NPC

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Non-player characters (NPCs) function very similarly to the player character, but they are controlled by the game. You may interact with them by Chatting with them.

NPC Behaviour

If they do not have a current target activity, NPCs will limit themselves to standing in place and reacting to stimuli like investigating noises. NPCs in camps will ignore distractions happening outside their camp area like noise, but they will still engage anything outside their camp if they spot something they are hostile towards. NPCs with no associated base (like those that spawn randomly over time) will usually "Want to talk" when spotting you, you can intercept their request from further than their speaking range by Chatting. NPCs that are hostile (like bandits or just aggravated NPCs) will refuse to talk to you, if the NPC was not hostile by default, they may calm down after a day which allows you to try speaking to them again.

Personality Traits

NPCs also have their own personality traits which are treated just like any other traits (like Fast Reader, Junkfood Intolerance or Wayfarer). These only affect with how the NPCs behaves or responds to certain actions and can be checked from the NPC's character menu (the NPC must be a follower to access this menu).

Opinion

Opinion has 4 values that determine how the NPC will react to the player. These values can have a variety of miscellaneous effects and may also be negative, in which case they have the opposite effect.

• Trust: It shows how much the NPC trusts you, higher values will make NPCs agree to certain actions like being fed mutagen or becoming your follower. This has a chance to increase when chit-chatting with the NPC or when completing missions, finishing a mission without asking for anything in return will greatly boost this value.
• Fear: How afraid the NPC is of you, higher values will make most intimidation-related actions more likely to succeed and will make the NPC more likely to flee from you. You can increase this by carrying stronger weapons, intimidating them or by having certain mutations.
• Anger: How angry the NPC is at you, this has a negative impact on most interactions and makes the NPC more likely to turn hostile if provoked. If high enough, the NPC may instantly become hostile. This can be increased by stealing from an NPC within their line of sight or by attacking them.
• Value: How useful the NPC thinks you are. This can help with some persuasion related interactions and trading. This can be increased by completing missions.

What affects fear and trust

• Carry a big stick: the bigger your wielded weapon, the more fear you generate. Guns are better than melee weapons but guns also reduce trust. There is no hidden weapon system so your Punch dagger counts.
  • This has a lesser effect if the NPC carries a gun.
• Not being armed lowers fear and increases trust.
• Being strong increases fear.
• Flying high: Being under the influence makes you less trustworthy.
• High Stim values lower trust since you look like a rabid mugger on PCP.
• Low Stim values also lower trust, but to a lesser degree.
• Being under heavy Painkillers lower trust.
• Being drunk lowers trust.
• Negative ugliness mutations(such as Pretty, Beautiful and their upgrades) lower fear and increase trust while positive ugliness(Almost every mutation really, but notable are Ugly, Deformed and their upgrades) increase fear and lower trust.
• Sapiovore and Terrifying raise fear.
• Other effects don't do anything to these values yet.
• Each body part below 50% hp makes them fear you less.
• Each their body part below 50% makes them fear you more.
• High fear levels also reduce trust.
• All of the values either apply, or not. So there is nothing like a little bit drunk.

Finding NPCs

NPCs can be found trough different means:

• Random spawns over time (based on your world settings).
• Guaranteed spawns from starting scenarios.
• NPC Bases (refugee center, Hub01, lumbercamps).
• Missions.

Random Spawn Encounters

When encountering a random spawn NPC, they can have a variety of reactions:

• Scared: the NPC will ask you to stay away. You may try to intimidate them into fleeing or dropping their weapon as well as try to calm them down. If you fail to calm them down they will turn hostile, but they may still flee if you're intimidating enough.
• Mission giver: the NPC will ask you to do something for them, you may only accept or decline. In some cases you may still be able to interact with them after choosing either option and their mission will remain available if you ask them if they have any jobs for you.

If they do not give you other interaction options, you will get them after completing their mission.

• Bandit: Always hostile, they tend to spawn in groups and will usually attack on sight and/or try to steal your stuff if they can't see you.

Item and vehicle ownership

By default, all items in the world are free for anyone to take, but items spawned near an NPC camp are typically marked as belonging to their faction, you can check the owner of an item in its examine menu. If a human picks up an item, said item changes owner to belong to the picker's faction and the previous owner will forget about the item entirely. This means that NPCs will not recognize items you've stolen if they see you carrying them, but they will get angry if they spot you in the act of stealing the item.

Press C to chat with an NPC, or walk into them to get a larger menu of options, including talk.

NPC capabilities

Since NPCs are humans just like the player, they are capable of doing most of what it can too. NPCs will generally not do much on their own unless they are assigned to one of your camps and have tasks to perform. You can ask followers to use any of the items you can use. For example, if you light a joint, then ask them to hold on to it, they will consume the joint. This goes for any other items in an NPC's inventory that may be consumed at their discretion. This may include taking aspirin when in sufficient pain, or more hard-core drugs when instructed to take so. What warrants an appropriate time to consume them however is unknown to some items (meth, cocaine, crack to name a few).

Interacting with NPCs

Since 0.D (Danny), NPCs have quite a few additional interaction options. Move into them to open a menu of options. Options include:

• Talk
• Swap postions (if friendly @)
• Push away (if friendly @)
• Examine wounds
• Use item on
• Sort Armor
• Attack
• Disarm
• Steal

Faction Camps

Added in 0.E (Ellison) is the ability to build faction camps for you and your NPC followers.

NPC opinions

• @: Likes you as a friend.
• @: Ambivalent about you.
• @: Will try to kill you.

Internal values

Each NPC is different; when generated (spawns), it gets a class, name, possible missions, items, and an opinion. The latter influences how the NPC reacts to your character.

With low trust, no NPC will react positively on you, only reacting with fear or hostility. With low fear, aggressive NPCs will just start shooting, as you seem easy to kill; neutral ones will try to rob you, mug you, or just tell you to get out of their territory. Too high fear will make NPCs run away.

Chatting with NPCs

If an NPC is neutral, you can try to persuade them. Muggers can be persuaded into being neutral, but that takes another round of persuasion. There are several persuasion options listed in the menu, with their percentage chances of success. If an option is red, it can cause them become hostile if you fail badly enough.

• Most voice mutations lower chance of persuasion and lying but increase intimidation chance.
• Facial Distortion mutation increases persuasion, lying and intimidation chances while Voice Remodulator lowers persuasion and lying chances but increases intimidation chances.
  • Bionic-Induced Deformity throws your persuasion chances through the floor but increases intimidation chance, since you look like a Broken cyborg.
• Complying with a demand from an NPC (like dropping a weapon), can make them friendly.
• Persuasion by intimidation causes them dislike you, even when you succeed - which can cause them to not offer certain services, like training, at least for a while. If you try intimidation, be strong, be deformed, and carry a big gun.
• Being friendly causes people to like you more.
• Some persuasion rolls will scale with Speaking, Intelligence, Perception, how pretty you are (mutations can give a bonus or malus on this), having Fey Eyes, Butterfly Wings, Fluffy Tail mutations. Friendly persuasion is hindered when you have the Deformed or Sapiovore mutations, and various negative voice mutations can also have a negative effect.

Technical Information

NONE Item

NONE. Sometimes an NPC will have a "none" item. Most of the bugs that cause these have been removed. But some might remain. It helps if you report a bug like these.

Exploding brains

When an NPC bugs out and looks like it is acting in a loop (it performs a certain amount of actions with no turn costs in a row) it will be detected by the game and the NPC will be killed with a Buggy McBugist's brain explodes! message. This prevents the game from freezing forever.

Taking control of NPCs after character death

As of the latest experimental versions, it is possible to take control of any NPC followers after the original player character has died, this essentially gives the player an "extra life" for the world, allows the followers to continue the player's legacy, and makes gathering and stashing as much starter gear for the NPC as possible all the more worth it.

History

Historically NPCs in C:DDA have been a buggy mess. They caused crashes, broke save games, carried around activated nukes, none objects. And did a host of stupid things. For a while there was the advice to just turn NPCs off. This has been improved.

As of 0.C (Cooper), NPCs are becoming a "meaningful addition to the game": Some now form the beginnings of an economy system, with certain merchant NPCs showing up from time to time with items for sale or trade. Others hand out increasingly interesting and rewarding quest chains with actual plot arcs, and some dedicate themselves to shooting anything that moves. Which may or may not include you. And, of course, they also allow you to gather a band of human pack mules, human shields, crafting assistants, trainers, experimental test subjects, and potential sources of emotional trauma at your character's beck and call. (Well, sort of: your level of speaking skill, your character's attractiveness, quest completions, and how freaked out the NPC is by your antennae and the scars from that bad bionics installation still all factor into whether you have a loyal companion, a hapless minion held in check by fear, or someone who won't take any orders and just wants to be there when you die so they can steal your shoes.) You can even tell them not to sleep in the road or steal your stuff now!

0.D (Danny) made more improvements to NPCs, one of them being the addition of the NPC interaction menu, and more bugfixes.