I'm currently executing a careful plan to try to retrieve Piper. There is one last mission which is supposed to involve Piper, and it's not on my books yet. The mission is called "In Sheep's Clothing", and I haven't reached it yet. I'm researching and trying to make sure I set things up so that I can be certain to do this mission, and when I do, hopefully Piper will magically appear, and I can nab her then. The trick is that the prerequisite mission, which must be completed before I can do the other mission, has an endpoint marker which is also the beginning marker for a battle which pits the factions against each other in a skirmish that has some repercussions. So I want to set up the situation where I can do the battle without losing affinity with any of the factions before starting that battle. So I have more stuff to do before I can run Piper's last mission.



I had that experience as well. There is more than one doghouse around Sanctuary Hills, mostly in the back yards of the houses. Make sure to make a complete circuit of the place. Each doghouse you find, make sure to go into base-building mode and scrap it. Then build a fresh doghouse near your spawn point. Optionally, move one of the backyard doghouses to your spawn point and scrap the rest. If you do that, Dogmeat will *always* be in the doghouse when you arrive.

With all followers, I am adopting a new strict retention policy now. Which is:
- Do not dismiss them unless you are already standing at the location you're dismissing them to.
- Do not dismiss them to Sanctuary (There is a known bug if you dismiss too many followers to Sanctuary). I send them to the Drive-In instead.
- Quicksave before dismissing them.
- After dismissing them, watch where they walk to.
- After that, fast travel away, then fast travel back, without quicksaving.
- Make sure you can still find them after fast traveling back.
- Only after that is it safe to quicksave.

One thing I read which was hilarious: Supposedly if you dismiss a follower while onboard , then they will try to *walk* back home from there. I haven't done that, but I think it's a hilarious bug, right in line with what we've come to expect from Bethesda.

Oh hey, here's a tip. Best tip I've heard about the game so far. I'll use spoiler tags in case you haven't reached this part of the game yet:

At a certain point in the game, you will obtain the ability to fast travel to and from a special location: . You travel there via the special transportation method of: . Doing so allows you to fast travel without spending any *time* fast-traveling. So normally, if you want to fast travel across the map, then hours of time will pass if you just do the fast travel normally, so any time-sensitive buffs (such as chem effects) will wear off by the time you reach your destination. But if you want to go somewhere without the drugs wearing off, then fast travel to that special location first, then fast travel from there to your destination. This "double hop" doesn't waste more than a few minutes of in-game time, and so your buffs will still be active when you reach your final destination. This can also be used if you're trying to reach a merchant in a settlement on the other side of the map, but you need to reach the merchant during the day, before their close-of-business time.