Human NPCs

Every Ship and station is SE1 is like an abandoned ghost town, with everything in autopilot. You invade a capital class vessel, which should be teeming with soldiers defending it, and all you really need to worry about is turrets and maybe a few traps if the ship designer was clever.

SE2 needs actual NPCs, not ghost ships.

OK, lets envision a play through. You don't have a ship, but you are hitching a ride on a neutral or friendly ship, You see a ship you want in the distance. As the ship you are on passes peacefully by the other ship, you jump out the airlock right into a blind spot behind the ship, and carefully make your way to an airlock, while avoiding autoturrets and cameras. The door is locked. You can either cut your way into the airlock, which will alert everyone on the ship, or, you plug a portable terminal into the control panel of the door, and play a little minigame that represents bypassing the door circuit to open it covertly. As you make your way through the ship, you not only have to avoid interior turrets and cameras, you have to avoid being seen by the NPCs working/living on the ship. You can crawl through the willis ducts to avoid being seen, or hide behind objects, and dart for cover. Manage to sneak up behind an NPC without being noticed, and you can dispatch them quietly, and drag the body into the willis duct to hide the evidence. You manage to find the main computer room, and plug into that, and start hacking the doors and systems of the ship remotely. When you hack something in person, the block defaults to anyone can use. But if you hack it remotely, it defaults to only my faction can use. If one of the NPCs then tries to access the item, and it refuses to let them use it, The NPC will attempt to alert the other NPCs about a security breach, and start searching for you. But if you switch the blocks to anyone can use quick enough, no one will notice the breach. Ofcourse, hacking a block that is actively in use, like the pilots seat, will immediately alert the NPC using it. So you hack everything except the pilot seat. Then make your way to the bridge, covertly dispatching NPCs along the way. The bridge is small, only a pilot seat and an engineers workstation. The engineer's station is empty, so you sneak up quietly behind the pilot, and end his life, before hacking the pilots seat. The ship is now yours, you give it a new name, and no one else knows what happened to the ship. It vanished without a trace, no faction lost.

Basically, loud noises like gun shots, explosions, or grinders, alert the NPCs to your presence. Being seen, alerts the NPCs to your presence. The NPC attempting to use a block on their ship that belongs to another faction and isn't set to anyone can use, alerts the NPCs. Any hostile actions taken once they are alerted to your presence lowers your reputation with their faction. If you can manage to hide from them long enough to give up looking for you, which can be quite long, or all known enemies are dead, it'll reset their alerted state. Just because your friend got spotted, doesn't mean they know about you too. If you were attempting to take over a friendly or neutral ship, even though the alert ends, doesn't mean they forgot about you, if you are spotted again on that ship, even if you are still friendly or neutral with the faction, you will be attacked on sight.

If you manage to dispatch all the NPCs without alerting them, and not be seen by the cameras, and then hack the entire ship. No one will know what happened to that ship, and you won't lose reputation. It adds a new and challenging way to play the game, as well as adding more atmosphere and content to the game.

NPC would basically be assigned shifts to use a work station, a bed, patrol the ship randomly. When patrolling, they stop to talk to friendly/neutral NPCs and players, or use the various decoration blocks like the kitchen, vending machines, or the shower. NPCs assigned to an engineering workstation as well as off duty NPCs, will get up and head to blocks that need repairs to repair them. That may require them to even take a space walk. NPCs don't like space walks, so will head back inside once repairs are complete, or their O2, H2, or energy is running low. Enemy factions, or anyone hacking or intentionally damaging the ship regardless of faction, are enemies for them to attack.

Not every workstation has an NPC assigned. Not every NPC has a unique workstation. Multiple NPCs can use the same workstation by being on different shifts. A ship without someone in the pilots seat and without a remote control block, does not fly itself. If it's already moving, and inertial dameners are off, it'll keep drifting in that direction, and can't avoid obstacles. So a ship with insufficient pilots to cover all ships, and doesn't have a remotecontol block to autopilot it, will eventually crash into something if inertial dampeners are off :P