Official statement from CIG (09/27/2013): Creating Crewmen Many of Star Citizen’s ships, such as the Freelancer or Constellation, feature positions for multiple crewmen. Players will always be able to hire NPC crewmen in the game, contracting computer-controlled crews to help man turrets, run consoles and fly escort. If you would like the option of customizing your crew, you can create your own NPCs by using a Game Character slot. You will go through the same character creation process as your player character but will then have the option of handing off control to an AI. As an additional bonus, friends can ‘drop in’ to take over these crewmen themselves and to help man your spacecraft when available. Specific mention of players being able to turn game packages into NPCs (09/27/2013): Remember it is not necessary to use a Game Character for your NPC crew. You will be able to hire normal NPC crew with credits you’ve earned in-game. The difference between a Game Character slot converted into a NPC crew member and a regular NPC crew member is that you can customize the Game Character NPC’s look, name and backstory. There is an additional bonus of being able to specify one of your Game Character NPC crewmembers as your successor in the event of your main characters death (See Death of a Spaceman), at which point the Game Character NPC will become playable again, with the assets of your deceased old character conveying. I just wanted a show of hands to see if many people here purchased extra game packages way back then, with the expectation of owning multiple customizeable NPCs for crew. Though I am deeply saddened by the direction CIG has chosen to go with 1.0 regarding NPCs, I figured I may be part of a tiny minority that even knows this was a thing back in 2013. Please let me know if you were aware of this and how many additional packages you purchased specifically for this. In my case, I got 3. Thanks in advance for participating here. Link to the official page describing package/NPC mechanics: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-Multiple-Package-Clarification