An Explanation of the new AI System

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    • Legacy Citizen
    Well then, it appears as if you're struggling getting started with the newly implemented AI and NPC system. Through this guide/explanation, I hope to ease your transition into the world of Complex AI Integration of Implementation and Manipulation!

    That name is no less intimidating, is it? Okay, how about... "AI Command and Control?"

    Yes, much better!

    Your first step to building your NPC crew is to (assuming you've already built a ship) find an advanced shop. These advanced shops are fairly rare, and are identified by both the glass room in their center, and their trademark "NPCNPC" navigation menu companion. Targeting the "NPCNPC" nav point will bring you directly to the advanced shop (my first advanced shop was found in sector 3, -1, 4).

    After finding the advanced shop, go up to A. Trader the (n)th to open the Trading Guild NPC talk GUI.



    From there you will see this menu:



    You can click on all the others and explore what he has to say, but at this early stage not much has been implemented. However, I see something exciting, which is the promise of Trading Guild quests in the future.

    This hopefully implies that you can also do pirating missions as well, and possibly hire other factions to do hunts and the like for you. Unfortunately, "no quests are available at this time."

    Go ahead and click "I'd like to hire some crew" and you will see this:



    He prompts you to pay 50000 credits in order to hire an AI crew member (that at the current time, really isn't worth the 50000, but he is quite cool, in the fact that he exists and that there is no doubt he will improve).

    At this point you have to understand that the AI config menu is quite bugged when it comes to AI (it works better for turrets and ships than for NPC's) and that you should always hold 'ctrl' when issuing a command.

    To issue a command, hold 'ctrl', press the corresponding number key to the NPC you own (if it's the first one you bought, it's number 1 on the upper row, not numpad). From there press any of 1 through 6 to:

    1 - Idle (stay put)

    2 - Attack (the selected target)

    3 - Roam (free movement)

    4 - Follow (follows you)

    5 - Goto (Goes to the selected target if it is within range)

    6 - Deselect (this deselects the currently selected NPC)

    My advice would be to not mess around with the AI config menu when dealing with NPCs, because it tends to glitch a lot.

    Also, initially after purchase, you have to set the NPC to roam and wait until it moves on its own before giving it any other command, otherwise it won't follow any orders.

    Another note: if you have a large ship that requires a gravity module like mine, there is no way to get them to use it. Use the follow command to bring them to the core of the ship, then select the ship core with F, and use the Goto command. That will essentially glue them to the ship and they'll move in conjunction with the ship.

    I hope that you found this guide helpful! Anything you notice that I missed, or have made any new discoveries, please feel free to list them!