Question about NPCs

I've just come back to starbound, and after a long period of being out of the loop, I was wondering if anyone could tell me if the starbound team has any plans on tinkering with NPCs and updating the crew mechanics in the future.

 

Not as far as I can tell, but here are a few mods I'd recommend. These three let you use and have more crew members, and also make them more powerful:
http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/formidible-crewmembers.3902/
http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/more-crewmembers.3904/
http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/unlimited-active-crewmembers.3903/
This one let's you retire crew members (by creating a tenant deed that allows you to spawn them back in wherever you want) and reject offers for crew membership:
http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/keep-your-day-job.4562/
This one lets you customize each crew member's uniform individually:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=743328719

I've only tested the first four for compatibility, though I doubt the last one will cause trouble.

 

My janitor needs a real purpose, and what about making medics more viable especially in late game, what about how with out a mod crew mates die in lava, constantly clicking on crew mates when trying to open doors or talking to vendors causing them to stop following you. I'm really hoping there is more in the works for NPCs

 

Concern! Glitch cannot reach you!

That is not my problem, you figure it out and stop yelling at me! So help me if it was possible I would toss you in the poison vat back on the ship.

I am hoping with the coming of space stations I can transfer the more useless members of my crews to it as I don't need three janitors. I am not saying I want a huge overhaul to NPCs but I would love to for the ship to have some kind of equipment locker I can access where I can give items to each crew member so that if I find a flamethrower and I don't want to use it I can give it to one of my landing party or give them light packs or gear that isn't protectorate armor.

 

Lava/poison immunity for crew: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=744621236

Converts janitor to quartermaster (merchant who sells cool stuff and gives you better prices), buffs medics: http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/earths-finest-crew-improvements.3906/

General crew AI improvements (incompatible with Earth's Finest, from what I've heard): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=795711902&insideModal=0

You can transfer useless members of your crew using this mod: http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/keep-your-day-job.4562/

 

I was thinking about getting the "keep your day job" mod, but I'm hesitant because of the way the mod author worded one of the bugs, something about how if you have a crew member before the mod was installed they will become a villager regardless of what they where. Does that mean that the crew I already have will turn into villagers or does it mean that if dismissed they will turn into villagers?

Also to the best of my knowledge Earth's Finest wont play well with the tailor mods I already have installed.

I would like to see some of these issues tackled by the devs. and maybe they will and just haven't updated the community about it yet.

Also i'm not dissing on mods, there are a lot of cool ones out there. It's just some of these things seem kind of core to the experience and could benefit from the starbound creators tackling them hands on, unifying it with their long term vision for the game.

Mods can be messy, some of them aren't compatible and you're relying on multiple singular people to take time out of their day job to improve them and keep them up-to-date. Most mods I am personally interested in haven't been touched on in 1 to 4 years or more, which is another reason why I'm hoping for the starbound devs. to take on some of these issues personally.

 

Nah, it just means that if dismissed, they'll become villagers because that's the default type. And the mod author is apparently thinking of making it so that retired crew members simply switch back to an appropriately-colored protectorate outfit, which, since that would as far as I know require custom NPC types, would presumably mean that you could rehire them to become the same crew type after retiring them.

 

oh really, I kind of like it with out the uniform thing, i mean that's like soldiers retiring, coming home and wearing full combat gear around the house, going to get groceries, picking up the kids. Personally seems kind of "off" to me.

 

See, I like that because I see it less as retirement and more as going into other Protectorate work. I mean, I highly doubt the only thing the Protectorate on Earth did was go places and stab stuff. The codexes seem to indicate quite the opposite.

 

I see your point, The author should look into combining the mod with the functionality of the crew customization mod, it allows you to set what the character is wearing including the basic protectorate uniform, maybe he could program the mod to have the characters continue to wear the last outfit they had on when disbanded.

 

I'm not sure if that's even possible given the way Starbound implements NPCs.

 

wait I'm dumb, all he would have to do is have one version of the mod the way it is currently and then an optional download for the protectorate update and then you could choose which way you wanted your game to play.