I was curious if a user hired an NPC in the PU for a specific task and our ship was under attack, what the response of the NPC would be. Will they continue to do their job or anything else that their employer asks at that time based on their individual skill set and level or, become unpredictable, perhaps wanting to give up? How human might they be?asked by Cantara

Good question. We definitely are going to be setting our NPCs up... I mean, basically the AI that runs the NPCs will be the same AI that runs NPCs not working for you that you may encounter or you may fight. And of course those NPCs all have... we're gonna have things like skill level, experience, sort of morale, whether the panic or not... and so, I think you'll definitely have, you know, you spend more money to hire a hardened veteran - he probably is not gonna freak out in the line of fire. Whereas if you have a rookie that was cheap, perhaps he'll run in middle of a fight. So we'll definitely have some level of AI personality affecting their actions, just like the non-working-for-you NPCs because it's essentially going to be the same set and code base. I think it's kind of cool that maybe you take people in, and as they get more experienced they become more loyal to you, or they become even better fighters. And then if you go and hire NPCs from the work boards or whatever, you'd pay a little more for a more hardened mercenary to be on your wing. Or if you try to cut corners perhaps you'll pay the price when you get attacked by pirates.So I think those are all things that we definitely will have in, and I think will be important to making the world feel real.