NPC Crew Explained ( Star Citizen )

[@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.

[@Terran0va_Plays]

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.

[@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?

[@antwarior]

nahh NPCs are huge!!! i never would buy star citizen but now I'd consider getting it if they add NPCs, and im sure theres hundreds of others like me thinking the same,

[@Baleur]

Its very simple. Its about money. CIG cannot allow a $800 ship to be "useless" if your 15 friends arent logged on when you want to play. And frankly, thats fair. Do we REALLY need even more of a reason to say ships are overpriced? If you shell out that kinda money for a digital ship in a game, you bloody well deserve to be able to have fun with it, even solo.. Naturally the AI crew will be worse than a player crew, unless you squad up with some true noobs. Anyone seriously arguing that an $800+ ship SHOULD be useless and unplayable without a full player crew, are beyond idiotic. Then why would anyone spend that money?

[@jasonfrost5025]

"Then why would anyone spend that money?" Because they can. Rich people 101. It's why they have like 20 empty houses. They can and no one is telling them "No."

[@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

[@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

[@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.

[@DigThat32]

Salute! 🦾

[@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.

[@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!

[@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

[@Rgraceful1]

It doesn't matter what CIGs gameplan is .Everyone will have many large ships buying them in or out of game . Why should I be someone's Galley Slave when I can Captain my own ship . Yes for wars I might opt to be part of a crew so I can win but day in day out I want to fly my own ship . I think most people will want to fly their own ships and NPCs will be easier they will never say no or not want to go mining . If CIG makes it too hard to use NPCs many won't play .

[@philswift791]

@CaptainSF I completely agree with you, I have long said this isn't really a game in the traditional sense. Everything I have read and understood in the patterns of CIGs communications is that this is to be a simulation of life in space. This idea also holds true with the building of the tech from the ground up, which is why it has taken so long. Many games do this behind closed doors and use prepacked code assets. People who think they know how others will react rarely get this correct. For me I haven't done a mission in ages. I live out and about on my own. Harvesting rocks and looting sites where things have been left behind. I have driven a ground vehicle 200km to get somewhere just for fun. It took for ever and it was in a snowstorm. Everyone plays differently and this game is going to let you do this.

[@Rgraceful1]

@CaptainSF Yea I guess you're right .There are a lot of sheeple in the world .I just don't care to be one of them or even the shepherd of them .

[@JohnDoe-wd8rs]

@@Rgraceful1 yea, that’s because you’ve never had a great pilot… I’m good and I love piloting but I have a few guys I’ll gun for any day

[@Rgraceful1]

@@JohnDoe-wd8rs It's great that you have the choice to fly with your friends , just give me NPC crew so I have choices too .

[@matrocidejenkins9376]

partially because alot of people arent willing to dump literally over 1$1000 for a cap ship outside the game, was bad enough spending 400 for a reclaimer

[@momsspaghetti9571]

NPC crews is gonna be such a huge thing like not from only roleplay and immersion perspective but those are literally dreams come true, making your own dream crew like in mass effect but in that case their truly exist and perform tasks

[@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.

[@DaringDan]

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

[@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.

[@BigBobBlazer]

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

[@Brigadier_Beau]

@@little_lord_tam Some people like that :)

[@alexanthony1168]

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

[@Dargini]

Good on you for compiling everything about AI crew that I’ve been wondering about and lack the free time to find myself. Thanks for the great content!

[@SaberFoxRP]

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

[@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! 🫡

[@Edrahil17]

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

[@DigThat32]

Thanks Edrahil

[@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! 👍

[@Citizen1482608]

I'm so glad that they won't be setting a limit for NPC. You see, I am one of the unlucky ones who doesn't have enough "friends" who actually want to play SC or have the time to do so when I do. I want to trade and build an empire as a trader in SC as my primary income, and I will eventually want a massive ship that will require a lot of crew. I just hope that 4.0 comes soon so I can have some fun playing again.

[@Poetry_Book]

same same want to start an org tho

[@wolfmirebacta8710]

I'm really hoping hiring crew is like owning a company or PMC. If I can't command grunts and use the dropship and hotdrop into combat zones I'll be sad The joke on Human Life Insurance is something I need. The amount of times I've been killed by friends due to server issues or them "tapping" me with their wing is insane. I really hate losing my gear over and over

[@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.

[@CrowDawg11]

@@Tsudico what it really is, is hardcore multiplayer-only people wanting to gatekeep how other people should be able to play the game. Time and time again we see people sneering down their noses at solo players that "this isn't the game for you" or "go play something else" or "you can stick to single-seat starter ships then". But that marginalizes a massive swathe of the playerbase who just want to be left alone to have their imaginary space life and don't want to deal with coordinating and dealing with other people, all of whom have their own things they want to do that doesn't necessarily align with what you want to do. At the end of the day, solo players being able to have NPC crew and do their RPG crew management with them in no way affects or precludes multiplayer people from being able to do the same thing with actual people - the only side that wants to dictate how the other is allowed to play is the obligate-multiplayer camp. Regarding your concern about NPC crew being able to be as effective as players - why the hell not? Why should the solo player who's paying exorbitant amounts of money and has put in the time to train up their NPC crew be artificially handicapped to where any crew of real players - no matter how shit - can automatically stomp all over him just because they're actual people? That's not fair to the solo player. The advantage - the *only* advantage - crews of real players should have is the fact that real human players can think on their feet and react outside of programming, and can talk to each other and work together in ways that NPCs cannot, along with being able to split their attention and efforts instead of one person having to oversee and manage everything as would be the case with NPCs. But yes, top-tier NPCs should absolutely be able to perform better than players who aren't very good, and that bad player should not have an artificial, programmed-in superiority to any NPC just because they're a real person. Otherwise NPCs are completely useless.

[@Tsudico]

​@@CrowDawg11 I don't consider it gatekeeping to make it so that a solo player with an NPC crew in a Javelin isn't as good as a dedicated multiplayer crew in the same Javelin. I consider it game balance. When multiple players are investing their time into one activity the game should acknowledge the total human hours that takes versus the human hours of a single player doing the same thing. If a single player wants to have a crew that is as good as a dedicated multiplayer then they would need to invest an equal amount of human hours into improving their crew (which I think should be possible). I, personally, have mainly solo ships in my fleet expressly since I don't know how much I will play with others so I have kept mainly to solo ships because those are the ones I think I will be most effective in so I don't have to depend on NPC crew. CIG has repeatedly stated that players should be able to stay in small or medium ships with satisfying game play and not feel forced to move to bigger ships. If you want to solo a big ship with an NPC crew then there will be more risk and should be higher costs for a competent NPC crew that can stand toe-to-toe with multi-crewed player ships. It's just good game balance.

[@CrowDawg11]

@@Tsudico literally nobody is saying that multiple players working together shouldn't have an advantage over a solo player running an NPC crew. Absolutely no one. Even if everything was programmed to be completely equal, four well-coordinated people working together to divide the workload and do multiple things at once are always going to have the advantage over one person who has to manage everything by themselves. All we're asking for is not to be *locked the fuck out of the gameplay entirely* if we don't want to play with other people. Which yes, is absolutely gatekeeping. Saying it should be "impossible" to solo anything bigger than a Freelancer or Zeus - even with an NPC crew - is 100% gatekeeping, and that's what the majority of the anti-solo crowd is demanding.

[@mike_d_melb_music_fan5229]

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

[@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”!

[@PragmaticTornado]

Some say "oh, this is impossible in SC" - if you capture an Idris, today, the turrets are automated. Who do you think controls them; ghosts? I tried for years and years to get my friends into this game, but at this point I have all but given up. If SC ever becomes fun to play again, I hope npc's are implemented.

[@fenrisulv]

Amazing video, quality and research is 10/10, just pure perfection, thank you for this, I've been trying to find the NPC crew clips and info, but you have it all in this video, pure awesomeness.

[@coolguymcfly4768]

Seeing the amount of comments here saying things like "If you dont have time to play more than a couple hours at a time to organize player crews, play a different game!" Has made me completely double down on wanting AI crew. The last thing I want is to have such apathetic people in my ear/ship for hours at a time. Plus, the game is meant to feel like you are some dude in this fantastical world, so why wouldn't you be able to hire other dudes to do things with you? You can RP as a miner, merc, trucker, bounty hunter, and so on, so why is the line drawn with NPC crew to RP as a fleet comander/captain especially when new systems will soon be introduced that are going to make manning ships that much harder? The argument of pay to win in THIS game is actually insane when I could just buy the best ship in the game right now with real money, and invalidating complaints of people having no time is genuinely hilarious (98 percent of players dont want to spend hours just trying to set up org play on a work night, believe it or not). It feels super gatekeepey, and a lot of these arguments come off as pathetic push back against changes they dont like where they simply harrass the players that want these features instead of CIG for literally already confirming these features years ago. "You have to play the game the way I want you to! NPCs ARENT COOL!" Bro get a job and take a shower.

[@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!

[@ph8blades]

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

[@Sangvinivs]

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

[@BuzZzKiller]

Chris: They'll use the same AI as NPCs you see walking around. Me: So how much time will they spend standing on chairs?

[@jahnringereide]

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

[@DigThat32]

Salute!

[@arrclyde4325]

I hope you don't mind that i süread your video on the current discussion on spectrum around NPC crew. I think you did a very good job in colllecting all the informations and compile them into a single video. It is of course by no means a full factual video about how things will be in the future but a good start and pretty close to show the plans and ideas for SC in terms of NPC crew.

[@justinsandock]

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

[@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

[@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

[@dartarian]

Yeah, i think it will always be blended players/npcs on those large ships. Especially when players must be offline for real life. Players acting as officers.

[@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

[@Malakie]

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

[@pilsatortube]

can't wait for npc crew that will be awesome!

[@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.

[@hyghacinth1632]

AIRPLANE reference got me here lmao

[@IonizedSun]

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

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

The fact is NPC crew is a must for the game's long term survival, while I might be able to get a capital ship that requires 30 players and crew it up once or twice, most of the time they're going to have to sit, unused, if you can't get some NPCs on board. Most gaming parties are going to be 4-5 players on average, and spending your entire party on crewing a single ship isn't going to be what people want to do anyway as many people will want to "fleet up" a group of ships. You'll see that in the long run either hybrid crews or players only taking captaining roles on multiple vessels being the norm, multi-player vessels are a novelty that some people will enjoy, but long term you'll see that everybody wanting to be a ship captain will result in very few "crewmembers" hell I foresee that most players that want to be crewmen for a ship instead of the captain struggling to find captains that would prefer players over NPCs And that's the core issue, right? The balance of it is impossible, either the NPCs are too weak to make larger vessels viable without player crews, or NPCs are so good that groups of players will be stronger when fleeting up rather than multi-crewing a vessel. But then again, meta ruins everything, the objectively correct balance is to make the NPC crews good enough to where player crews are not an "upgrade" beyond the novelty and fun of playing with friends, this way we're not punishing players for playing alone.

[@goldenboywpg]

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

[@LMMSDeadDuck]

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

[@marlonharris71]

DigThat32... Man, you have some of the BEST content on SC that I have ever listened to. While others just put out daily REPETITIOUS content, one week their positive, next they are negative, you just give the skinny and deliver it in a way that allow others to decide how they want to play SC. I have been gaming for the past 46 years and I don't need someone giving me their "SaltE" take on a game I CHOOSE to follow. If I chooooooose to spend my money on this game, it because I HAVE the money to do so. Again your content is always good to watch, it's light, comical and touches on topics I want to hear. If others don't like CIG or the game, why do they make content for it. I usually turn to gaming to escape reality. I do not need a content creator to tell me why I should, love SC and then the next denigrate CIG. DO these content creators know that EVERY game in this point in time is in ALPHA! The days of a "fully finished" game are over! The advent of DLC proves that. Is that not asking for MORE MONEY for additional content. YOU SIR, on the other hand are the best, in my opinion. JUST THE FACTS and no flip flopping!

[@chunkycomet9117]

I absolutely cannot wait for this to be a thing, it will be a while but not as long as people think. Currently people think the AI are super underdeveloped because in stations they just stand on chairs and whatnot, but fail to realize all the other AI that actually move and interact with the environment and perform generated tasks. The reason civilian AI in stations stand around weirdly is because RSI disabled or didn't yet finish their pathing and generated actions due to focusing on other sections of gameplay while they finish working out how to do the AI. When the AI (who are programmed to be active) end up just being stuck in 1 place, their code contradicts and they end up stuck in whatever location they generated in, be that on a chair or halfway in a wall

[@lllKRENDELLLlll]

You can convey my words to the CIG. I'm basically a solo player and I don't really like PvP because it's stressful, i.e. playing with a live player is always unpredictable, which is why you're under a lot of stress. As an adult, I like the plot and immersion more, which is why I am a big fan of games such as Wing Commander, Freelancer and the X series of games. In them, I interact exclusively with AI and the gameplay completely relaxes me and I enjoy the interactivity of the world and the plot. In general, I accept the presence of other players, but only in PvE mode. Why don't I like PvP? Because in addition to space and mine, I also love RTS and the famous Starcraft series of games (I hope you guessed that I generally like management and interaction?😏) and looking at PvP in starcraft, when a real player is looking for a way to beat you, he starts building up farm passages and sending armadas of flying bases at you, overloading your air defense..) Looking at all this, I have the same reaction as in the movie: "Very scary movie 2" with the holy father and the possessed girl - fu%k this! 😂 So if the game gives me the opportunity to replace real players with NPCs and play the game solo, then SC will become a place for me where I will spend hundreds of hours in the evening after work) P.S. I think I'm not the only one and Roberts needs to know that )

[@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.

[@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.

[@CleanYEAH]

Great vid. I think it's important to remember that CIGs old vids don't hold much weight today. The game has drastically changed since 2014 and they've done a pretty good job communicating that. Soloing large ships will be possible but definitely not efficient. A lot of us are still not ready to hear that lol

[@bloodwitchamelia4581]

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

[@Terran0va_Plays]

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.

[@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.

[@chadington565]

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

[@ericpowell4350]

With the advances of AI over the past year, it should be doable.

[@BearDude2311]

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

[@ferdinandcrespo6012]

You, sir, certainly have the potential to become one of the big SC youtubers! Amazing video!

[@vulcan4d]

This video will age well ;)

[@MrTrethurane]

This will be nice. There's always turrets that no one wants to man and jobs that no one's available for. I'm looking forward to having NPCs fill out the gaps. Plus it'll be nice to not have to wait an hour for everyone to get together for a hammerhead run.

[@edenyan7237]

I only need NPC crew to do one thing: can fly a ship follow me when I say follow, and halt when I say halt. nothing else. I think it can be arranged. (A lot of people released NPC would be nice for multicrew ship, but what I'm looking at is, a lot of us, have more than one ship, especially for total PVE player, a money maker plus a hauler combination is VERY COMMON, I don't care if my NPC can fly the snob ship, snob ship sucks it can't QT. I care that when I drive my reclaimer, can my NPC drive my Ironclad follow me to the salvage site. THAT is all it matters and that makes buying more than one ship become a lot more practical. )

[@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.

[@JJS563]

I think your guesses on the monthly cost of NPC's make sense. Seeing as you can make alot when you have bigger ships with more space for cargo/tanks/guns/mining bags then doing anything should be pretty simple.

[@rzq100]

Damn before this video I didn't even know npc crews were planned to be a thing. Sounds pretty dope though. I can imagine myself playing Picard managing a capital ship with loads of crew.

[@chaoschaos-oy7qo]

Never seen your channel before, but that was down right comprehensive, excellent work, subbed.

[@DigThat32]

Thanks and welcome

[@Tentacl]

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

[@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.

[@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 🫡

[@scrap_er]

Excellent video with no spéculation 😮 so good

[@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.

[@Phaethon569]

great work gathering all this info in 1 video

[@ucheeke5110]

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

[@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!

[@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 😉

[@chalismaximus1]

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.

[@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.

[@spencerdrumm2151]

A lot of the people in my org tend to buy these ships, and we usually do it so that no matter who's on, we can always get something going

[@callsigngrimdoll]

Good job sir. Most people don't want to do the research like this. Thanks for the hard work.

[@DigThat32]

Much appreciated sir! Was a college dissertation worth of research fa sho!

[@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.

[@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.

[@x_quinn_x9179]

CIG have stated on many occasions that you have to be in command of the ship for it to operate with an NPC crew, you won't be able to assign an NPC crew to a ship and have it go off and do things without you. The only exceptions to this are ships that are considered support ships to the ship you are in command of, such as fighters, docked craft, ground vehicles, basically anything that can be carried on or in the flight decks, garages and hangars of a ship.... Not sure if that includes the largest of ships that can land on the Kraken flight deck, having a caterpillar or constellations working that way because they can land it on the flight deck of a Kraken could be game breaking in a couple ways, but then the trade-off is that you can't have anything else on that flight deck and most likely the support ships will have to stay reasonably close or at least in the same star system..... One thing is fully clear, CIG don't want you to earn money while offline, and they don't want a single player operating an armada of NPC crewed ships.

[@DigThat32]

07:09

[@themanyouwanttobe]

I think the healthiest balance will be that a hybrid crew will be best. Certain roles simply won't be optimal for humans and an NPC will be better value there. Also, even if you have enough players to 100% crew a ship, it'll be better to 50% crew two ships and fill in the rest with NPCs.

[@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.

[@j.d.4697]

I like the idea of unqualified staff being able to still TRY to perform tasks you ask them too. 😅 "This ship was wired by cats!"

[@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!

[@RadicalJack1]

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

[@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.

[@KurtacusRex]

@DigThat32 Your research is thorough and well presented ! love the time stamps! Sanity check, liberator, Spartan, Legionnaire, It sounds like 16:20 would be the system implemented for "stormtrooper" style npc movements, as long as its a short enough flight? (or risk mutiny, which was a design consideration for the liberator now i think of it)

[@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

[@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!

[@Cplblue]

Oof, Rich Tyrer or whatever, dude who talked about 1.0 at CitCon and demoed Sq42, just said that AI NPCs aren't coming until after 1.0. Long wait boyos.

[@TFT-bp8zk]

11:26 This guy looks like Ser Davos the Onion Knight.

[@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.

[@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!"

[@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.

[@CrowDawg11]

Yeah for large warships, using NPC crews you might have only 10 players but if each of those players can bring a crew with them onto the ship then the players can function as department heads while their NPC crews fill out the jobs within that department. Essentially the players are the officers and the NPCs are the enlisted ratings.

[@ass_fat5509]

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

[@expresselevatortohell]

Great video DigThat32. Thanks for putting this together.

[@DigThat32]

@@expresselevatortohell Salute! 🫡

[@nuclearsimian3281]

I've seen some players "skill." I'm fine with NPC being able to perform well, at least that should be reliable.