NPCs & AI

AI blades are still wanted and intended, as part of keeping solo players supported, but the speakers say the current implementation isn't how blades will eventually work and give no timing.

Speaking as a player rather than a dev, Beckford says multicrew ships are meant to be crewed and so work best with a crew, needing a different play style, and he cannot speak to AI crew plans.

Overspawning has had a different cause in each content patch, most recently mission modules initializing twice; a replacement population manager is in the works but not close, so more verification checks are being added meanwhile.

Nothing about taming or pets is in active development right now, but it remains a committed stretch goal, with NPC pet systems being worked out that could be built on later.

AI performance is tied to server FPS, working poorly under five, struggling between five and eight, decently above eight or nine and ideally over ten; they are working to make AI cope better and fixing bugs that mimic unresponsiveness.

The AI module (blade) technology already works and is used on some capital ships, turrets and ATCs, with the AI side largely ready and the remaining work being how players obtain and use blades.

Creature work has started, beginning with the Quasigrazer, with several other creatures in development, but details are withheld and there is no promise of a big feature, as they would rather let players discover them.

The replication layer lets AI write data like players do, while moving AI between servers will require replicating their decision-making context and restoring correct states, such as dead or unconscious, so players don't notice switches.

VoIP needs work and has unscheduled backlog items to make remote players hear the speaker's surrounding ambience, improve voice tuning, and balance the VoIP mix against growing in-game audio.

Francesco Roccucci introduces himself as the AI director responsible for high-fidelity AI, overseeing AI Tech, Feature and Content teams plus some vehicle AI work.

The whiteboard holds Roccucci's explanatory sketches, including simplifying the verbs for AI actions, how Subsumption data and core logic work, spaceship actions, and usables setup like counters and chairs.

The vehicle teams don't handle NPC crews or duty cycles, and don't do the art (for designers); they make seats and systems work, and artists are often asked why things don't work.

Gold-standard passes bring release ships up to current standards (interactions, metrics, components, new features) and vary per ship from light touch-ups to near-full reworks, not guaranteed reworks.

The Idris has received tuning to shields, railgun and armor, plus AI changes to its movement, distance-keeping and target and incoming missile or torpedo prioritisation.

The panel expects server object container streaming to raise server frame rates toward a 30 target, improving AI, combat and responsiveness, allowing more content in the solar system, and speeding up developer iteration.

The AI Blade and NPC crew are gameplay-designer systems, not the ship team's; the AI Blade will eventually be a vehicle item within the ship computer, but nobody is working on it currently.

AI is called the biggest remaining risk to the Squadron 42 schedule, with too few AI programmers and more being sought, alongside the time needed for content and polish.

Dan 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.

This refers to hired NPC crews on player ships in the PU, where the captain can order red alert but keeping crew at stations lowers morale and performance, and Trufin says it's coming "soon".

Much of the fauna will be handcrafted, with procedural elements mainly making variants of handcrafted creatures, to avoid homogenous or ugly results, and tools will help scale up content.

Brewer says nested animations within a usable, like sitting on the toilet or working at a work zone, are being worked on, with an AI code hitch still being solved.

There is no single solution: mission boards filter crowds in big places, remote NPCs make players wait their turn or may refuse annoying players, and spread-out locations help, with tweaking expected after release.

Roberts doesn't expect players to work jobs like station security at big NPC mining stations soon, but says players could take contracts or missions from large NPC organizations, with career paths a long-term idea.

NPCs will have RPG-style skill levels and traits, are hired at rookie to veteran levels, and improve through battle, though the detailed background stats may not be exposed to players.

A friend taking over an NPC crew slot doesn't get paid for it; the NPC still draws its agreed pay as a running cost for the ship owner.

NPCs will sometimes initiate interactions and offer jobs, because the goal is for NPCs and AI to be active rather than merely reactive, via a planned Meta AI.

Bribing a competitor's NPC crew into mutiny isn't currently planned and may be revisited later, though NPC crew will have hidden stats like morale that can improve over time.

The goal is for AI to be active and context-aware, approaching players with information or requests and moving away from static conversation trees, first tested in Squadron 42 and shared with the persistent universe.