Or do you have to somehow order them to use them? I hired Vic because he claimed to be good at repairing things but I see no way to make him repair anything. Yet when I attempted to repair something that I previously wasn't able to, while Vic was in my company, I succeeded. Does this mean the game invisibly adds Vic's repair skill to mine when making a repair check? Love this game but wish it would do a better job explaning how some of this stuff was supposed to work.

Also, does anyone know what a "flower" is good for besides cluttering my inventory? I went all though F1 with one and never found a use for it. Was surprised they are also present in F2.

I believe they'll pipe up and try their single relevant skill, Repair in Vic's case, when you attempt the skill in their presence. This is an option you can turn off, as I recall. (I suppose this means you can also turn it on, and it's worth checking to see if you've not encountered this effect before, but I suspect/recollect it's on by default.)

Thanks for the help guys. Here's another one - I'd like to "use" some meat jerky on some hostile dogs so they won't attack me, but when I do, I get the message that says "that does nothing". I've gotten some pretty strong hints that that's what I'm supposed to do but can't figure out how to get it done. Dropping jerky on the ground doesn't seem to help either. Am I missing something?

I'm reasonably certain you actually can't. I've certainly never encountered it.

Always something new... :D

You read my mind.

I only discovered it myself recently. An NPC in Klamath mentioned how it can be used to bait them (I think it was one of the Dunton brothers, but I cant remember).

It seemed worth a try, and worked wonderfully. A nice advantage for a weaker character during the early levels.

I read somewhere that you can use Nuka-Cola on manti to kill them, but I've never actually tried it.