NPC Crew Explained ( Star Citizen )

NPC Crew Explained ( Star Citizen )
00:00 Intro
00:58 What are NPC crews
01:11 What are AI Blades
02:08 Disclaimer
02:35 How to hire NPCs
05:19 Killed Crew
05:50 Character Slots
06:12 Crew Complexity
06:35 What can NPCs do?
08:38 Progression
08:55 Personality traits
10:00 How to command crew
10:50 Ignoring orders
12:15 Ship Requirements
12:48 Well being
14:54 Crew Limit
17:27 NPCs vs Humans
20:59 Conclusion on viability
21:25 Other considerations
23:41 When?
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#starcitizen #digthat32 #starcitizenhottea

[@DigThat32]

Best part was crew on the toilet running to their station during red alert...do they wipe first?😂

[@revengexmoon2087]

Wash their hands. I'm not shaking any NPC's hands. Hand sanitizer with LTI please.

[@lou1725]

There’s no time bro, it’s a red alert ✂️💩

[@robertm6257]

Isn't it the ships motto " take time to wipe and we all get wiped !"

[@MarCoViTV]

You made 1 mistake bruh, 1, first what was originally supposed to happen was that you would have two characters not a back up npc character. Your squadron 42 character would differ from your star citizen character, you would either make them a family member or a spouse or whatever. But the thing was your assets upon completion of squadron 42 could be turned over to them… to be used in star citizen the mmofps mode. Certain vehicles which became purchasable were supposed to be unlocked after completion of squadron42. But a lot changed since the big switch…

[@kwest419]

nope.... skid marks from the poopers to the shooters...

[@NovaAlcor]

I don't have time for a real crew. Jumping in for an hour with npc crew is what I'll need to play. I imagine there are a lot of people in the same boat that will need to be catered to

[@damaddmann]

I agree with you sometimes trying to get people together is such a pain in the ass even if you tell people to sit their spot and have their gear stuff ready for a set time people always seem to just not so much time is wasted for people to get their ships ready and fly to wherever you are just to die and realize they didn’t set their spawn lol

[@rooster1012]

That is what small ships are for large ships have always been intended for group play.

[@NovaAlcor]

@@rooster1012 I love this entire video is about the intent of having npc crew and AI blades and you somehow believe what you said. Did you even watch it?

[@NovaAlcor]

@@damaddmann it's only going to get harder as we get more systems. In addition to the npc crew the need an easy "join crew" option. I don't care if it isn't realistic.

[@Tsudico]

@@NovaAlcor If you don't have enough time for a real crew you better have enough time to play to pay for your NPC crew otherwise you may not be able to keep them anyway. I think in that regard, @rooster1012 has a point. Smaller ships will require less prep work to go out into the verse and do things with and have lower associated costs. If you want to play in a big ship there are 3 ways I can see it being possible: 1) play with other players, 2) have enough time to play to make enough money to be able to support a ship of that size, or 3) pay real money regularly for enough UEC to keep your NPC crew and ship maintenance in order (although currently there is a daily purchase limit that may be far below the salary of an NPC). I have limited myself in the ships that I purchase because I don't want to depend on other players in order to do the things that interest me while making sure that the costs to do those things is still manageable.

[@Warlust007]

Can we all just take a second to acknowledge the great work DigThat32 has done on this segment. Extremely informative, no BS, and tons of reference...I have to say, WELL DONE!

[@GeneOh]

Yeah this was needed content.

[@terrandysart3587]

All his videos man. He’s a badass content creator. Underrated

[@DigThat32]

Ayy! Big thanks mayne

[@vik12D]

The solid references are great! I've seen some of these, and researched some, so its frustrating when I make a point the NPCs will be viable and I get hit with the Star Citizen "trust me bro"..."CIG has said...", no actually they have literally said what I am quoting. Thanks for the easy reference I can use.

[@jello_cudgel9213]

So I’ll be able to hire the “Who wants some noodles”? guy from Pyro and I can leave him stranded on an asteroid? Sold!

[@DigThat32]

Ha! I'll take the noodles guy over the whiny Stanton shopkeepers any day tho

[@jello_cudgel9213]

@@DigThat32there’s the beginnings of a SC Machinima action/comedy film here 😂

[@DigThat32]

@@jello_cudgel9213 Starring Al Pacino as the noodles guy?

[@jello_cudgel9213]

@@DigThat32 Yes! It’ll be easier to get Robert De Niro for the Skutters at Grim Hex once Al has signed up

[@greywulf31]

NPCs will be the biggist addition to the game equal to a new star system introduced. NPCs are important since the very large majority of players want to play mostly PVE.

[@Nitrox_909]

they are way bigger than any star system ever.... in general new game mechanics/loops will always have a larger impact than new star systems

[@Kadeo-ms6qw]

Nah, npc’s will be far bigger.

[@zeroneutral]

Roberts has stated many times that NPCs will greatly outnumber players. You're right!

[@vik12D]

Yup. Even boring missions now, would be way more interesting if you were leveling crew, and had a need to do it, to pay them. It would even give the Captain's seat a function, because who really uses it with a Player crew?

[@little_lord_tam]

I hope they will. Imagine they didnt lol ​@@zeroneutral

[@MMORPG87]

just remember ppl AI still only stands on chairs... we have many years b4 this becomes a thing. but when we finally get there its gonna be easy to get lost in the verse for hrs

[@nemesisfaust]

most the ai standing in fixed locations are traversing entities. as ai are suppose to be traveling and going about. the ones stuck in corners are suppose to be going around doing different things like players do. doing box drop offs, doing hauling, doing salvage, doing reclamations, which all adds into the local materials and local ship purchases as damaged or recovery ships and not just new ships... aka buying used cars. full ai npc scripts wont be enabled till crew ai is enabled. which is on the pyro roadmap and either 3.9 or 4.0 updates. as it wont be functional till the basic static server mesh mapping is done for statton and pyro. where it is my understanding that the 3 maps for statton static maps are complete all 52 server segments after they came back from summer holiday... and currently they are working on static mapping the pyro system. the other hurdle is, the beacon/pathfinding/nods system update. where after personal/industrial hangers for zone/trespass/consignment 3.23.2.... nods/pathfinding update 3.24... then static server meshing 3.6... then crew ai is ready to go live 3.9. because "just remember ppl" the aimed goal for pyro 4.0 is October24 to ptu. and we would have had it last year, if not due to broken legacy code in 3.18, legal issues in eu and slovania, and then waiting for a new ship team lead that couldnt get his visa form canada to uk for 7 months.

[@nemesisfaust]

the part that i am intrigued about is with the dateline rush. i wonder if static server mesh will arrive earlier then intended 3.6, because basic malstrum destruction 1.0 has to come after server meshing. so we might get a statton partial update in 3.23.2 or 3.24 very soon. where armor 2.0, bounty 2.0, passenger 1.0, aero 3.8, medical 4.7 that is all done, and most of 3.5, 3.7 and 3.8 are already in the game, they just are not active at the moment. as i know the road map... but i think they just might try to push 3.23.2, then jump to 3.4 after with nods+ parital meshing, then activate a bunch of stuff and do a series of backed and finished features. then jump straight to 3.9 after with malstrum + charging system, with partial fix updates in-between 3.4 and 3.9. then when the pyro static map is done, they will do pyro4.0 with full static map for both systems additionally turning the jump gates on. so enjoy the medical ursa and c8r respawns while you can... till bed upgrades, radiation, burns, parasites and diseases come out in medical 4.7. which is the only update i see that could be postponed till pyro4.0. because radiation and flare damages, engineering fires and burns all kind of require it.

[@heru_ur6017]

Never happening. It will silently get cut on the road to mvp 1.0

[@EricXVII]

This is what im here for. A video based on facts, not feelings. Well done dude. This is one of those topics that often sits in the back of my mind when ever I think about this game. Getting an actual universe to play in (99 other systems) is the other huge concern I have. Great video Dig.

[@Nemoticon]

Great content and coverage. FYI, maybe about 3yrs ago I asked a question to a dev on one of the open Spectrum forums about NPC crew and they got back to me saying that each account would get 1 free NPC crewman as standard. Not much, but also nice to know (if this remains to be true). Because you get 1 free NPC crewman, I do wonder what the deal is with having to pay and keep that one individual happy, etc.

[@jodofe4879]

If that indeed remains true, I imagine that it is just someone you have already hired at the start of the game and you don't need to pay hiring costs, but they'd likely still require a salary and other upkeep. It is also possible that the dev was referring to the ability to make additional characters for players who have multiple game packages. The devs have stated in the past that every game package will allow you to make a character, and that your currently played character can 'hire' these additional characters as free NPC crew.

[@Nemoticon]

@@jodofe4879 Yes, there's still a lot of speculation to be made until details are further clarified. Even yet, it could all change and what I've been told and shard could end up being changed or is wrong anyway.

[@bigal1093]

Yup ... I remember the same. I bought some extra game accounts with the plan to form a "family" that will be my crew. Here's hoping.

[@Frank-costanza]

I always imagined that the free extra crew would be like the free hangar.

[@VortexStolenName]

Best Star Citizen KZbinr award goes to you! Excellent video with lots of source material to support it!

[@clints7834]

Best thumbnail ever! I also like the Q and A style of your clips. It's a better format than just showing clips and talking about them after. You comment or pose a question and then you play the clip. Love it.

[@DigThat32]

I appreciate that!

[@DaringDan]

The PU: "New NPC crew member BEAMED into his chair" Me: "AH! It all makes sense now!"

[@hiphopgrinch]

My man! This was an excellent video. I can't imagine the time it took to go through all the videos from the past to get all this info.

[@DigThat32]

Thanks mayne! Definitely a lot of research

[@CaptainSF]

Make no mistake/let me be clear/let me make one thing known: DigThat is the best at this insight/tutorial work. Thanks for this!

[@DigThat32]

Epic comment..big thanks Bawse

[@stormfire962imastarcitizen5]

I agree with you and this is why I am subscribed to him. I am also subscribe to other content creators because all of them provide a different point of view from their unique perspective and that information is valuable to me. In fact, I've also managed to build up a friendship with some of them and when we get a chance we do talk and hopefully someday we'll be able to play together on this game which will be fun. @DigThat32 keep up the good work sir and thank you for everything that you do. Also God bless to you and your entire family and please stay safe during these difficult times.

[@ph11p3540]

Would love to see a master/slave turret battery blade for ships like the Hammerhead, or larger capital ships with grouped turrets sharing a common facing. They would still need a character to run one of the turrets as a master turret.

[@joshuadadad5414]

@@ph11p3540 it's doable. The Reclaimer has remote turret consoles that operate 3 turrets each.

[@KildalSC]

This was awesome, like a trimmed down focused deep dive from space tomato. Lots of new info for me here, even though I've been following the project since the start. I really enjoyed your "You can only do these things in Star Citizen" video, but I would really enjoy more videos like this. I also like that the title clearly indicates what the content is, many of your videos I have no idea what are about.

[@Edrahil17]

Hey, just wanted to stop by and say I love your voice and production quality! Cheers!

[@DigThat32]

Thanks Edrahil

[@Sangvinivs]

Amazing full coverage almost perfect video! Thanks a lot for summarizing years of information on one video for us , o7

[@wiggyone]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to get all this information into one clear and concise video. Bloody good stuff.

[@DigThat32]

@@wiggyone Salute! 🫡

[@Pappy_1775]

Excellent video, for me it brought to light many things I did not know about. I will pass this video along to my org. Again, great video.

[@DigThat32]

Salute!

[@SaberFoxRP]

I’ve pretty much understood all this the same way but it’s really nice to see it consolidated so nicely. Well done

[@MindBurntDE]

Dude, the video is just so well researched and not only that, the effort to pick out all the original content... just top class. This is top-class journalism, something you don't find in most gaming magazines anymore. I myself am the admin of the biggest German SC Facebook group, where I never actually share videos from content creators, but I had to share this! Thanks for all your efforts in this video! Greetings from Germany Keep up the good work! 👍

[@alexanthony1168]

Simply the best SC content out there. The style, the passion, the levity, it's all unmatched and yet, informative. Keep doin' you!

[@ph8blades]

This has been one of the best, most informative SC videos I’ve seen in a while thanks!

[@FullM88]

Thank you so much Dig! This video was sooo refreshing for me 😊

[@DigThat32]

Much obliged

[@cyberg_war]

Great video. Thanks for the work putting this together.

[@griffingamingrpg]

DT32…. You’ve done it again! Making this vid was timely and needed as a reminder to the community of the AI journey to NPC/Blades in Star Citizen. Big thanks for making and taking the time to do research by digging through years of archived info. You da “Bawse”!

[@hyghacinth1632]

AIRPLANE reference got me here lmao

[@IonizedSun]

Same here. Maybe we will have to blow the Autopilot up ? 😂 Roger Roger o7

[@Tentacl]

Surprisingly good video, I hear all type of thing but this came with reliable sources. Subbed.

[@BearDude2311]

Okay that Milk pun was funny caught me off guard so good had to stay the whole video!

[@goldenboywpg]

Thanks for filtering through all the rumours and facts and presenting them so well. Much love.

[@justinsandock]

Great roundup of what NPC and AI blades can do. Thanks.

[@mike_d_melb_music_fan5229]

Chat GPT conversations with NPC's ! Like Red Dead Redemption 2 - it's a hoot !!!😂😂😂

[@RoballTV]

Excellent summary, thanks for this :)

[@Malakie]

Nice job on this presentation and video. I also like how you remain unbiased in your reports. Well done.

[@hotjonmw90]

Its cool when you see them talking about stuff like personality way back then and when you remember they started adding some of that into the NPC combat behaviorisms

[@51ghardy]

Great info! You put together some stuff I didnt know for sure.

[@ping555able]

Great video DigThat32. Thanks for putting this together.

[@DigThat32]

@@ping555able Salute! 🫡

[@chrishoppner150]

This is a rock solid video, my man. Nice work.

[@RadicalJack1]

I really appreciate you doing the research on things like this. Like a boss.

[@ass_fat5509]

can always count on top notch content from you man. thank you very much.

[@chaadlosan]

Amazingly well done. So much research.

[@amazingadams6723]

Excellent video that addresses one of my biggest questions/concerns

[@ucheeke5110]

your best video yet. felt like i was watching a documentary by denzel washington

[@mcdowntrend]

Great video! Clearly a lot of research went into this

[@DigThat32]

@cyberpunk97 Yes it did! Thanks mayne!

[@AmanoEu]

Nice vid with a good summary!

[@dolrog8910]

Just discoverd your channel, great video !

[@Phantom-dm9fz]

Realistically, getting people to gather on large ships, like the 890, carrack, idris and javelin. It’s basically a requirement to have npc crew. The amount of prep work, time, resources and money to get a fully functional player crew would be insane. Let alone, a javelin basically takes a good portion of the server player base to main at a hundred percent. Npc crew and blades are literally a good solution. Not only that but that means larger space battles between rival factions and orgs. Instead of like one or two large ships manned by players for a space fight. You could literally have five to ten or more large ships in large scale battles against one another. Which could epic for players playing as the fighter escorts. Make the costs low, senseable to run and maintain a crew. Make it fun. Cause at the end of the day, npc crews will just make everyone’s life easier

[@little_lord_tam]

Npc Crew is a decent idea. Giving them a full life circle is tremendously stupid. It will be tedious and complicated to the point its just unfun. They could simplify that a bit. You dont want to play Star Citizen like its a Pokemon game where you try to get the best crewmen instead of playing the gameplay loop. You aint playing a Drill Sergeant simulator but its gonna be one

[@Phantom-dm9fz]

@@little_lord_tam I’m sure if they will find a way to simplify it a bit more than described here in this video. They do have a ton of people that basically bought capital sized ships this year, either that or multi crew ships. That would definitely want to solo their large ship. I know I’m one of them. So if they can get the emphasis that it’s fun to grab a crew member and it’s cheap to do so. While also making it easy or manageable on the ship. Especially fun to pilot it and maintain it. Then yeah

[@GDF589]

Your videos are super high quality, that rocks.

[@bobstark4201]

CIG never fully commits to anything they've said in the past. Any statements they've made on the topic in the past are subject to change at any time. Kind of like bed-logging. Or the F8C. Or the size of Pyro. People can cite old CIG statements all they want, it doesn't really hold much weight. Plus, it's Star Citizen. Imagine having a hired NPC in your Scorpius turret at XenoThreat. A player ship goes red, your NPC gunner shoots at him, you both get a crimestat and blown up. NPC's and Blades are going to get you killed, lol.

[@Nidvard]

What's your issue with bed-logging? and for your last point, well it's a reason it isn't implemented yet.

[@Revster]

The Scorpio’s turret is supposed to be player controlled even with an npc blade, probably won’t go off target unless you do

[@OmegaZyion]

Some ideas might seem good on paper, but horrible in practice. Changes are to be expected as playtesting reveals what does and doesn't work.

[@little_lord_tam]

Honestly they are reaching way too high. This wont be fun if they implement that 1 to 1 as they say. Like the death system when you take over an NPC or that they gonna have a full life circle... this is gonna be more complicated and tedious than Pokemon

[@laidbackbeau]

@@little_lord_tam Some people like that :)

[@TheStorm357]

This is what I was hoping they would do with it. Make that npc crew a full game play loop in itself, but make it viable if you play and pay the game right. Let a couple of them off for shore leave when friends want to hop on your 600i for the day but not be stuck staring at a wall when those friends are out for dinner that night or just want to fly their own ship. Good stuff. Thanks Dig. A lot of that I had not seen.

[@PatriotJedi]

Bro was just absent during all this stuff going down in Star Citizen. Guess life stuff comes up or maybe a break was needed. Glad to see you back o7 my good sir.

[@scrap_er]

Excellent video with no spéculation 😮 so good

[@GordonSeal]

They need to make the ships bigger, so the AI can fit in when they inevitably stand on their chairs.

[@bloodwitchamelia4581]

As an Idris owner, this sparks me with joy. Thank you for this informative and SMOOTH explaination. Fly frisky. ❤

[@TheUkiahAdventure]

Your videos are always so well done!

[@jahnringereide]

With that silky smooth delivery, how can someone not subscribe.

[@DigThat32]

Salute!

[@theg0z0n]

Man, execute is in absolute shambles after hearing Al can get NPC crews for his three javelins. Lol So much cope in the community about NPCs not being good at anything. Glad you made this video with sources so people know what CIG has said over the years

[@kriegjaeger]

There's a lot of people skeptical that NPC's can do anything but it seems even more most people don't WANT NPC's to do anything. They're enjoying space tarkov and don't want things to change.

[@Tsudico]

@@kriegjaeger I don't think it is that players want space tarkov, I think it is more the concern similar to what Todd Pappy said about the accuracy of AI gunners, because AI can be created to be "perfect" in the game. If players are taking the time to fully crew a ship, then they want to be able to beat an NPC crew in the same ship most of the time because there are that number of players investing their time into a single ship to do what they are doing. There is a time investment as well as an in-game economic investment as well that needs to be balanced between a solo player with an NPC crew and the same ship with a full player compliment. It shouldn't matter if the NPC are used for combat, mining, salvaging, medical, or whatever profession is decided on. For example, if a fully player crewed Orion expects to make X amount of UEC per hour of time they spend in the profession, then the solo player's profit should on average be equal to one player's share on that fully crewed Orion. If they have worse crew then they don't have to pay as much for the crew but don't make as much either. If they have a really good crew then they have to pay more for the crew but they make more to pay them with.

[@timdavis6913]

Thank you for your content! I can't wait to call my NPC crew to battle stations!

[@Energine1]

Dang dood this production is amazing! Props bro sh1ts funny fire 😆💯

[@John_Krone]

Great video man. Subscribed!

[@rickdeckard2622]

As a currently more solo player, the information in this video is so interesting and helpful. I have to say "Thank you very much, Sir❗" btw, this topic make me hyped!

[@LMMSDeadDuck]

As someone old enough to have been around when Airplane came out, I wanted to give much appreciation for the thumbnail. 😂

[@Mikalent]

I will state, NPC crews will be a necessity for Star Citizen, just because you need NPC ships to fill in where players won't or can't. Now, for player hired NPC crews, yeah, they will be needed as well. 53 people to properly crew an Idris is nice and all, you MIGHT be able to get it down to a crew of 10 to barely fill the turret slots and have a singular engineer, but having 10 people on just to barely crew the smallest capital ship available (I do not count the 890 Jump as a Capital, as while it says Capital on the tin, the engines and auxiliary systems are all sub capital.) Then think how many people would be needed for a Javalin, Pegasus, or Bengal, or any other Capital. Getting so many people on at a single time would be difficult to impossible, and that's if you have enough people willing to sit in the bowels of the ship and play engineer, turret gunner, or box stacker. Now, how they should implement NPC crew, should function on a "Player priority" system. Basically you can hire the crew, and the crew can be kicked, or removed for their job by an approved player. So if a player wants to run as an engineer or turret gunner, they can kick the NPC from it, and the NPC will function as maintenance crew, and require a smaller salary. Yes NPC crew should have to be paid a salary, as a way to encourage players to group up in a ship, and to make players who own capitals be more hesitant to pull them out. Basically requiring NPC salaries encourages using smaller ships as daily drivers, or if the player decides to use a big ship, it forces them to really think about where and how they use it.

[@MrHydesMonster]

Great video buddy. I really enjoyed it. I'm hoping for NPC crew shortly after 4.0.

[@Zethez]

Thanks for the deep dive into this topic. Extremely informative, no BS, and tons of reference, who's the "Bawse". For all the reasons discussed in this video, my largest ship will be a 600 ie.

[@JL-rj9fl]

Fantastic overview! With CIG's track record I sincerely believe we'll get these systems eventually. They do seem to deliver on what they promise over time, which I believe you may have said yourself in the video. Looking at this realistically, we don't really have too many significant tech blockers to overcome at this stage for us to see some of this stuff.

[@asstrole]

Great job. Thanks miuch

[@staybussin]

Good video fam, as usual

[@chadington565]

didnt watch the video but clicked to compliment the thumbnail, like the video, and sub

[@terrandysart3587]

Idk how you aren’t a top SC content creator yet. The quality and brevity of your videos is so good while still being entertaining. Keep it up big dog it’s just a matter of time. Also i feel like there is 0 chance NPC’s will or can be this in depth.

[@festersmith8352]

Dang Dig, its not the topic you covered (though very important to the success and future of SC, and needed to be covered), its how well you did it. The best SC presentation on any topic, and has raised the bar quite high. No laziness here just for the sake of views. You really had to put in the work to find all this info. Thanks for being humble enough to admit you were wrong. To much false info out there based on the vanity of just wanting to be right. Two points I don't see mentioned enough, but you did touch on it. Fully functioning varying NPC's has to be very possible, or SQ42 will never work, since the entire world is operated and played out by NPC's. Say what you will about dev resources being used to make SQ42. Almost all of its features and tech can be ported to SC. And this includes the NPC work they have done. So I suspect NPC's are closer than we imagine. There has been zero loss in development resources while making SQ42, in my opinion Which leads to the another mention you made. Server meshing (server performance). Its gonna be something to watch, how these NPC's are controlled on a MP network across the verse. Does CIG make the servers control the logic of NPC's, or will it be handled by the client, and then communicated to the server? Your client doesn't need to know my screw up NPC is changing out the 3 sea shells in my shoilet/shloo. Nor should the server have to take its valuable resources to compute that. But allowing the client to do it, opens up the possibility of hacks. Which we know will happen, if its even remotely possible. One could really melt their brain thinking of all the possibilities, and pro and cons in this project. Its what dreams are made of though. Almonds everywhere are grateful for you speaking on their behalf. I could have lived without the visual of a Vanduul bikini shipwash. Banu maybe though 😉

[@keithrobinson8009]

what's up Dig, after watching this, the first thing I said to myself was " man thats was a good video" Thanks for putting in that work, IT SHOWS

[@DigThat32]

Thanks Keith, that's good to hear 🫡

[@hanns1401]

Great work on this. Thanks!

[@DigThat32]

Glad ya dig it

[@Nizzra]

nice info, love the detail

[@RocktCityTim]

100% Whole Milk at the ready - bring on dem crumbs ... Hmm, feels like Starfield's NPC model except they maybe don't stay with you. Hmmm, love and well-being??? NPC bunk bunnies??? But ... hot bunking sucks - even as an AI. Seems that to one-up in an all NPC/AI load-out, you're gonna need daddy warbucks kind of UE. Uhh, milk's gone - shifting to Jamaican Blue Caffeine. I see two types of play in my future - running my Freelancer out there with one or two NPCs doing deep space exploration (if ever), while parking that and crewing up as an engineer or medical officer for a big boi. Thanks for puttin' that all together.

[@bjordan429]

Great job collecting all these parts.

[@yume5338]

They really need to also update the roaming NPCs on cities and in towns once they add them to ships. Gaming in general really needs innovation in NPC AI (which IMO should be the number one use case for the emergence of all this machine learning technology in recent years), GTA 4 in 2008 has better NPC AI and interactions than 90% of the games that came after, and that's kinda sad.

[@Ghost_Maverick]

I wonder How will you command NPCS, like something like Bethesda where it shows you a dialogue, or maybe something like "Siri" where you talk on comms and tell them hey! "Battle Positions!"

[@Anachroschism]

Great vid! It was officially stated that we won't be controlling NPC fleets. Unfortunately, I don't recall who said it, but it was in recent years, and there was already a lot of disappointment when that was stated. There may not be any physical limit, but I do agree, that CIG will likely limit us via the costs.

[@circuitguy9750]

Space Tomato quality deep dives?!? Now I Dig THAT! 🎉 Great vid

[@pyrozew]

ayyye, this is the first video I've seen by you. Insta sub for you my dude.

[@DigThat32]

Salute!

[@Gundobald]

Good video, appreciate you. I knew they would have to make npc crews effective, not everyone wants to be crewed up all the time but still wants a community to share their exploits (adventures) with. Even boba fett hung out at jabbas spot to soak up that admiration and fear. But he definitely rolled solo

[@Jewifer333x2]

Between my javelin and polaris, the main NPC roles I plan on hiring are engineers and maybe security detail and each set of NPCs will have a player in charge of them. Bridge crew will be 100% player. But I don't buy giant ships with the plan of being the captain much. You dont walk around the ship much as the captain.

[@KuriosChristos]

I'm assuming most people are going to be playing solo. For me, it's me and my Carrack. Right now it feels a bit lonely when I'm all alone in that ship but hopefully the ai blades will rock. Got a few other ships but another big one I got is the Merchantman. All with LTI.

[@axm2689]

Solid vid that must have taken lots of time and research. I’m all for the AI/NPC crews and partners. Just like the 80-20 rule, or whatever the number of npc vs pc activity around the verse. And bring on the Vanduul hordes as well. Maybe the Vanduul should prey on all the pirate hordes sitting around laying all their complex Wil E Coyote traps!

[@ThreeVINflies]

Some limitations to keep in mind will be the Life Support systems. Cool idea would be for there to be an Org "NPC Members" section and you can pick them up from wherever your Org "Home" is set to which will be available to any "Captain" within the Org. These NPCs are paid on the Org dime rather than each Captain.

[@Noid_Cave]

This can also be a huge plus for an Organization, that has like my Org, a good number of multi crew ships with the same amount of members. NPCs in an org, can float a fleet. making Org Vs Org actions Huge!

[@Nommicus]

Been waiting for this and Blades too... not heard a lot re those myself.

[@reverendzombie72]

I really LOVE this video! I will absolutely be saving it for future reference and sharing! I have had so many conversations with people about NPC crew and rather or not I will EVER be able to ever take my BIG ship out and play with it due to lack of crew. So, I am super appreciative of your research. I believe everything you presented is the intent of CIG in regards to NPC for your ship. Now, like you said maybe some things I've heard and believe are the plans will never be but if we are being real none of us know how it will turn out. not even CIG. I do have some things I think may have been missed? Or maybe I have it wrong? I am not sure how you are doing your research? Maybe using AI to return a list of videos where a topic was mentioned? But If you can confirm or deny a few things, I'd be even more grateful! It is my understanding that additional packages will "grant" me a "top level" NPC crew member. As you said in your video we will be able to make a NPC with each additional package we own. I really recall it being said by CIG that package NPC's will have their own inventory, ships and bank accounts and YES we will still need to pay them. I am SURE I heard this directly from CIG as their intent, like everything else said. But what is still unclear to me is if we don't pay them well or treat them poorly? What happens? Is it like your family and you just can't get away? If anyone knows anything more about this please let me know. Now one thing about your video that I thought was heavy speculation was how much they will cost. We know good NPC's will be more than unskilled ones but you shouldn't be throwing numbers out there like you've got it all calculated. Maybe a good NPC is twice what you said? Maybe it's half or a quarter of the numbers you gave? I can tell you now IRL people in our military are not really paid that much 😕Regardless, let's just be real about something right now. It is NOT hard to make money in the game! You can make stupid millions bounty hunting NPC bounties. And still keeping it real. NPC crew will be FINE for PVE game play and as competitive as any other equally skilled NPC against players. Like Chris said they will use the same code base. So can everyone just STOP making it out like running NPC crews will be too cost probative or they will all just suck. I have 10 packages. I intend to work to specialize each of them and when I am on a ship where their skill set is needed then I will assign them to the ships position. Otherwise, I am giving then shore leave... I'm guessing NPC's not in use will not cost me anything or at least cost less just to keep them on the pay role. That is my own speculation but I'm good either way.

[@reverendzombie72]

So I know I wrote a book in response to this video and I've been sharing it and having more conversations on the topic. Anyway I wanted to come back and talk more about the cost to run a BIG ship with NPC crew because so many people seem to want to put fear of draining bank accounts in front of it and I really don't think it is going to be that bad. I am pretty sure it will NOT be any worse than what we have now where proceeds of a mission is split equally among all the players. I am guessing it will be better because it would be easy for CIG to have NPC's expect an equal cut. So, when you do a bounty mission what you pay your NPC's will likely be that or close to it. BUT with players we gather up any loose cargo. That is usually where the real money is anyway! We go sell it and real players still expect their cut but will the NPC's? idk? Bottom line for balance sake it makes sense that CIG will not want solo player to make a lot more cash than what they would make with a player crew with the same head count. So it is my speculation that we can expect about what we have now with real players.

[@Snikkii15]

Yea, I hope they add this ASAP. A lot of my friends doesn’t really play this game. I hope they add the NPC.

[@kingsman7167]

Im hopeing you can full dive into raceing and have npcs enter races as a small team like “juiced“ from back in the day

[@DigThat32]

What's "Juiced". Wait...I have google....a racing game of which DigThat32 cannot be touched.

[@Wanaskiwin]

"Solo a polaris" *laughs* Me a barotrauma "Expert":

[@brandonkelly5517]

My plan has always been to have an NPC crew. I may have the occasional player join but i doubt it will be consistent. I think it would be cool to have some of the crew you hire have a trust meter or something as well as a likeliness to steal from you. What if an NPC you hired was actually a pirate trying to infiltrate your org. Or what if they just decide to steal your ship because of how you treated them. What if the NPC's in your crew had a mutiny and of say 12 maybe 5 defected and killed some of the other crew. This would make hiring NPC''s more than a simple decision. This would aldo give bounty hunters easy gaemplay that ties in to the verse with real stories that potentially make the headlines with the player driven stories in the NEWS department. Possibilities are endless.

[@DigThat32]

Ayy mayne! 🤣you envisioning some CHAOS in this joint!

[@AnTicXz]

Excellent video

[@Mullins23]

CIG did say we will get to use our "friends" accounts as crew when they log off on our ships. I haven't been paying much attention to it so hopefully this is still a thing.

[@digitalben420]

Awesome video. Got my sub.

[@case1737]

Glad you brought this up and feel CIG needs to update us on this feature ( and blades) and when we can expect it to it as well. Engineering shouldn't release until at least a patch or two after NPCs have released imo.

[@chalismaximus1046]

Wow thanks for this video. For the first 5 years of this game's development I watched every one of their videos, read every word of anything they posted. Then I fell off and only loosely followed along. I managed to completely miss any info at all on the NPC system and had assumed it wasn't going to be a thing, which made me disinterested in the game as I knew I'd never be able to fly anything but a one person ship. But damn, the game will actually be playable now! I'd bet 99.99% of players DON'T have a group of 10-80 friends ready and willing to come help run a ship on demand, so all these multi-crew ships coming out over the years made me feel like the devs are out of touch with reality, thinking their game will have billions of players or something, people enough to actually be available to run these massive ships outside of mega guilds. Even with large guilds of thousands of players it's going to be hard to just get 10+ people to come and man my ship with me, doing what I want to do. It's unrealistic. Sure some people will want to exclusively play that way but most people I think don't have the time or energy to deal with and just play solo for an hour here and there, so this is a game changer! I'm actually excited about the game again, which I haven't been for the last 5 years or so.

[@bennothetenno3988]

It'd be cool if they add indentured or rescued crew that will either work for free or very low cost because they are indebt to you either morally or financially. Example: Rescue a smuggler from pirates, but his ship is beyond repair and his crew is dead so to pay you back he joins your crew and only charges for basic upkeep like food/water and medical supplies. Or you're sent on a hit mission but instead you work a deal out with your target and same sorta thing.

[@dericclark6553]

Great job on this video 👍

[@DigThat32]

Thanks Deric