I used Mad Dog for a while, the cutscene is long. I didn't want to give up my stuff (the bandits only takes the mags??? I tought they took all inventory) so I waited to have fardy and the truck and teleported to area 1 after getting Mad Dog.

Have no idea if it's faster really, hard to say

A good alternative companion to the normal Olan/Rage/Birdie/Jack/Percy is Geese.

If your roulette goes ESPECIALLY wrong and you don't want to load or give up the run, Geese is an easy pickup from the inn in A2 and doesn't take up too much time as you are walking by anyway. All of the extra time taken is from staying 3 extra times (or 4 if you weren't planning on staying at all).

He can work in a pinch and quickly gets Poison Peck, which can be useful for a lot of the heavier fights later on. His biggest drawback is lack of utility and high reliance on MP.

ok, so now that we have the ability to skip nern's dialogue, would he be a viable party member in area one? He fill's Terry's role as a support and is far more consistent in that aspect, but lacks the ability to piss off charmy / hair club. Could he possibly take over for olan or rage? Needing less mags would make the aurora town split a bit faster, but im not sure how his damage output compares to the usual suspects.

just trying to theorycraft here