I went with Nick Valentine as companion for most of the time, but now that I completed his quest I switched to Curie. Valentine was easy to please, but I'm having a much harder time rising Curie's approval.
What exactly does she approve of? And what is the quickest way to perform many actions that raise her approval?
I just found a great way to raise affinity for Curie. This requires you to be somewhat neutral with the Institute (i.e. if you run into synths in the Commonwealth, they don't attack you)
If you go south east of Tenpines Bluff you will find a place called Skylanes Flight 1981 with a Courser and a few synths roaming around. Walk up and talk to the Courser (he won't start any actual dialog, just tell you that he respects your combat skills) and you'll get a notification that 'Curie loved that' and he is very farmable. I was almost done with getting Curie to idolize me so I only had to do it twice before I finished. Hope this helps.
The Fandom wiki actually neatly summarizes what actions garner you your companion's favours, and what actions they disapprove of.
Taking into account her creator's desires, her role, programmed personality, and degree of freedom and self-governance, the things she values are readily inferred. Curie's databanks include the works of Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, Alexander Braun, and Alan Turing, providing a foundation for her humanistic ethics and broad scientific interest.
As a rule-of-thumb, CVRIE appreciates:
- selfless acts,
- being supportive of others,
- trying to resolve things peacefully through dialogue,
- responding positively to settlers that ask for help, and
- showing appreciation of and defending robots in dialogue.
Interactions of the Sole Survivor that express these considerations will generally have a positive impact on their relationship with Curie.
More specific examples include:
- using Stimpaks on Dogmeat,
- showing support for the robots at Graygarden, especially in conversations with Supervisor White, and agreeing to help them during the Troubled Waters quest. Although not really repeatable, there are several moments to gain favour with Curie.
As repeatable interactions, Curie loves:
- Being expressive of an optimism towards the future of mankind through dialogue, and
- being defensive, selfless, and appreciative of synths when speaking with Desdemona.
Curie seems to be a rather simple robot, but some of her affinity gains are a bit harder to get. To raise her affinity you need to be a nice and generous person. You basically have to offer help and give your stuff away to help others. One example of this would be giving the alcoholic in diamond city a nuka cola. On the other hand she hates the killing of non hostiles, theft of any kind and selfish behavior such as asking for more caps. Hopefully this helps you get your affinity up and avoid any drops that may occur.
Preform an action that raises their affinity, like attach/detach a mod next to codsworth, or if you find a terminal and a safe, you can pick the lock then lock it again through the terminal for Piper. After you preform whichever action you choose that raises affinity, quicksave then reload and do it again. It will consistently notify you. It takes a while but it's the fastest way I've found to get everyone's perks before finishing the main campaign.
What I did is this:
Give a nukeacola to the guy in Diamond City. (he's inbetween the baseball guy and the gun guy)
Offer the Vault Tech guy a place in Sanctuary. (he's in the hotel in Goodneighbor)
Offer your help to the Silver Shroud Guy. (He's in the memory den. This one got me the most points)
So depending on your mods (if you have the dogmeat 2nd companion mod) you may not be able to incapacitate dogmeat. So, this is more of a tactic than quick/easy way to max out. Curie is the most difficult companion to max out, especially if you are sorta far in your play through as she has 0 things she LOVES. I recommend rushing to Vault 81 ASAP so you have Curie early on. Once you do, make her your primary companion (bonus if you have dogmeat as secondary). Curie LIKES generosity, courteous/diplomatic dialogue options, healing dogmeat anytime incapacitated, interests in robotics, and killing named raider bosses. My advice? once you have her as a companion go to diamond city and just help people. Give the dude the nuka cola, help clean the water, and HELP TRAVIS. Other than that, just play through the main storyline and help people along the way.
The easiest way to do this is to repeatedly incapacitate dogmeat in front of Curie, then healing him.
I'm not sure if this works even if either dogmeat or Curie is not your companion (although I think it should, since with the base game you cannot have both dogmeat and Curie as companions at the same time). To have both as your companion, install this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/13459
