Trouble with Tails's AI

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Hello. I am most likely not the first one to raise this, but I find myself struggling a lot with Sonic & Tails as a character because Tails as a AI companion can be so unreliable - mainly because the carry mechanic is extremely finicky:

- You have to get right in his face and stand still for the carry command prompt to sometimes appear.

- Since it shares the Jump button, it is very easy to command Tails to carry you by accident when you simply want to perform a jump.

- If you let go of Tails mid-flight, you have to wait for Tails to get exhausted in order to be sure he will not try to grab you again.

- Tails will sometimes fail to grab you when you are standing on certain types of terrain - e.g. muddy one in Castle Eggman Zone - that prevent you from jumping high enough or outright drop you if you even slightly a cliff ledge, the top of a fence, etc.

- Most infuriating of all, Tails will oftentimes fail to keep up with you, meaning he will not be available to carry you when you need him to, and he will not even rescue you from a deadly fall à la Beat from Mega Man.

So what are my options to mitigate/address those issues?

Is there a way to bind the carry command to a separate key so you can call Tails to come get you and also to get him to let go of you and not try to grab you again?

If not, is there a mod that tweaks Tails's behaviour or lets you switch between Sonic and Tails like in 'Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bits'?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ashedツ]

Hello. I am most likely not the first one to raise this, but I find myself struggling a lot with Sonic & Tails as a character because Tails as a AI companion can be so unreliable - mainly because the carry mechanic is extremely finicky:

- You have to get right in his face and stand still for the carry command prompt to sometimes appear.

- Since it shares the Jump button, it is very easy to command Tails to carry you by accident when you simply want to perform a jump.

- If you let go of Tails mid-flight, you have to wait for Tails to get exhausted in order to be sure he will not try to grab you again.

- Tails will sometimes fail to grab you when you are standing on certain types of terrain - e.g. muddy one in Castle Eggman Zone - that prevent you from jumping high enough or outright drop you if you even slightly a cliff ledge, the top of a fence, etc.

- Most infuriating of all, Tails will oftentimes fail to keep up with you, meaning he will not be available to carry you when you need him to, and he will not even rescue you from a deadly fall à la Beat from Mega Man.

So what are my options to mitigate/address those issues?

Is there a way to bind the carry command to a separate key so you can call Tails to come get you and also to get him to let go of you and not try to grab you again?

If not, is there a mod that tweaks Tails's behaviour or lets you switch between Sonic and Tails like in 'Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bits'?

Thanks in advance.

Well, I think the carry option is not possible,

Buuttt there's a mod called BuddyEx, you can use Weapon Next or Weapon Previous (should be mapped to your scroll wheel) to switch characters.

 

[IancaXD]

It might be that for vanilla we don’t have a solution at the moment, but you can use the FoxBot mod. It makes companions almost feel like real players.

 

[JohnnyTheWolf]

BuddyEx has been working extremely well so far, but I will consider it. Are there any major differences between it and FoxBot?

 

[DylanDude]

I'd like to point out that you can just switch characters with the "skin" console command, although obviously this won't save to your file.

 

[JohnnyTheWolf]

And it requires me to constantly open the console and type in the command. Not quite as elegant as BuddyEx's system.

 

[Ashedツ]

BuddyEx has been working extremely well so far, but I will consider it. Are there any major differences between it and FoxBot?

I wouldn't say there's any major difference, but in my opinion, BuddyEx is objectively better than FoxBot.

 

[nikoberry]

And it requires me to constantly open the console and type in the command. Not quite as elegant as BuddyEx's system.

You could bind it to a key:
bind <key> "skin <name>"
...Of course, replace <key> with whatever key, and <name> with whatever, for instance: bind m "skin tails"

 

[IancaXD]

BuddyEx has been working extremely well so far, but I will consider it. Are there any major differences between it and FoxBot?

One of the differences between FoxBot and Buddy EX is that with Buddy EX, some mod characters don’t use their abilities the way they should. However, if you’re only looking for smart vanilla NPCs, I think Buddy EX is the better option. If you’re looking for NPCs from mods, FoxBot is the better choice