carried anything), and dragging items onto it works. The "while you were away" report is no longer lost when its player was not loaded in yet.

• It talks less in chat. Chat is for what needs you (out of food, a full bag, something it cannot get itself, no bed, a cooking station or hammer it needs, a land too dangerous for its gear) and the big moments (gear it made or upgraded, waking after a fall, what it did while you were away). What it is up to (its goal, hunting and gathering trips, materials made on the way, its things back from its tombstone) shows above its head and in its menu instead; "Coming with you!" and "Home again" stay in chat. Asking you for something it cannot get comes once an hour, not every 20 minutes.

• Fixes: a companion asleep in bed (or in a chair or a boat seat) keeps its pose (it could stand in bed), and no longer floods the console with "Setting linear velocity of a kinematic body" (the game's walking step is skipped while it is held in place). With a fire or stakes nearby it still walks the last few metres to its bed (or anywhere close) when the straight way there is clear of them, instead of standing still "going to bed".

• Between jobs it acts like a person. At home with nothing to do it sits by a burning fire (warming up when it is cold, wet or evening), takes a free chair or bench, gets under a roof when it rains, or takes a stroll and looks about, facing you when you are near. Out with you, it turns to face you when you stop, sits down when you stand about for a while, and sits when you sit (in a free chair beside you if there is one); it gets up the moment you go on. Told to stay, it sits down after half a minute. It waves when you come back after a while away, cheers after a big fight, a boss or a creature that once killed it, gives a thumbs up when you hand it something, and answers your emotes (a wave with a wave, a dance with a dance; "come here" brings it over for a little while).

• It fights more like a player: it rolls out of the way (the game's own roll, with its stamina cost and the moment no hit lands), joins in on what you are hitting and gets round to its other side, peels enemies off you when you are badly hurt, sneaks up behind creatures that have not noticed it for a backstab, uses its weapon's special into a crowd or to stagger a tough one, hits and steps back out of reach against heavy hitters, drinks stamina, eitr and resistance meads when the moment calls for them, remembers what has hurt or killed it (and opens with the bow on those, and warns you), and kites with its bow. Its Stats tab lists its last fights.

• Jev is gone: the built-in brain decides every fight (Jev barely had anything left to decide, now that blocking, parries, dodging, aiming and focus are the brain's own), and the Brain tab with it. New: a Journal tab, its saga (days with you, kills by creature, parries, bosses, falls, gear made, lands seen) and the moments worth remembering. Small talk: a line above its head that fits the moment (a close fight, a boss, a dungeon, rain, nightfall, you badly hurt, a new land, a quiet moment at home), never too often. It repairs your base as a job at home, with a hammer it makes itself. It follows you into crypts and caves (ore and all) and out again, and finds its footing in there. Boss fights: it keeps to the boss's side instead of its front, uses its bow from a distance when it has one, and drinks earlier. It fights every creature with its best weapon against it (a club for skeletons). Since 0.7.0 also: it keeps its worn gear when it falls; comes along when you head out and lives at home again when you are back; sorts its haul into your chests (with QualityOfLife); timed parries and stepping aside; point and press H to give it orders; hotbar giving; sleeping in its bed; pulling carts; safer chopping; stream jumps; and its bag shows beside your inventory.

• Its bag shows beside your inventory: open your inventory with your companion within 10 m and its bag appears to the right of yours (the game's own chest panel and grid), so you drag items between you as with a chest, and right-click takes. It keeps clear of GearSlots' gear panel, QualityOfLife's buttons, the chest panel and the crafting panel.

• It sleeps in its bed at night when living at home, and gets up at dawn or when something comes. Point at a cart and it pulls it along (point again: it lets go). Look at it and press a hotbar key to give it food or a potion (one) or gear (it wears it if better). Safer chopping: it never fells a tree next to your buildings unless you point at it, steps clear (uphill) when a tree comes down, and two companions never take the same tree or rock. It jumps narrow streams, waits on the bank when too tired to swim, and gets unstuck step by step (a step aside, a jump, then a hop to you). Food it borrowed from your chest and did not eat goes back to that chest.

• Point and press H (CommandKey): at an enemy they all go for it; at a tree, log, rock, ore or a plant it works it; at your chest it puts its things in; at its tombstone it fetches its things; at a free bed that becomes its bed; at the ground it goes there and waits; at the sky it comes back to you.

• Timed parries: it learns each creature's swing and raises its shield just before the hit lands, so a good block is a parry, and it hits back at once while the attacker staggers. It steps aside instead of blocking from sweeping attacks, shots, unblockable hits and hits harder than its block, or when it is out of breath, to a safe spot. Its Stats tab counts its parries and blocks.

• Home and away by itself (with a bed): when you head out it comes with you, and once you are both back home it goes back to living there (Orders tab, on). Your own orders win. With QualityOfLife installed, what it brings home goes straight into the right chests by your chest rules, and so does a full bag at home.

• When it falls it keeps the gear it wore and held (weapon, shield, armour, cape, belt, its arrows) and wakes wearing it; only what it carried besides (what it gathered and looted on the way) goes into its tombstone, and with nothing else there is no tombstone at all. The same while you are away (Real).

• Out with you, it reads what you are doing ("Let it decide", the new default style, at the top of How it fights): it fights beside you when something is after you, mines the rocks and ore near you with its pickaxe when you mine, chops the trees near you when you chop, and while you travel or explore it keeps close, picks up loot and only fights what comes at you or it. Where a place is too dangerous for its gear (the swamp with a flint axe) it tells you once, stays at your side, only defends you and itself, and falls back early. Its status says what it decided ("following you (helping you mine)"). Companions that fought "balanced" let it decide now; you can still pick a style yourself, or say "Rádvar, your call". It never burns the wood its next piece of gear needs (it fed its fire the six wood it was saving for a club), and keeps five logs back.

• It makes what needs no workbench (a club, a stone axe) from its chests near it too, not only its bag, so after falling with nothing it arms itself again. Waking far from its tombstone it says where it is and asks you to take it there. A fall to poison or fire names it (it said "killed by ?").

• It swings down at creatures below it (a boar down a slope): it looks at the target's middle from where its swing starts, and the game tilts the swing that way (it swung over them). A fight could throw on an enemy destroyed in the same moment.

• Fix: its bag was rebuilt from its last save several times a second (the game reloads a container whenever its owner's save data changes, and the companion writes its status and stamina there all the time), so wear and repairs were lost and it unequipped and re-equipped its gear twice a second, which could cut its swings short. On the game running it, its bag in memory now stays as it is.

• It leaves alone a creature it cannot get at (20 s of fighting without a hit, and it is not attacking anyone: behind a fence or a rock) for two minutes, instead of swinging at it all day. It picks up what it kills: many creatures drop their loot from the body a few seconds after they die, and it gave up waiting after 3 s; it now waits up to 20 s, looks 8 m around, and notices its enemies and prey dying itself (in multiplayer it only heard of deaths the game running it saw). It keeps its fires going: the fires under cooking stations near home and by its bed get wood from its bag or chests before they go out. It cooks at the station nearest its home first, not the nearest to wherever it is.

• You walk right through companions, and they through each other: they never block a doorway, a bridge or you (on every player's game; fighting is unchanged). It still steps aside when you walk straight at it, without the shove.

• It chops and mines from close in, by what it works on: it measures to the trunk's (or rock's) real surface, stands well inside its tool's reach, closer for saplings and small rocks, aims at the middle of their height (a waist-high swing passed over a sapling), and steps in closer when its swings do nothing. Hunting trips: when its goal needs something only animals drop (leather scraps from boars) and none is near home, it goes hunting further out, as far as the world around you is loaded, tells you where, and comes back.

• Trips: when nothing near its home has what its goal needs, it sets off for it further out (as far as the world around you is loaded, about 170 m), tells you where, and comes back; while you are away it goes further still, up to 400 m, through the saved world (flint on a distant shore), and the report says where it went and what it brought. It also picks wild things that do not grow back when its goal wants them (never your crops). It hunts boars and necks for its goal again (it gave each one up the moment it set off, as if a boar could outrun it like a deer), and says what it is looking for when nothing near home has it ("looking for leather scraps for its wood shield"), instead of asking for a pickaxe.

• Food first. Hungry, it forages only food (berries, mushrooms, not dandelions), and when it has nothing to eat and nothing in its own chests it can take up to five of the best food from your chests at home and tell you what it took (when you allow it). It makes what needs no station on the spot (a club from wood, so it can hunt). Badly hurt with nothing eaten it no longer hunts boar or necks, it does not chase a deer it cannot catch without a bow, and animals it hunts (or deer and hares running away) no longer start a fight it then flees from, over and over. Fleeing, it runs to safety (its home, or you) instead of straight away for ever (it once fled into the sea), and badly hurt it only runs from what is actually after it. It keeps out of deep water unless it is with you and you are in it. Your game now takes over your companion when the game running it has left, wherever it is, instead of it standing frozen. Catching up after you were away now covers a whole day at home: it cooks, keeps itself fed, hunts, gathers what its goal needs first, makes and upgrades gear (and bronze on the way), repairs, and heals with what it ate, all in one report. It finds its way through doors (the game's pathfinding takes a shut door for a wall, so it stood stuck inside the house or outside the gate), opens doors it is pressed against, and only heads for chests it can reach. It blocks with its shield (or weapon) when something swings at it, then hits back; it wears a shield with bare fists too, and belts. A Stats tab shows all its numbers and every skill. Your chests (Home tab): it can put what it gathers into your chests when its own are full, without ever taking anything out; taking food from them is now off unless you allow it. It aims its bow as a good archer does: ahead of a moving target and above it for the arrow's drop (the game's own arrow speed and gravity), and closes in when the target is out of the arrow's reach; its spread still narrows only with its Bows skill. Its way through doors plans through two in a row (out of the house, then through the gate), and with stakes or fire about it never walks straight at something. It aims at a tree's trunk, so its swings land. It fights what comes within 12 m (was 20) and, at home, only what is attacking someone within 30 m. It walks once out of breath until a third of its stamina is back, as a player does. A stuck walk back to its tombstone, and an error every frame after a reload with food in it, are fixed. A goal whose materials are not near home is put aside for ten minutes so it works on another. Its armour no longer counts its weapon's. A running activity log of everything it does (what it is doing, every hit it takes and what dealt it, what it ate, made and said, its vitals every 30 s) in BepInEx/AICompanion/activity.log.

• A companion that plays itself. Two orders do it all: Come with me and Go home (big in the menu; stay, guard and come here are under More), and holding J calls all your companions near you, or sends them home. Going home sets up its home by itself: it takes a free bed near it and the empty chests beside it (and so does a new companion). At home it works toward its next piece of gear: it picks an upgrade or something better to make at your stations, gathers what that needs (the right trees, ores, plants and animals), makes bronze and other materials on the way, and asks you for what it cannot get. It looks after itself: it fetches food from its chests, and out with you it tells you when its bag is full, its gear is wearing out or its food is gone, going home by itself when home is near. Sent home from far away it is there in a few seconds. It tells you in chat what it is up to (what it made, what it needs; off in its Orders tab). The settings file now holds only the menu key, how many companions, life while away and the Jev key; the rest is in the menu (Jev's tuning under Brain, Advanced). It watches where it walks: it steers round anything that would hurt it (the pointed side of your stakes, fires, an enemy's poison), never walks off a drop high enough to hurt, and jumps over logs, steps and low walls in its way. Fixes: since the battle idols came into the game it could never make or upgrade anything (it counted the idol every recipe now lists, which only upgrader stations use); and living at home it no longer fights every boar and neck grazing nearby, only what is out to hurt someone.

• The menu is redone in the game's own style (its Norse and Averia fonts, dark wood, gold headings) in six clearer tabs: Status, Orders, Home, Gear, Looks and Brain (the decision log is in Brain). Every text wraps to fit, nothing is cut off, and the checkboxes are real checkboxes. The settings are reordered and described in plain words (advanced Jev settings marked as such). Its portrait is taken while it stands still, facing you. Fix: E on a companion's tombstone moved everything into your inventory (the game took it for yours), and the companion woke with nothing: now E gives its things back to it if it is alive nearby (it wears them again), and otherwise opens the tombstone like a chest. New, a companion more like a player: it goes back to its tombstone after it falls and takes all its things back (when it is near home, or near you while following), and wears them again. It picks up what is on its pick-up list (Inventory tab: ore and metal, wood, stone, food, creature drops; gear and everything else off by default) as it passes by, like a player's auto-pickup, and goes out of its way for fresh drops near it when it is not fighting: the ore and stone you mine, the wood you chop, berries, and the loot after a fight, also on adventures (never what a player drops from their inventory; Orders tab). At home it hunts deer and boar for meat and hides, cooks its raw food on a cooking station and takes it off before it burns, and makes new gear at its workbench when it has the materials (better armour, shield, weapon, a higher-tier axe or pickaxe, a bow, arrows), besides upgrading. It gets Rested by a while under a roof by a fire (heals and gets its breath back faster), has a player's carry weight (over it, it cannot run), uses eitr from food to fight with staffs, and defends its home against raids. Talk to it in chat: start a message with its name ("Rádvar, follow me", "Rádvar go home"); with a Jev key Jev understands what you mean. Up to 3 companions each (Companion, MaxCompanions), switched between in the menu. Friends can give it orders if you allow it. WhileAway: Real, where fights while you are away can go badly and it can fall.

• Stronger nudging: walk towards a companion or bump it and it gets out of the way at once: a shove sends it aside the moment you touch it, it runs about 3 m clear, and meanwhile you pass through it rather than being stopped.

• New: companions live their own lives. "Live at home" (the old Gather): with no jobs ticked it decides for itself (wood with an axe, stone and ore with a pickaxe, foraging when low on food), stores what it finds in its chests, repairs, and upgrades its gear at its workbench or forge when it has the materials (the game's costs and station levels, from its bag and its chests). Tell it to follow you for an adventure. While nobody is near, it goes on living: when you come back it catches up on the work it would have done (trees felled, rocks mined, berries picked, at a player's pace with its tools, into its chests) and, with Companion, WhileAway: Mild, fights off a few creatures of its biome and keeps their drops; it tells you what it did. Fixes: when a companion fell, only 4 of its item stacks fitted in its tombstone and the rest was lost: now the tombstone takes everything it carried, as a player's does (the game's own move, which makes the tombstone as big as the bag); upgrades, repairs and wear on its gear are now saved (they were lost when its area reloaded); stakes hurt a companion that walks into them and no longer wear themselves down on it; a companion steps aside when you walk into it; its picture is taken once (and again when its looks or gear change), not as a live feed; its food shows in the party panel (PartyHud 1.7.2).

• New: a companion lives like a player. Food: it has a player's 25 health and 75 stamina, and up to three foods add theirs and heal it (it eats from its bag and fetches food from its chests; without food it does not heal). Skills: each weapon's skill rises as its hits land and makes it hit harder, with the player's formulas; it loses 5% when it falls. Weather: wet in the rain, sheltered, warm by a fire, cold, freezing without frost resistance, as you. Its armour's resistances protect it. Repairs: it takes worn gear to a station that can repair it. Riding along: when you board a boat it takes a seat and rides with you, and steps off when you do. Looks: a Looks tab to choose its body, hair, beard, skin and hair colour (or copy yours), and its face shows in its menu and in the party panel (PartyHud 1.7.1). Give it a bed and chests of its own (Home tab, Assign, then E on a bed or a chest). When it falls, its gear goes into a tombstone like a player's (you can take it all back with one E) and it wakes in its bed (or beside you without one) 30 s later, with its name, looks and settings: who it is is kept with your character, per world. New order: Gather. With the jobs you tick (Work tab) it chops logs, stumps and trees, mines rocks and ore, picks wild berries, mushrooms and flowers (never your crops), or picks up everything on the ground, around its bed, with the tools in its bag (the game's tool tiers decide what it can work), and picks up what its work drops. When its bag fills it takes everything but its gear to its chests, and there it takes better armour and weapons, arrows, healing potions and missing tools. It also follows you through portals (not carrying ore), opens doors in its way, and players cannot claim its bed.

• Fights, from a test fight's log: "defend you" no longer runs off after the player while enemies hit its back (it fights whoever is on it first); its fall-back health is now a rule, not advice (it falls back below it and flees below half of it, whatever Jev says); the built-in brain keeps its target and finishes the weakest enemy hitting it instead of picking the nearest (it hit one that was attacking no one); Jev's pick is trusted by its probability ("attack 41%" when the rest are lower), not its much lower confidence figure, so its clear choices are no longer overruled; Jev is told to fight what is on the companion and to defend the player only when nothing is; after each fight a summary (time, damage taken and dealt, kills, decisions) goes to the log, the menu and the Debug tab; and the skull where a companion fell no longer disappears at once. Fix: a companion following you no longer gets stuck behind a wall of sharpened stakes (or any obstacle it cannot path over): after a few seconds without getting closer, or at once when there is no way through, it hops to a free spot beside you. And player-built stakes and spikes no longer hurt companions, as they do not hurt players.

• New: companions have stamina. Swings and blocks cost what they cost you, running drains it, and it comes back after a short rest; when it runs out it cannot swing or run and its guard breaks, so it backs off to get its breath (Jev is told how much it has). And your boss power reaches companions within 10 m of you, as it does other players (Eikthyr's lighter running, Bonemass's toughness, Yagluth's strength...). The menu has tabs. Overview (what it is doing, against whom, how sure Jev is, its kills, fights and potions, Come here), Orders, Inventory (what it wears and its bag with icons: click to take, and the useful things in yours: click to give), Brain (the Jev key, cost, how often to ask, how sure Jev must be) and Debug (every decision with Jev's odds for each answer and the exact request and answer, copy buttons, and an optional log file). Companions show on the minimap and the big map (a teal player icon with their name), yours and other players', for everyone with the mod. When a companion falls, a skull marks the spot on the map of everyone with the mod (players who join later are told too); it goes away once its gear crate has been emptied. With PartyHud 1.7.0, each player's companion shows in the party panel under them: health, distance, direction and what it is doing.

• First version: summon a companion (J), give it gear, and it follows you and fights beside you. Jev (with your API key) decides its tactics in a fight; a built-in brain does without one.