Followers During the game you will meet different npc-companions. They differ in their usefullness in battle as well as in their behaviour in it. For now there are two different types of companions:

Mercenaries - as they are named, they are acquired through paying. They follow you around for quite some time, will disappear after your death. Do help a lot during combat.
Slaves - are acquirable through capturing npc's in the wasteland. Aren't as good as mercs, but they stay after your death and can level up.
Mysterious Stranger - Companion who can be acquired via taking the perk. Appears if you are lucky enough. Helps a lot during encounters, but disappears after you leave them. If meets his death, can't appear for the next 15 minutes of real-time. (more info Perks )

Control:

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Companion interface.

You can control companions listed above through special menu , by pressing hotkey H . For attack and move commands you first select an action and then target it.

Mercenaries

You can hire up to 3 companions via money in San Francisco , you'll need to complete a Lo Pen's shark loan quest in order to do that.

Merc's features:

They follow you around both global and local map.
Number or mercs you can hire at one time depends on your Charisma .
If you die, all the mercs disappear.
They have limited contract time, after which they disappear.

Slaves

Slaves are the other type of npc-companions which you can get either by capturing them yourselves or from another player.

How to capture them:

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Rope.

In order to capture an npc you need to use a Rope on a fallen npc. (knocked-out)
Only some npcs can be captured.
You can capture npcs only during encounters.
You can capture up to Strength \2+1 slaves.

Slave's features:

Unlike mercs slaves don't have expiration time, they will serve you untill death will part you.
In case you will die, your slave will stay at that very location awaiting for your return (or untill someone kills him).
You can arm them (by using the dialogue options).
Slaves can trade in cities in your stead. You can tell them to do so (can only trade for currency).
Slaves DO NOT attack in cities under any condition. (they will ignore your attack commands).
You can lvl up your slaves by letting them kill someone, or do it yourself (max xp per kill is 28 000). Xp they get is enemy-hp dependant.

List of critters which can be enslaved:

Name	Model	Description
Settler (M)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: clubs,SMG(MGs),grenades.
Settler (W)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: rifles,pistols,grenades.
Child (M)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: stones,grenades(?).
Child (W)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: stones,grenades(?).
Common slave (W)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: grenades,knifes,spears,hammers.
Common slave (M)*	Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination	Can wield: grenades,knifes,spears,hammers.

This list is not yet full, will change, maybe.
NPCs with similar models can be enslaved also.