Will my NPCs walk around on board, or does a turret gunner always sit in his tower and a doctor always stay in his medical practice? Chris once said that NPCs must eat and drink. Is this still the plan?
TL;DRDan Trufin says it's still the plan: each NPC will follow a schedule covering duty, eating, sleeping and exercise, and will switch to a combat schedule and run to their stations when combat starts.
It's definitely still the plan. Each NPC will have a schedule. They will have a schedule that says when they're on duty, when they're not on duty, when they will practice at their turret. So let's take the turret example for a second. I am expecting a turret gunner to not spend all his time in a turret. He needs to eat, he needs to shower, he needs to sleep. He will go through his entire life cycle. He will have some exercise time where he's at the station. If you have, let's say, six turret guns, a few of them will always be at the station and they'll have a rotation. So one of them will sleep between these hours while the other is at the turret while the next one is eating and doing R&R stuff. Once the ship goes into combat, you will have all the guys switch schedule and they'll switch to their combat schedule rather than their out of combat schedule. And as soon as they switch to combat schedule, whether they were eating, being on the toilet or whatever, they will leave that. They will run all the way to their turret and man the station.