Non-Player Characters (NPCs) represent the masses of the galaxy. These are the soldiers that support our heroes in battle and the workers that build our homes.

Tutorial NPCs exist to help you. They provide different kinds of explanations about your environment in the combine. They can also be hired to provide help around your faction's starting location.

A military NPC is the fighting force of any army. They are much stronger than Civil NPCs.

Static NPCs are there to bring more life to the universe and to assist new players. They may be created anywhere a player can go. All Static NPCs have the ability to converse with players using a short pre-defined script. The supervisor of the NPC may add them to their party and move them about at will. Custom NPCs can represent anyone you wish, such as:

• Guards, bridge officers, deck officers, etc
• Barman in your tavern, secretary in your office, anyone working for you or your group
• Your wife, husband, brother, sister, mistress, friend, or enemy
• Any Joe Bloggs you want to see or want other players to see

Static NPCs come in three types:

• Tutorial: An NPC that teaches new players about the universe
• Conversation: NPCs that exist to add colour to the universe. They could be a shuttle pilot, local politician, drunken bum and so on
• Custom: NPCs whose scripts, images etc can be defined by their owner

Custom NPCs do not get any pre-set class skills. Instead, they receive some Skill Points (SP) that must be assigned in their skills by the players, using the regular skills rules. Custom class 1 NPC get 5 SP, class 2 get 7 SP, and class 3 get 9 SP.

Custom NPCs can be created on the Exchange CPs page, at a cost of 500 CPs each.

NPCs present various characteristics, here are the main ones:

• A race, randomly generated upon hiring (see section about hiring)
• A name, defined by the creator or randomly generated (Handle rules for NPCs are the same as for PCs - located on the Character Creation rules)
• A gender, defined by the creator
• A description, defined by the owner/manager
• A script that it uses to converse with players (only custom NPCs may have their script edited by the owner/manager)
• An image of size 100x100, defined by the owner/manager (only custom NPCs may have their picture edited by the owner/manager)
• Health Points (HP), using the same system as characters (see Life and Death)
• Experience Points (XP)

Additionally, like Characters, all NPCs have skills. The skills they have upon creation depend on 2 factors: the class of NPC and its race. The starting skills are made from the union of the NPC class skills and the race bonus skills. If a particular skill has both an NPC class rank and a race bonus, then the highest value is assigned to that skill while the other one is converted into extra Skill Points (SP), which can then be reassigned by the player later (using the same system as character advancement). Any NPC supervisor, commander, or owner can upgrade the skills of his NPCs.

There is a random chance that the NPC hired will be of level 1, level 2, or level 3. NPCs hired at level 2 will have 1 additional skill point and 1,000 XP, and NPCs hired at level 3 will have 2 additional skill points and 3,000 XP.

To purchase an NPC of a certain type (E.G. Pilot), the character must be inside a facility or space station that generates NPCs of that type. The character only needs to have access to the facility or station. Once inside, the character can access the NPC Hiring Menu through the Room Travel->Action page. The character is then given a list of NPC types that he can hire at that location. He may input the number of each type he desires to hire, the gender, and whether it's for him or his faction. A character must have NPC level 4 privileges to purchase NPCs for his faction.

Upon clicking purchase a confirmation page will display listing all the NPC types the character selected to purchase along with amounts, costs, discount based on the character's diplomatic skill, and the overall number and cost. The player then clicks the submit button and completes the transaction. NPCs will automatically be added to the player's party as long as the party is not full, once the party is full the NPCs will just be created normally in the same room.

Equations
Discount % = (Diplomatic Skill)²
Example
A character with diplomacy equals to 1 will get only one percent of discount while a character with 5 in diplomacy will get a discount of 25%.

The race of each NPC is based on the planet where hiring and on the restrictions linked to the race. When hiring on a homeworld, there is 90% chance to get a NPC from the native race. In all other cases, the race will be randomly selected. Stormtroopers are human by default.

NPCs that belong to either the Combat or Civil class will accrue a monthly wage. At the beginning of each month an NPC will take it's pay check (if it's set to auto-pay). Any NPCs that aren't paid will quit the job taking all of their carried items. They will then calculate how much they are owned for the next month.

NPCs can be paid from the NPC inventory or set to be paid automatically (this is defaulted to on for newly hired NPCs) and will be paid automatically at the end of the month.

Like characters, NPCs have one information text field that their manager, supervisor, or owner can edit. This text field can be used to display a job title, military rank, or other honorific distinction.

Similarly, NPC pictures can be changed. A range of possibilities, based on the NPC race is proposed. Additionally, each faction can propose custom pictures to be uploaded on the server. These pictures are then added to the available selection for the concerned faction. Each submitted picture must correspond to a given race, be 100x100 pixel in size, and under 7KB. Submissions are accepted in the Art Team Public forum. Note that when a NPC with a custom faction specific picture is made over to a third party, then the picture is automatically reset to a standard generic image.