Bug with Ian

[The Iconoclast]

Hi guys,

For some reason, Ian refuses to join me. Whenever I ask him to, he just says "No, I'm needed here". The first time I spoke to him, it gave me the option to go through the correct motions of either paying or offering a piece of the action. I offered action, tee hee, and he didn't join. I have all the correct stats, but the damn s.o.b won't join anyway. Tycho joined just fine. This is clearly a problem beyond resolution from within the game, so I was wondering if there was a file I could somehow tamper with to force him to join. I looked at his script and the relevant savefile. Script has nothing I see to work with and savefile is beyond me. Any help would save me the agonizing process of restarting. Thanks!

 

[Courier]

Honestly Ian's not worth the trouble you're going through. Of all the shots he fires 50% hit you in the back, 30% hit dogmeat, 10% miss, and 10% hit the people your fighting. Stick with Tycho.

 

[Atomkilla]

I wouldn't really agree, Courier. Ian may be a lousy shooter, but he can be quite useful at the beginning of the game, in parts like Radscorpion caves, or against the Khans. Either way, he may not shoot that well, but he is a good canon fodder.

As for him shooting you in the back, unless you're playing melee/unarmed character, only problems you'll encounter with him would be those at the beginning of the game, when your gun skills are too low, so you have to get closer to your enemies. Though he does shoot Dogmeat. A lot. But Tycho does that too.

I don't know the solution for your problem, The Iconoclast. If you've already recruited Tycho, then you're somewhat "deep" in the game.
I would've just reloaded the save before meeting Ian (before entering Shady Sands, that is), and had tried again. Or in the worst case, restarted the whole game. After all, from exiting the Vault until meeting Ian it's about, what, 5 minutes time?

 

[The Iconoclast]

I agree that Ian sucks, but somehow the game feels incomplete without him. Of course, I never played with Dogmeat outside of Junktown and I wouldn't want to lose him. He's a surprisingly good companion. And I'm already past the Radscorpion and the Khans. I talked them all into submission. Thanks for the input guys.