The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - P.E.T. Tug Bug
1As the title says, this was the Spacer's Choice Edition, I dunno if this bug is present in the original one since I don't have that version and I don't plan on revisiting this game any time soon.
The P.E.T. is a weapon you get as a reward from a sidequest in the Peril on Gorgon expansion. Keeping a power attack charged with it causes it to pull hostile targets near your aim toward you while also staggering them briefly. Its intent is to close the gap for the melee strike, but there's an oversight where stowing the weapon without releasing the power attack doesn't properly remove the pull effect from you, meaning targets are still affected by it as long as you don't sprint, swap weapons or release a power attack (regular attacks are fine). As a result, you can take the P.E.T. out once more and charge another power attack, then repeat to stack the effect until it reaches a point where the enemies get into an endless yank stunlock.
In this context, "hostile targets" mean any entities who have that red/white arrow over them. This means companions can't be pulled, and neutral NPCs can only be pulled if you aggro them, trespass, or if you attempt to pickpocket them (not possible with beasts or automechanicals obviously). The best way without getting people pissed at you is to get a bunch of charge attacks stacked, then do very short taps while crouching to trigger the pickpocket on an NPC, which should trigger the tug if one of the stacked charges procs at that moment. With this method you can lure certain NPCs away from places where they're surrounded by others, such as yanking Lilya Hagen into the elevator shaft and going down, getting her pathing stuck, though after reloading a save she'll end up back at her seat.
Since you can't sprint or fast travel without losing the stacks, spamming dodges is one of the faster ways to get around, but for longer distances it's obviously often easier to just redo the charge again.
I didn't find a truly practical use for this outside of maybe easier time pickpocketing certain guarded individuals, but maybe there's something there if you do that Peril on Gorgon sidequest as early as possible. I tried slingshotting a couple other NPCs the way I did Silas in the video, but ones like Grimm at Stellar Bay's landing pad ended up with me losing rep with the MSI. Eridanos hotel guests were fun to toss off the rock though.
0:00 P.E.T. display
0:03 Bug on hostile NPC
1:16 Bug on neutral NPC (via pickpocket)