My Premise: There are non-player controlled ships flying around, shooting, etc in the Verse in-game right now, with multiple NPCs in those ships. I am not arguing the effectiveness, or competence of these NPCs/Ships, just that they exist, and there is no excuse for Player's to be able leverage them in-game, right now. Before Distortion damage was mega-nerf'd, it was a ton of fun pulling a Bounty Mission, rolling up with full distortion, and bringing offline a multi-crew ship like the Carrack, boarding it, forcibly taking over the Bridge, and then flying around doing more Bounty Missions with a NPC Crewed Carrack. NPCs stationed in turrets would all shoot at whoever (and only whoever) was targeted, which worked beautifully. Even now, this is still possible, but you need to take out the ship's shields, before blasting with Distortion Damage. I would not expect NPC crew to walk around and talk or anything like that, just that from the Pilot's seat, you designate which stations would be manned by an NPC, and they would appear and fulfill their designated role. They don't need to be adaptive, or skilled, just perform as they do for Rogue NPC ships out in the Verse. It feels like CIG is holding this back from players, because it would make multi-crew ships too OP compared to solo/solo-able ships. To allow for benefits to have a Player Character filled multi-crew ships, I would expect that NPC operators to be de-buffed and would be less accurate/less aggressive at firing etc. (Which is how I see Non-Player controlled ships performing in-game now, even on good servers) When Engineering comes online, Player's would still need to be the ones handle those tasks, and I would not expect for an NPC to pilot the ship, for for industrial roles, etc. Agree or Disagree, I would like to hear other thoughts, and at least find some common ground on what is effectively Tier0 AI Blades/NPC Crew. [EDIT: From the sounds of some of the responses, I may be describing only the AI Blades for both roles, but with a physical NPC sitting in your ship for the NPC crew that I was describing. I would fully expect that Hiring an NPC gunner would be different from an AI Blade for a gunner, as they would be draining different resources (Power, Food/Drink, Salary, etc) and that no matter what you call it for Tiers, that there would be an itemized rollout of abilities for NPC Crew. Gunners, Engineers, Navigators, Medics, Cleaners, Miners, Refiners, Refuelers, Salagers, etc etc. My NPC statements were specifically about NPC roles inside ships that are already in the game (gunners, and walking around/seated NPCs who would become hostile and shoot you if you board the ship).]