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Strong is a mean bastard. He likes murder, mayhem, larceny, and Cannibalism. More problematically, he doesn't like picking locks, hacking terminals, or using dialog to solve problems.

I'd like to max out Strong's approval for my Wanderer, but I'm not particularly keen on just going on a crime spree, and don't want to invest a ton of perks in getting the Endurance to try being a Cannibal. Which leaves me with dragging him along while I do some quests, since he does seem to like being helpful to people (especially if chems are involved).

So, what readily accessible quests will offer tasks and dialog of which Strong approves (i.e. violent or aggressive), without compromising the resultant outcome of the quest, while also requiring a minimum of hacking or lockpicking?

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  • This is more of an assumption than an answer. One of the brotherhood folks at the police station will offer you endless 'purge' missions to go to sites and kill everyone in exchange for around 100 caps. Doing several of these with Strong in tow /might/ be the trick.
    – user973
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 22:19
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    Strong hates the brotherhood more than he hates all the other things I mentioned combined.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 22:20
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    You could bring Strong along and everytime you need to hack a Terminal or do lock picking, you just let him whait in an other room xD so you can bring him along while you need to kill Raider and other stuff and for dialouge you let him whait outside
    – GEnGEr
    Commented Nov 24, 2015 at 11:42
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    @GEnGEr this doesn't work. Companions notice things at absurd ranges.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Commented Nov 24, 2015 at 13:32
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    I had this concern too, especially since I'm playing as a sneak/lockpick/hack/conversation ninja. But I just kept him with me during the usual course of adventuring and he gave me his perk without artificially cramping my play style. During his time with me, among other things I took on several BOS side missions that involved a lot of carnage against raiders and ghouls. Strong probably would have disapproved if I'd gone down the BOS main quest path, but I mainly took side missions involving good-vs-evil mayhem.
    – Feral Chimp
    Commented Nov 24, 2015 at 16:28

7 Answers 7

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The wiki says Strong (and I have noticed that Curie and Hancock as well) likes to be out and kill things... And that gains approval even if it does not seem that way. Allow me to elaborate; you can get strong to adore/idolize you simply by going out, exploring and killing. So you do not necessarily need to do things your companion "loves" or "likes" for him to gain approval. I can confirm this is true for Curie and many people seem to agree it works for Strong too.

So my suggestion? Go to Diamond City, check the bounty board (that's left to the guy selling "swatters") and do a lot of them with him. Most bountys just requiere you to go somewhere, kill the boss of the place and loot. So do that, but remember never to lockpick.

What I am trying to say, is that the following is without logic, but still happens: I left Codsworth at Sanctuary, and you notice that he "loves" when you customize a weapon or an armor, and so I intentionally only customize things at Sanctuary to have him "loving" it, but how can it be that it took me 8 "loves" just to reach the first level of approval, and with Curie i have barely got one love and 4 likes and she is already in 3rd level of approval with my character? Well it seems that "hanging out" and "watching each other's back" raise approval silently. So you most definetelly want to take strong with you to some raider camps and gunner strongholds. He will "approve" just being there as a team teamwork. I hope someone with PC and console commands may explain how does this works (because it does) in terms of how much time spent, or xp gained, or enemies killed it takes to get "likes" equivalent approval... But that's that.

If you have trouble finding the bounty board, go to the mayor's office and ask the secretary for work. The bounty board will appear on your map after that.

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    +1 for the bounty board didn't know about that. In regards to the console commands, you can check your affinity with a companion with these commands. Note, there may be spoilers in this thread, and I have not tested these commands myself as I don't play on PC.
    – turbo
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 15:02
  • Ok turbo, I do not play on pc either. I play on PS4. I was simply wanting someone to actually explain people how many enemies killed, or experience gained, or time spent together... Or WHAT is is necessary to gain "loves and likes" equivalent approval in this way. PD: I CAN CONFIRM MY METHORD WORKS WITH STRONG. Took him out last night all the way from concord to salem killing everything in between and he is at approval level 2/4 Now.
    – Pedro Barrera
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 15:22
  • I tried the go out and kill things approach but his affinity never went up. I checked it with the console command getav CA_affinity. Either I didn't kill enough or he only likes to kill a particular type of enemy
    – l I
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 1:28
  • Like I said Z, it most definetelly works. I play on PS4 tho... I hardly doubt that it is a console specific thing but it definetelly works for him. Like I said I tried it last night and worked, as I got his first dialogue midway from Salem. I was killing super mutants at some hospital and an alert saying "Strong admires you" poped up... In fact, later after that I did the quest to find Nick Valentine, and I picklocked so much that im pretty sure approval went back down, for his dialogues changed. After clearing 2 gunner camps, dialogues changed again to what they were after the "admire" alert.
    – Pedro Barrera
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 2:43
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While Pedro's answer is fine, and will certainly work given time, I found a few strong shortcuts.

The biggest one is the quest Confidence Man from the Diamond City bar. The quest provides you with a number of dialog opportunities that will make Strong very happy, as you encourage Travis to be less of a weakling and to fight more.

Similarly, the quest The Big Dig in Goodneighbor, offers a number of intimidation opportunities that Strong is quite pleased by.

The Secret of Cabot House quest chain also offers a large variety of Strong friendly dialog, along with lots of tasty raiders to shoot up.

Finally, Diamond City Blues is a cornucopia of violent and threatening dialog, and the mission itself, being a string of chem deals, is right up Strong's alley. He'll love you for it.

Also, if you're going the Radiant quest route, picking up quests from Settlements around the commonwealth (Hostage rescues, clearing out raiders, etc.; Minutemen stuff), by agreeing to take the quests immediately without asking for more caps, Strong will approve of your generosity, as well as of the subsequent killing, which is a great way to double dip.

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Strong likes it when you help settlements for the Minutemen.

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Believe it or not, Strong likes it when you do settlement building. I brought him with me to carry some weapons from Sanctuary to Castle, so I could glitch the settlement size meter. I had not done any actual adventuring with Strong, he was just my mule.

So I did the glitch, and proceeded to continue working on my Castle build. Strong just stood over by the workbench the whole time (which was nice cause he was out of my way, unlike the settlers that just walk right through my build), anyway...

It wasn't long before I see "Strong Idolizes You" on my screen. So I went to talk to him and BAM! Companion Affinity Perk unlocked.

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I got the "idolize” caption for Strong just after having a doctor, specifically the one in diamond city, heal my radiation. I can't say for sure if that was why, I haven't read anything anywhere for that helping, but I had over 50% of my health bar as radiation damage so for $40(caps), You can try it. And thanks to everyone posting and giving input on any site, You all rock!!!

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the key for me was to save and load. had him with me for awhile and a lot of likes and dislikes from strong, but after the load up strong wanted to talk and gave me the perk. so if you've been playing with him as a companion for awhile and you have not received the perk, try saving your game then loading that game again.

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I had him go with me to all my settlements and carry supplies for me. He suddenly idolized me when we returned back to the Castle. I believe it's the human kindness thingy he's always talking about. I also gave him a ton of ammo with a minigun and let him do his best.

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