Can we not be able to kill NPCs on the ship, please?

So I had a cook, Joe, and a guy who sold bombs, rope, and flares, Steve, on my ship. Cool dudes, if not a little stingy because they won't give a discount to the guy who provides them with free shelter, but whatever, good guys all the same.

I say HAD though, because I was out doing the usual, "raid the planets, take the materials, repeat", thing that I do, when out of nowhere this super aggressive, blood-spitting Zubat from hell tries to swoop down on me, I jump, swing my bone hammer (not a euphemism) at it and die when the acid blood touches my robotic.. skin? Mid-swing.

I respawn on my ship, hit escape to skip the respawn animation, and then to my horror, the Bone Hammer continues its animation, a loud boom goes off, bones fly directly into the faces of Joe and Steve, and they die horrible bone related deaths.

Now I have no crew, no one to sell me bacon, no one to try to peddle me useless flares, and no one to comically jump into my bed from across the room and pretend to be asleep when I teleport back home.

Please, for the sake of all Joes and Steves out there, can you just, remove the ability to kill player spawned NPCs? Put a despawn option in a menu somewhere or something...

 

From Tiy's twitter. http://pastebin.com/wNTHqKA4

1. Changelog for v. Indignant Koala 11/12/2013
2. 
   
3. There are a whole bunch of improvements to balance here, particularly in the early game.
4. We aren't wiping characters or worlds, but if you want to experience the proper balance
5. you should make a new character/worlds to play it on!
6. 
   
7. Also..
8. 
   
9. - Nerf the hell out of birds, they no longer attack you at long range, lower damage, don't follow you forever.
10. - Monster projectiles across the board better balanced
11. - Shields better balanced
12. - Early armors better balanced
13. - Melee weapons better balanced
14. - Ores better balanced
15. -AI improvements
16. - you can now craft lanterns (similar to sixxes' lantern mod!)
17. - you can now craft a new back armor to help light caves
18. - fixed the bubble gun crashing on mouse over
19. - improve grass ( Suggestion by Dracyoshi)
20. - You are now invincible on your ship (this requires a new character)
21. - You need to be hit a lot harder to get knocked back
22. - some UI updates
23. - Drills now destroy 3x3 blocks
24. - Other misc changes
25. 
    
26. 
    
27. More coming really soon!

Now I'm not sure if everyone is invincible on your ship, but this could be a step in the right direction?

 

I support not being able to damage player-spawned NPCs. There are times when I just can't control where my arrow falls or where my shotgun pellets fly off towards.

 

I hope so, I'm gonna miss Joe. He had bread for burgers, and somehow always came up with some bacon, without ever leaving the ship.

That's talent.

 

Only one way to find out.

Prepare Joe and Steve 2.0!

 

So you swung your "bone hammer" into the faces of your friends? and now they're not with you anymore? I can't say I'm surprised! Come on man! That's not something you just do to your friends. Watch where you swing that thing next time.

 

He means that he swung at a bird, died mid swing, and since attack animations don't stop when you die, when he skipped to his ship, the "bone blast" from the bone hammer killed them. He didn't swing it at them, but it killed them due to no animation cancel on death. I've done this as well.

 

That's worse than I could have imagined.

 

Yes indeed. They need to fix that too, but I assume they know about it already.

 

Looking forward to it, as it's a sad day when you kill your doctor, find another one after looking for about an hour and spawning it, then promptly dying to something and slaying the new doctor.

 

But, how about when you want to get rid of the NPC's infesting your ship and making way for new ones? Unless you are being able to dismiss them, being unable to kill them must not pass. People will then complain about not being able to remove them from their ships.

 

I see no reason for not being able to dismiss them. Maybe you could use a matter manipulator to manipulate them back into spawners?

 

Yeah, the OP mentions having a despawn option if they can't be killed. (Sometimes I'd like to shove them back into the spawner when they steal my bed!)

 

That's why I said they could add an option to despawn them in a menu somewhere. They could do the thing that Terraria did, where clicking an npcs face would let you relocate them, and just put a trash can at the end of it.

But then I guess they'd have to keep track of which NPCs belong to which person and stuff like that... Idk, maybe toggle some kind of NPC safety mode in the options somewhere? Sorta like the Fable games have.

 

Yeah.. I'v had similar problems.

A dismiss function would be great though. -Nod- Instead of accidentally killing my Avian doctor dude.. TT^TT

 

My bad for missing the information about despawning them, fairly tired and it happens to skip some details from time to time.

If you can despawn them, then everything is fine, however I doubt this is a priority at the moment.

 

Also, I would like for a way to actually find them, or craft them like villager NPC's because finding them in chests might be a bit too random.

 

After losing a couple of good friends as well as my loyal bodyguard, I support this. WHAT DID HE DO TO DESERVE A FRIEND COMING TO MY SHIP AND KILLING HIM?! NOTHING!

In other news, I put a death trap in that friends ship and he can no longer log in. Cheers, bastard.

 

How do you get the people to spawn? I have two and can't them to come out of the item?

 

Wait. You can craft villagers? I am not sure I want to know the recipe or workstation that uses.

I think I just place the spawner, then leave the area and come back later. *poof* NPC