You’re shuffling through the desert scrub, wondering if the clawed beasts just a few yards away have spotted you yet. You’ve made sure to pop a Stealth Boy just to be extra safe, and told Raul that if his knees creak at an inopportune moment, he’s on his own. Then, you realise you brought Rex along, and he’s gotten stuck on a rock several meters behind you. Finally freeing himself, the good boy bounds towards you at full speed. This should be the point in some Fallout New Vegas stealthing that you realise it’s brown trousers time.
It isn’t, because Obsidian weren’t total sadists when they designed the thing. It does take you out of your Mojave roleplay a bit, though. Thankfully, I can report that a modder has taken it upon themselves to ensure that New Vegas now benefits from the finest in sneaking dog technology.
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The modder who’s cracked the code to covert canines goes by Wombat, and has been doing plenty of cool stuff with New Vegas’ animations as of late. Their ‘Dog Sneak Animations’ does exactly what it says on the tin, adding in some extra movements which allow companions like Rex and Dogmeat to drop into a prone crawl whenever your character decides the time is right for stealthy crouch-walking.
Seriously, just look at Rex go in the video about, tail wagging just enough to betray how happy he is at the idea of pouncing on some unsuspecting raider. Are dogs actually this good at sneaking in real life? As a cat owner, I’ve got no idea, but if nothing else the animation’s cute enough to distract you momentarily if you sneak yourself into a tight spot you’re not going to be able to get out of.
The mod should also support modded dog companions, and judging by the comments could potentially be tweaked to include New Vegas’ coyote-snake hybrid Nightstalkers, who’d certainly fit as sneaky slithering sidekicks. Wombat also notes that they’ve already added to some sneak animations to another non-human companion in the form of loveable robot ball ED-E. Though, there’s no video preview for that one, so I can’t tell you whether it causes the bot to grow limbs and start scrabbling around on his belly like the dogs.
Anyway, if you fancy creeping around with one of the Mojave’s mutts, you’ll need to grab a few other mods to get sneaking dogs working. The New Vegas Script Extender’s up first, with the JIP LN NVSE Plugin and kNVSE Animation Plugin to follow, all of which are common New Vegas frameworks.
